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Subject: Nvidia's GeForce 7900 GTX Quad SLI

*I sense a disturbance in the forum*
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After kim saying pc gamers are more mature:
Posted by:ImSpartacus
we r?

yeah, I read nVidia joined up with Dell for graphics

  • 05.01.2006 5:21 PM PDT

Quan Sli is when you pick up 2 nvidia cards that are both 512MB because each 512MB card is actually 2 cards put together. So then you just sli the -blam!- and you got quad sli.

  • 05.01.2006 11:09 PM PDT
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Posted by: OmniosSpartan

lol you dont understand what your talking about, Each of the Quad 7900's didn't have an X16 PCI-e slot each, they have a total of X16 that would give them X4 a piece. now the X1900's had a 16X slot each, makignb they're overall bandwidth 32X, thus is why the perfromance can out lopsided. now with the new specialized mobo's for Quad SLI they would EACH have a X16 slot giving them incredible bandwith to work with (64X) which would totally wtfpwn your two X1900's.


ASUS A8N32

That's what was used in those tests, so each slot was 16x.

Thus, each had 32 lanes in that test. There are no specialized motherboard's for Quad-SLI with 64 lanes [yet, at least].

However, you basically state that current cards saturate the lanes available to them. Anan dtech, X-bit, and Bit-tech beg to differ. I could offer more but I think this is comprehensive enough. Could the GX2 cards saturate it? Possibly, but there's no way to know. For now, the whole thing is a gimmick.

Started reading this article - looks like the link I showed is completely the opposite of X-bit's review. Who knows where this thing is. This review is good for two things:

1. According to X-bit, Quad-SLI competes and in several games exceeds SLI or Crossfire - but it does so with crashes and freezing at the moment. nVidia needs to implement better drivers.
2. Shows that at high resolutions, AA, and AF, X1900XTX Crossfire beats 7900GTX SLI in Call of Duty 2, Chronicles of Riddick, Doom 3, Far Cry, FEAR, Half-Life 2, Quake 4...

At Anandtech, the X1900XTX Crossfire system 'wtfpwns' in outdoor scenes, possibly the most demanding aspect of any benchmark yet. While it isn't a mssive lead, look at the minimum FPS for each. The Crossfire's is roughly 35, while SLI's is 25. That in itself is enough to tell you why Crossfire gives better performance. In the games Crossfire loses to SLI, I'll bet Crossfire's minimum FPS is higher. Why is that important? No or less pronounced visible slowdown.

[Edited on 5/2/2006]

  • 05.02.2006 6:34 AM PDT
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Heyyo,

Yeah, sli's a pretty big waste of cash when a single ati vidcard does just as well. quad sli.... why did nvidia even bother? money. For those rich inheritance guys who wanna be world-renown for being ontop of the 3dmark benchmarks....... I mean.... why?

Crossfire's a better step than sli, and especially quadsli (thanks for the linkage davis). I for one won't be buying no dual vidcards, even crossfire for many years to come. Technology for now gets outdated soo fast, especially with dx10 around the corner. Maybe in 5 years our technology won't go up as fast, and then it would be more practical to get crossfire or whatever other stuff they might come up with. For now, it's like, half a year and then you're no longer ontop. Practicality is me for computing. I'll make big purchases, but not state-of-the-art cause that's mainly a waste of cash. I'm all about price-to-preformance. Quad sli would probably score soo low a fx5200 probably would have a better p-t-p ratio. :P

  • 05.02.2006 10:21 AM PDT
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Well...I couldv'e guessed. A post about graphics cards is the only thing that could draw the biggest players in The Maw into a single thread.

I would offer my two cents if I knew more about graphics cards, but I don't. Too bad my specialty's integrated chipsets. >_<

[Edited on 5/2/2006]

  • 05.02.2006 2:08 PM PDT
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Posted by: Crimsonight
Hate to burst the bubble of you comp creaters but this is why Dell reigns supreme.


That dell one is crap. It uses the standard "nvidia" branded dual cards, not the superior ones made by the 3rd party manufacturers. That, and it's intel based. It's not like dell have the exclusive anyway, as contrary to popular belief, Quad SLI is available to the public. X16 motherboards have been available for ages (and by X16 i mean PCI-E 2, as in 32X total bandwidth so it's 8X per card) and the 2rd party dual PCBs have been available much much longer than the official ones that dell sell, that and they're far superior.

  • 05.02.2006 2:47 PM PDT
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Posted by: ThE_MarD
Quad sli would probably score soo low a fx5200 probably would have a better p-t-p ratio. :P



wtf are you talking about. Quad sli setups are ridiculously fast. A 7900GTX in quad sli scores the highest out of any current setup. look at all of these benchmarks and prove that quad sli is terrible. Honestly its like saying a pentium 2 could kick a p4 extreme editions ass.
BENCHMARKS

[Edited on 5/2/2006]

  • 05.02.2006 3:10 PM PDT
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First things first, we don't flame around here. We don't tell people how ignorant they are. 99% of the time, it's ironic.

Second, find in my post where I said that the Asus A8N32 had 64 lanes. Can't? Neither can I. You've put words in my mouth.

Third, there are no boards or chipsets that exist as of yet with 64 pci-express lanes. Thus, the Quad-SLI setups that X-Bit, Anandtech, and others have built use the next best thing - mobos and chipsets with 32 lanes. Not even the motherboards and chipsets in pre-manufactured Quad-SLI setups like Dell have 64 lanes.

Quad-SLI does not require 64 lanes. If you actually read news and review sites, you would have seen an overflow of Quad-SLI benchmarks over the weekend.

