8-way SLI and Crossfire Power Supply (PSU) Roundup

This article is a bit older, about 9 months. But it's definately worth readin so you could decide which quality PSU you should buy to hav enough power for your SLI configuration.

When NVIDIA and ATI started certifying power supplies to work on their SLI and Crossfire gaming platforms a number of problems instantly popped up. The first issue was that ATI and NVIDIA only tested power supplies submitted to them, resulting in their list of approved power supplies being small. The second issue is that both companies test their certified power supplies on a ?current system?, not a high end platform running wide open on all cylinders.
A number of weeks ago a number of system integrators contacted Legit Reviews looking for stable power supplies to power their top end gaming systems. It turns out their systems were not working right with ?approved? power supplies and they turned to us looking for an answer to their problem. We then contacted Aerocool, Antec, Mushkin, OCZ Technology, and Thermaltake for SLI/Crossfire power supplies to see which ones could hang in our test systems.

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Dell XPS 710 H2C

The XPS 710 H2C represents the pinnacle of Dell’s engineering, and is the company’s first true no-holds-barred gaming machine, so we’re looking for unparalleled gaming performance, stunning design, rock-solid stability, and exceptional tech support. At $5,500, if ever we expected a PC to be damn near perfect, it’s this one.

Dell has stated very clearly that it wants to compete with the other hardcore PC builders, and for a couple of years now we’ve been waiting for Dell to whip out the big guns and go toe-to-toe with the best the rest of the industry can offer. With the H2C, which is Dell’s first factory-overclocked gaming PC, it has finally thrown down the gauntlet – or at least answered the gauntlet that has been thrown down by the boutique integrators.

But anyone can build a PC with high-end specs and a modest overclock. Whether or not the H2C’s build quality, Windows build (Dell is notorious for bloatware), and tech support (it also has a spotty record in this category) can live up to the level of quality we’ve seen from other boutique builders remains to be seen.

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Purepower Express 250W

With each new generation of high-end video cards the demand for power just keeps growing. Not only does the separate video cards need more power, using two in SLI or Crossfire mode increases the power demand even more. It is of course possible to just buy a new more powerful PSU every time you upgrade but that is not always practical, especially if you have a PSU that you are happy with and do not want to have to replace.

With the release of the GeForce 8 cards from NVIDIA and R600 from AMD we also have another problem. While two PCI-Express power cables were enough to power two previous generation video cards in SLI or Crossfire, we now need 4(!) cables if we happen to be able to afford a second GeForce 8800GTX or R600.

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High end multi-GPU solutions - part 2 -The NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX and GTS in SLI

Hi people!

I can only say that I'm very happy to make this post! Since in my yesterday post I've shown you the comparision of Ati's X1950XTX vs. Geforce 7900GTX. And the battle was neck to neck... but I was a bit dissapointed that the test didn't include Geforce 8800 GTS/X series of cards in that test! Luckily that's is now changed - and after a few hours of google-ing, searching around various tech sites, I was able to find a good article comparing Geforce's 8800 GTS/X with Ati's X1950XTX in single mode and in dual mode!

You can go into details on every benchmark, and I think that pictures are are speaking more that anything else.

Several weeks have passed since we first began our analysis of NVIDIA’s new generation of DirectX 10 video cards. Launched on November 8, 2006, the GeForce 8 series have become the leading performers out of all single GPU solutions, NVIDIA and ATI alike, available for retail. Today our analysis will center on multi-GPU configurations of the GTX and GTS models of the 8800 series. At the present moment, these are the only video cards available that support Microsoft DirectX 10.

For the past two years nearly all high-end solutions introduced by NVIDIA have supported SLI technology. This holds true for the 88000 GTS and GTX. In SLI, consumers are allowed to connect two 8800 video cards that are the same models. It is not required, however, to have the video cards be produced from the same manufacturer.

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High end multi-GPU solutions

I was just sufring around the net.. and have found this nice article which is about 8 months old, comparing Ati's Radeon X1950XTX vs. 7900GTX tested in single mode and in both Crossfire/SLI setup. It's nice to see how even older Nvidia 7xxx series performand well over Ati's X1950XTX.

I'll try to find more benchmarks if I can where it should show how much X1950XTX is performing against Nvidia 88xx GTS/GTX Series!

So be sure to enjoy this and read the whole article.. I know I did

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Gigabyte GeForce 7600 GS 256MB SLI - for gamers on a budget

The entry-level section of the mainstream market, or more directly the $100-$110 price point, is a very important one for the video card market. Many gamers view a C-note as the starting point for any video card purchase, just as many OEM vendors like this range for gaming-equipped systems. NVIDIA certainly recognizes this fact, and after releasing the powerful GeForce 7600 GT card, followed that up with its lower-clocked GeForce 7600 GS cousin. This bridged the gap between the high and low ends of the mainstream market, and gave NVIDIA a GeForce 7 Series card for virtually any budget.

