PCGH: Triple-SLI benchmarked!

[Richard Dower]

With that power comsumption you'd need a 1,500W PSU to be safe.

[Gunslinger]

I would do it if it was available, all I would need would be one more GTX, and one more of EK Eddy's blocks. Sucks that it would not be supported in XP though.

[Dimitriman]

Maybe they should focus on the other benchmarks.

Looks like Crysis is a Phail till Geforce 9 and R700 come out.

[XS Janus]

Nice setup!

Anyway benching in Vista is a reality, benching in XP belongs to the past!

[SKYMTL]

You guys are a bit off with the power consumption panic attacks.

Even if this was drawing 900W from the wall with a PSU with 80% efficiency, that means "only" 720W is being drawn from the PSU (mostly from the +12V rails). Needing a 1200W PSU for this setup is absolute hogwash. You can power this setup with a good 900W PSU.

[DTU_XaVier]

Why are you guys complaining about Crysis' playablility?
The purpose of the review was to test GPU-scalability, for which Crysis is the best possible test, as it's as tough as it gets for GPUs these days....
People complaining about them using Crysis wanna see 3-SLi fail... Any other test would show less gain/card... So if they'd used any other test, the people currently complaining about Crysis, would about the solution not being effective...
I'm impressed to see three cards give double the minimum framerate of two cards.. Apart from the fact that it's as impractical as anything I've ever seen, the solution works pretty damn well...

Best Regards

[Dimitriman]

Why are you guys complaining about Crysis' playablility?
The purpose of the review was to test GPU-scalability, for which Crysis is the best possible test, as it's as tough as it gets for GPUs these days....
People complaining about them using Crysis wanna see 3-SLi fail... Any other test would show less gain/card... So if they'd used any other test, the people currently complaining about Crysis, would about the solution not being effective...
I'm impressed to see three cards give double the minimum framerate of two cards.. Apart from the fact that it's as impractical as anything I've ever seen, the solution works pretty damn well...

Best Regards

Don't think people are complaining too much about 3-way SLI (unless it would be limited to Ultra only then maybe) as much as they are about Crysis low playability even under 3x 600$ graphics cards which are by all means blazing fast.

[IcY18]

You guys are a bit off with the power consumption panic attacks.

Even if this was drawing 900W from the wall with a PSU with 80% efficiency, that means "only" 720W is being drawn from the PSU (mostly from the +12V rails). Needing a 1200W PSU for this setup is absolute hogwash. You can power this setup with a good 900W PSU.

Completely agree. It's very annoying when people think another graphic cards for two equals two times the power supply, and now of course apply that ideology to 3 cards to come up with 1200-1500W is even more ridiculous.

These cards aren't that hot, it's been shown that total system power consumption with 2 8800GTX's almost always doesn't run over 500W even, let alone 800W like people assume. i know it's "xtremesystems" but these types of comments have caused hysteria among computer enthusiasts to buy over 700W psu's for single card setups even. 8800GTX SLi power consumption
More 8800GTX SLi power consumption

[GAR]

$1800+ for 38fps sounds like garbage......i get 36fps average with my setup, everything on high except for shadow and shaders on medium.....plays very smooth.

[RedBull78]

Crysis its a big joke, Triple SLI with 8800U and only max 37,9 fps

LoL, thats what i said two weeks ago and fanboys attacked me as if I was being delusional or a god damn jerk or something. I only stated my honest opinion that this game i call "Crysis" is really a crysis of a game to the bone. I told all my friends to skimp on it and get COD4 and Bioshock instead and they r thankfull they listented after I showed them some benchmarks on the internet which they dont normally follow. All i had to do was let them run 3dmark06 to let them see how crappy it would move bcuz if u think about it thats what it really is. It is a futuremark made game just to push people to buy video cards to enjoy some pretty slide show pictures..The game in my opinion is a flop.......This game shouldnt even exist at this time of age...It's way too overbloated and simple.....walk , jump, shoot...no story, no soul, nothing...garbage.....(my opinion) Cod4 and bioshock is 100000% way better......I mean, look at these benchmarks, even on 3-sli cards the game still suffers from poor hard core beer drinking coding....take this game back to the developers and tell em to shove it...