Minimum FPS matters because that is the lowest FPS that the system hits. In the Oblivion tests, the 7900GTX SLI system was hitting 25 FPS at its lowest. That would cause you to see stuttering. The X1900XTX never dropped below 35 FPS. Most scientists agree that the human eye cannot distinguish images faster than roughly 28 FPS, so no visible stuttering would occur.

Fourth, according to two reliable, independent, and prestigious sites, Anandtech and X-Bit Labs, X1900XTX Crossfire is superior at high resolutions and high IQ settings.

Fifth, it appears that Gamespot's reviews conflict with X-Bit's and Anandtech's. That's common in the review world, but not by such drastic differences. I'd be more inclined to believe Anandtech and X-Bit because they are independent reviewers. Unlike Gamespot, which sells games and is essentially a corporation, these other websites are independent. They know the hardware better than software specialists like Gamespot, and, if you compare the articles, they're much more thorough. In addition, I'd be more inclined to say that independent reviewers are closer to being unbiased.

Finally, Gamespot is not using the most recent Forceware and Catalyst. While the others use FW 87.24 and Catalyst 6.4, Gamespot uses FW 84.17 and Catalyst 6.2. Gamespot's drivers are older.

Now, take a deep breath, this is important...Catalyst 6.2 offered early support for Crossfire. However, only until Catalyst 6.3 did ATi intoduce optimizations for the X1800 and X1900 series of cards. These allow better performance and eleminate previous bottlenecks. nVidia introduced optimizations for the 7900 series with ForceWare 84.17.

Thus, Gamespot's benchmarks are skewed. Not only did they not use the most recent drivers, but their nVidia drivers are optimized for the 7900 series and their Catalyst driver are not optimized for the X1900 series. Essentially, the review is not credible. To add insult to injury, 84.17 does not allow the 7900GTX to overclock properly. Hence why, in all of the reviews I've read, only this Gamespot review uses it. They are the only review site to use 84.17 in testing the 7900GTX. All other reviews I've seen use either the reviewer 84.11 drivers or the standard 87.24 drivers. Can anyone say credibility and reliability?

Believe what you want. Just don't call me ignorant and proclaim your knowledge on the matter, and then proceed to state facts that simply aren't true. If you wanna go this hardcore, know your facts.

[Edited on 5/2/2006]

  • 05.02.2006 5:11 PM PDT
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Posted by: TMH1988
wtf are you talking about. Quad sli setups are ridiculously fast. A 7900GTX in quad sli scores the highest out of any current setup. look at all of these benchmarks and prove that quad sli is terrible. Honestly its like saying a pentium 2 could kick a p4 extreme editions ass.
BENCHMARKS


He was talking about p-t-p, or price-to-performance ratio. Any high-end video card will have its cost greatly inflated. Older cards, whose prices have deflated considerably, are often a steal and have a better price-to-performance ratio.

  • 05.02.2006 5:13 PM PDT

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Thing is he didn't try to flame you. He stated his point, disagreed with you, and then cited references that back up his point.

You and THM have been flaming or at least saying that he doesn't know what he's talking about. SLD definately knows what he is talking about. He's been a menber here for quite a while, and when it comes to hardware and overclocking he knows his -blam!-.

We try to keep it respectable in the Maw, your welcome to argue your point but keep the "you don't know crap" and "your an idiot" to yourself.

  • 05.02.2006 6:14 PM PDT
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You need to get some glasses.

  • 05.02.2006 6:24 PM PDT
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Posted by: OmniosSpartan
i call ignorance when and where i see it Igg.


Posted by: Chewy Gumball
You need to get some glasses.

  • 05.02.2006 6:31 PM PDT
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1. The 7900GTX 512MB was used in the reviews. It stated that in each of their test configurations. You again put words in my mouth.

2. Gamespot's review used optimised nVidia drivers and unoptimized ATi drivers. Skewed results. Catalyst 6.2 shows noticeably lower performance than 6.3 or 6.4 on the X1800 and X1900 cards. Period. Their review is skewed. X-Bit and Anandtech, both reputable hardware review sites, disagree with Gamespot, a corporation that deals with software. Do I need to keep copying and pasting my entire explanation? I guess it wouldn't help since it sounds like you don't read anything I post. You just dismiss it.

3. The X-Bit review did not overclock their cards at all. All are at stock.

I'm done. No more from me. I've given all the information, I've shown all the data. I can't say anymore.

I've made my point and I'll stand by it.

[Edited on 5/2/2006]

  • 05.02.2006 6:39 PM PDT
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Now, realize that's with a single card. I recall us discussing X1900XTX Crossfire, 7900GTX SLI, and Quad-SLI.

The X-Bit and Anandtech reviews use the most current drivers. I got that issue of CPU - it's older than Anandtech's or X-Bit's. There seems to be differing benchies, so I think it's probably good to assume that they're roughly equal.

"alas I shalt owned you"

When did you "own" me? Are we trying to "own" each other?

[Edited on 5/2/2006]

  • 05.02.2006 7:09 PM PDT
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omnios is right, the 7900GTX is currently the best card out on the market right now for gaming. Im not talking about the price or anything like that, preformance wise it wins. It beats the x1900XT, but not by much.

  • 05.02.2006 8:22 PM PDT
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I like how he switch his point from the 7900GTX quad sli beats crossfire to a 7900GTX beats a x1900XT.

  • 05.03.2006 8:35 AM PDT
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i think overall the two different systems (crossfire/sli, and even ATi/nVidia) are so similar in performance that you should find a solid motherboard with features that appeal to you and get that one.

  • 05.03.2006 1:36 PM PDT

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