Nvidia Corporation not only plans to refresh its lineup of performance graphics accelerators this year, but also intends to introduce its 3-way SLI multi-GPU technology, which is apparently Nvidia’s new “ultimate gaming platform”. Initially Nvidia plans to enable triple SLI support for the top-of-the-range GeForce 8800 GTX and Ultra graphics cards, but eventually it may support 3-way configurations of other GPUs as well. Systems with three graphics cores will be powered by Nvidia nForce 680i as well as nForce 780i platforms with the former supporting PCI Express 1.1/1.0a, whereas the latter featuring PCI Express 2.0 along with a special “BR04” switch for more efficient multi-GPU operation.
The exact feature set of 3-way SLI platforms as well as performance boosts over single- or dual-GPU configurations will mostly depend on driver support. Back in 2006, when Nvidia unveiled its 4-way SLI technology, actual systems featuring four GPUs could not offer leading performance in all games due to poor drivers. Currently quad SLI technology is not supported for Windows Vista and customers who paid over $1000 for graphics cards alone have to take advantage of only two GPUs instead of four.
Another marketing trick to please only the enthusiats, who spend big money on "the best" technology, which does not actually do what it is supposed to do...
Yea, sounds like a good marketing scam. They are shooting them self in the foot a bit, as the new cards are so powerful that even the main stream games dont utilize the full capacity with just one card.
you would never ever need 3 graphics cards in one machine.. for a start no PSU on the market could handle those together along side the rest of the components. It is just getting ridiculous to be honest. The games market is always leading PC hardware upgrades but now its getting silly.
A computer with 3 cards, hmm, that computer must sound like a jet plane and get about as warm as a jet engine..
One is enough and SLI is the worst invention ever, especially since like 1 game works in SLI mode ( perhaps a few more if you really make an effort and find the correct drivers/settings etc).
I hope ATI releases something good soon.. i'm really disapointed as a nvidia user. Their drivers/control panel sucks, there's too many issues with their drivers for the 8800-series even a year+(!!!) after release that they dont care about..
One thing that always have bugged my mind about this progress is the power supply. Soon you'll need a nuclear reactor in your basement to power up the computer with all the power demanding gfx cards and shit that's in there.
Forget about the sound or heat, what the fuck about the electricity?
I hope ATI releases something good soon.. i'm really disapointed as a nvidia user. Their drivers/control panel sucks, there's too many issues with their drivers for the 8800-series even a year+(!!!) after release that they dont care about..
Even with all those bugs (that are mostly gone by now), it doesn't even come close to the shit AMD users get with their drivers for every card. And their cards haven't been all that good at all lately and I see nothing in the horizon that will change this. They have become "the cheaper, dumber alternative," just like the AMD CPUs. Shame, because no competition = very high prices.
yeah ati really needs to pull something out because nvidia is walking all over them..
i STILL dont understand why ati delayed their last card for like 4 or 5 fucking months... they should have gotten the jump on nvidia's card... but their bs about how their card was ready, but the 'time' wasn't, was obviously a load of horse shit.. either that or one of the greatests business fuckups on the last 12 months.
i really hate nvidia's control panel... ati's is much nicer and useful, but i expect ill stick with nvidia now unless ati make a monster card next time round..
im glad i didnt decide to wait that extra month for the constantly delayed ati card release when i built my pc earlier this year... best decision i made... but i agree, lack of competition from ati ends up screwing EVERYONE (except nvidia )
I've got a 7600GT Nvidia and its a nice card but it crashes randomly with these odd screen corruptions in a lot of games. Sometimes if I wait awhile after the crash, it will BSOD saying nv4disp.dll crashed. In fact it does it in almost every game unless I turn shadows off, then it never crashes, except rare cases like Company of Heroes where it crashes in the menu before I even get into the game, even with shadows off.
I've tried probably like 10 sets of drivers, and messed in the bios and control panel settings soooooooo much. Funny thing is I had this same exact problem with another Nvidia card awhile back, same kinda screen corruption on an entirely different computer, both AMD's running an Nvidia, and both times I switch to an ATI card, problems gone for good.
Well I've messed around with settings for about 6 months, did the same thing years ago on the older comp, doubt I can fix this and I've all but given up on buying Nvidia cards in the future, but heres an image of CoH when it crashes in the menu:
Thats the only pic I've ever managed to take as the comp ussually freezes right after it happens, but that time it stayed up long enough to save that image. Its different looking in every game but always with those artifacts, COH is the only game to crash in its menu though, cant play that game at all anymore, and only on my nvidia cards.
And this is related to tripple sli how? Go to the CoH tech thread and ask there.
It happens in every game that uses 3d rendering basically, only on my nvidia cards, still not related to sli I know but everyones talking about nvidia cards and this is my experience with nvidia, and its been nothing but a hassle for me.
The reason I solo out CoH is because its the only one I can offer a screenshot for.
I've only ever owned two nvidia cards, and both of them have this same issue, for computers that have nothing in common, except being AMD's.
well see... theres your problem... its not nvidia, its fuckin amd that the problem.
I spent so many nights trying everything you could possibly think of to fix this corrupted display // nv4disp.dll crash loop, bought a better PSU, upgraded my cooling, checked and rechecked just about everything in the bios, in the end after a ton of research on the internet and all that work, over about 3 years since I had this happen in the first comp now the second, I've come to the conclusion that its some sort of conflict between the AMD motherboards and the Nvidia cards.
Like I said stick in an ATI card and the problem never happens again, 100% working no problems. I would say screw nvidia and their shit cards but I guess that will get me flamed
Anyways thats all I will say I know you don't want your nvidia ripping off consumers derailed any further. I know I wont ever buy nvidia again, let alone 3 of them.
i think sli is kinda viable for older machines... think about it, you can either buy a brand new card for $600+ or get the same card you currently have for much less, and SLI it if you dont really want to buy a new card just yet, and get improved performance... so i think sli has its merits, but 3x SLI is just nuts for gamers... im glad the people here talked me out of going SLI when i was a newbie building my first system.
A computer with 3 cards, hmm, that computer must sound like a jet plane and get about as warm as a jet engine..
One is enough and SLI is the worst invention ever, especially since like 1 game works in SLI mode ( perhaps a few more if you really make an effort and find the correct drivers/settings etc).
I hope ATI releases something good soon.. i'm really disapointed as a nvidia user. Their drivers/control panel sucks, there's too many issues with their drivers for the 8800-series even a year+(!!!) after release that they dont care about..
You're right. Gonna dump my 8800GTX as soon as ATI has something good.
OH NOeES! HE missed TeH o ANd HiT tHe I!! curse whatever bastard put those two keys right next to each other!!
anyway dont care what ppl think, i love my 8800gtx and i figure im sitting pretty fuckin pretty until the next round of high end cards roll around, and then i can decide if i want one, or will wait for the next round after... so far theres nothing my 8800gtx cant do... cept fsaa in stranglehold *cough*...
Signature/Avatar nuking: none (can be changed in your profile)
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
)