[Fr3ak]

• Crysis Build 3857, PCGH-Ice-Benchmark
• Unreal Tournament 3, PCGH-vCTF-Suspense-Benchmark
• Fear v1.08, int. performance-test
• Company of Heroes, int. performance-test

There were more than just Crysis benchmarked. The graphs are in the picture galerie, starting with this picture: http://www.pcgameshardware.de/?menu=...e&overview=yes

[RedBull78]

Why not just make multi-gpu singel cards instead of infesting ure case with blow-driers for god sakes.... I'm glad ATI is moving on farward with muli gpu technology solutions and say goodbye to this impractical gimic.....

[saaya]

Why are you guys complaining about Crysis' playablility?
The purpose of the review was to test GPU-scalability, for which Crysis is the best possible test, as it's as tough as it gets for GPUs these days....

hmmm i see what you mean, but is it really like that?
whats the point of tripple sli if it scales well but only at resolutions that are still unplayable? whats the point if it doesnt scale well at resolutions and in games that most people actually use?

lets say at 2560x1600 you gain 50% fps which means 2 instead of 1 fps...
and at 1280x1024 which is what most people actually use, you would get 70 instead of 60 fps... so then how good is tripple sli? it scales really well but at resolutions that are too high and the resulting fps is still too low to what people actually play.

im looking forward to 1080HD resolution plus aa and af results, cause thats whats people who have the money and are willing to spend it, are going to run tripple sli for. IF its worth it at that setting.

EDIT: just saw the other results...
well fear has enough fps with 2 card sli, and the min fps actually drops with tripple sli...
the only benchmark result where tripple sli makes sense is in UT. only 30fps extra but i know ut freaks will like it

id like to see some ut3 and some quake4 results.
those are games where people are willing to spend extra money to have higher fps than what you usually need in games.
thats what nvidia should focus with tripple sli imo, and maybe also crysis... more results from different resolutions and aa af would be interesting to see from crysis.

[BeardyMan]

Then i can't see any use in SLI as well

[..::ABSOLUT::..]

LoL, thats what i said two weeks ago and fanboys attacked me as if I was being delusional or a god damn jerk or something. I only stated my honest opinion that this game i call "Crysis" is really a crysis of a game to the bone. I told all my friends to skimp on it and get COD4 and Bioshock instead and they r thankfull they listented after I showed them some benchmarks on the internet which they dont normally follow. All i had to do was let them run 3dmark06 to let them see how crappy it would move bcuz if u think about it thats what it really is. It is a futuremark made game just to push people to buy video cards to enjoy some pretty slide show pictures..The game in my opinion is a flop.......This game shouldnt even exist at this time of age...It's way too overbloated and simple.....walk , jump, shoot...no story, no soul, nothing...garbage.....(my opinion) Cod4 and bioshock is 100000% way better......I mean, look at these benchmarks, even on 3-sli cards the game still suffers from poor hard core beer drinking coding....take this game back to the developers and tell em to shove it...

Yes,I agree.The only thing that matters is making money,money,money.

Game developers push the limits,do not optimize their games(although they could),and the enthusiasts go for triple-SLI or quadfire or something like that to enjoy a slideshow...

[ownage]

Running dualcard sucks anyway, to pricey, need to buy a ridiculous high priced motherboard, a b!tch to watercool, good psu. So triplecard is just stupid. I only see the point if you could run programs on it, like folding.

[Sampsa]

Interesting results, although the game is not smoothly playable with those settings

[Jodiuh]

This would be so much more interesting if 88GT's were available in TRI and $200 a pop...

Best part about that article's the looming Crysis patch imo.

[Scimitar]

Can you try Crysis at 2560 X 1600 in DX10 at Ultra High with 16xQ CSAA and 16X HQAF?

I want to see 3 Ultras crank out like 3 fps.

[Eddie3dfx]

Lets be honest hear folks.
Crysis very high, is like a workstation/sgi demo. If they wanted to, they could even make an ultra high with even better lighting and different effects. A slideshow with a pc, but unbelievable graphics none the less.
Nothing that you or I couldn't render in 3minutes time with 3d-studio max.
So the issue is, is this game playable on high, and yes it's very playable with the current crop of cards.
They could of stopped at high and nobody would be complaining.
Anyways, why at this point knowing this is a real workstation game, would you purchase 3 seperate cards to play it at very high.
It's very clear we are a year or two away from wow type of graphics. Nvidia might have that 1-2 terraflop gpu now, but there is no way they would release it because no other manufacturer can match their current gpus.
Unfortunately, sli and triple sli prolong the inevitable, newer cards.
As long as nvidia knows that people will sli, they will never release a card early enough, unless amd or intel come out with a stronger gpu.

They are hijacking the industry and slowing down 3d growth in games. The gtx has been the king for 1 year and is still the king today in pc gaming. Thats unheard of. So do we now have to stay with the same trend and wait 2-3 more years for a generation of cards that could be ready in 3-4 months. It doesn't take developers anymore strength to add in effects when the gpu power is there. Whats hard for developers is optimizing the absolute best graphics within the speed limits of a computer.

[brandinb]

I for one think that is some awesome scalling from two cards to three and is the best possible result for tri sli.

To all the people who say crysis sucks because the fps are low and cod4 o ut3 is great i think your an idiot because even on medium settings crysis looks better than cod4 or ut3 and has more detail and objects and will run perfectly fine on any rig with medium settings and reasonable resolution.


some people are special and they dont get the idea that more detail = less fps so turn down the detail for more fps sheesh its not like your forced to run maximum settings are you??

btw because of motion blur and the way crysis engine works 37fps average would be super smooth and i play with 25-30fps average and its smooth enough to enjoy all high settings 1680x1050 on a 8800gts 640
btw just beat the game yesterday the ending is pretty intense!

[Spawne32]

With that power comsumption you'd need a 1,500W PSU to be safe.

nah, id say between 1000 and 1200, part of the issue there is they are using the older 8800 Ultra, and those things consume alot more power then the newer cards being released.

[safan80]

nah, id say between 1000 and 1200, part of the issue there is they are using the older 8800 Ultra, and those things consume alot more power then the newer cards being released.

the newer cards don't support tri SLI only the ultra and the gtx does.

[XS2K]

Lets be honest hear folks.
Crysis very high, is like a workstation/sgi demo. If they wanted to, they could even make an ultra high with even better lighting and different effects. A slideshow with a pc, but unbelievable graphics none the less.
Nothing that you or I couldn't render in 3minutes time with 3d-studio max.
So the issue is, is this game playable on high, and yes it's very playable with the current crop of cards.
They could of stopped at high and nobody would be complaining.
Anyways, why at this point knowing this is a real workstation game, would you purchase 3 seperate cards to play it at very high.
It's very clear we are a year or two away from wow type of graphics. Nvidia might have that 1-2 terraflop gpu now, but there is no way they would release it because no other manufacturer can match their current gpus.
Unfortunately, sli and triple sli prolong the inevitable, newer cards.
As long as nvidia knows that people will sli, they will never release a card early enough, unless amd or intel come out with a stronger gpu.

They are hijacking the industry and slowing down 3d growth in games. The gtx has been the king for 1 year and is still the king today in pc gaming. Thats unheard of. So do we now have to stay with the same trend and wait 2-3 more years for a generation of cards that could be ready in 3-4 months. It doesn't take developers anymore strength to add in effects when the gpu power is there. Whats hard for developers is optimizing the absolute best graphics within the speed limits of a computer.

QFT!!!
Vey nice said!
Those who say Crysis is unoptimised should thing again or say what optimisations should be done to make it better,in Crysis you have a F'kin island and ~11Kilometers view distance not to say bout dozens of trees and vegetation + lighting/shadows particles 3D Ocean and Physics,show me that in Bioshock and COD4....

[RedBull78]

QFT!!!
Vey nice said!
Those who say Crysis is unoptimised should thing again or say what optimisations should be done to make it better,in Crysis you have a F'kin island and ~11Kilometers view distance not to say bout dozens of trees and vegetation + lighting/shadows particles 3D Ocean and Physics,show me that in Bioshock and COD4....

Lets jump to console systems for a bit...Why do you think Wii is doing so well?? Is it bcuz of the graphics or bcuz the games are just fun to play and you know it is always the fun-factor that always comes ont op....As you know it's currently the most seccessful console of today per unit sold....You talk about 3D oceans , vegetation, all that stuff sounds great dude ..but dont u get that outside the second you walk out the door? lol cmon now...

Here's a looney hint from a microsoft CEO , developers, developers, developers....developers..developers , developers, developers ,developers, developers, developers....developers..developers , developers, developers developers, developers, developers....developers..developers , developers, developers .... its the only way to make money.....make a game that is worth while to waste ure time on.....fun-factor is the key and not 3d oceans as if ure gonna really dive in and it go fishing..who cares...really..