The GeForce 7600 GS is based on the 90nm G73 core, which is the same basic chip that powers GeForce 7600 GT. This GPU took over for the popular GeForce 6600-based cards, and brought a GeForce 7-level feature set into the mainstream graphics market. The GeForce 7600 GS GPU features the same base specifications as the GeForce 7600 GT, which offers 12 pixel pipes, 12 texture units, 12 pixel shaders, and 5 vertex pipelines. The memory architecture is also shared between the two cards, and features a 128-bit link to 256MB of GDDR2. Other standard features of the GeForce 7600 GS include NVIDIA SLI, CineFX 4.0, Intellisample 4.0, UltraShadow II, and PureVideo
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NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX/GTS' Killer Bug - just April Fools day joke :-)

Hope you haven't took this seriously yesterday! It was just a joke :-))



Ever since NVIDIA released their revolutionary GeForce 8800 GTX and GeForce 8800 GTS graphics cards, users have been complaining about the poor Vista driver support and how these expensive cards have failed to improve their performance in games. That may now come to pass, in a manner of speaking.

An NVIDIA engineer, who wishes to remain anonymous, has just clued us in on the whole deal. This engineer claims that while allegations of poor gaming performance are correct, the reason is not really poor drivers. Brace yourselves for the truth.

Right after the G80 was taped out, NVIDIA discovered a bug in the vertex shader that causes the GPU to generate slightly incorrect geometry transformation data. The difference was minimal enough to escape attention but it was significant enough to render a scene incorrectly.
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ASUS M2N32-SLI Premium Vista Edition Motherboard

Microsoft's recent release of the new Vista Operating System has changed the software and hardware landscape in ways that are just now becoming apparent. Motherboards with integrated graphics have become almost passe, as the requirements for the Vista Premium OS are high. The vast majority of CPUs on the market today are Dual-Core or more. Memory requirements for applications are fast overcoming the 1GB level. Manufacturers have to work harder and harder on drivers as the XP model has completely changed.

NVIDIA is one of the leading companies on the computer market today. With 2006 revenue exceeding 3 Billion USD, NVIDIA has diversified itself from being the video card chipmaker to entering into handheld, console, motherboard chipsets and more. ASUS manufactures motherboards based upon NVIDIA chipsets among other chipsets. One of the most popular ASUS motherboards over the last year has been the M2N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard. ASUS has recently updated the motherboard to better serve the Vista customers in the form of the ASUS M2N32-SLI which is on the test bench today.

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DDR2 Memory: Enhanced Performance Profiles (EPP) - The SLI Memory BIOS

This article is a bit older (about 10 months), but I think it's definately a good material to read to all fo you SLI fan out there..

What Enhanced Performance Profiles Mean To You
NVIDIA announced the results of a collaborative memory development effort called Enhanced Performance Profiles, or EPP. EPP is going to change the way many computer users will use memory as it will allow for advanced performance memory settings to be built into high performance memory DIMMs for higher levels of overall PC system performance.

All DDR2 Unbuffered DIMM modules are required to include a Serial Presence Detect (SPD) EEPROM to allow them to be properly recognized by target systems. The contents of the SPD are defined by the JEDEC council. While the JEDEC SPD definitions have been used very effectively, they are not sufficiently comprehensive for overclocking applications. In such applications there are many parameters that are modified, and no provision exists in the JEDEC SPD specification to allow the system to make these changes automatically. NVIDIA has been able to take advantage of the unused area in the SPD and instersted usable data that will improve performance and increase the ease of use for many users.
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Nvidia lets more partners to make motherboards - EVGA, XFX, BFG and Colorfull to makes i680i LR / 680i

Nvidia had a great success with its Nforce 680i chipset. It is a buggy one but what can we do when the EVGA motherboard is the best memory overclocker we ever had in our hands. DFI board based on RD600 chipset never seen the light of the day and we never got an alternative.

Nforce 680i SLI remains the best SLI motherboard for Core 2 Duo, Quad and extreme beating the Intel 975 / 965 by quite a margin. We will see does the upcoming P35 has any fighting chance. Design by Nvidia program will involve a few partners including EVGA, XFX, BFG and Colorfull and it means that Nvidia engineers created all hardware, software, driver and bioses for the boards.
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First desktop motherboard supported by LinuxBIOS: GIGABYTE M57SLI-S4

The GIGABYTE M57SLI-S4 is the first-ever desktop motherboardsupported by a Free & Open Source BIOS, thanks to AMD engineer Yinghai Lu who released GPL-licensed code last month. This state-of-the-artmotherboard is based on the NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI chipset and AMD'slatest Socket AM2.
This motherboard can be obtained today from many retail and onlinestores and the source code for the BIOS can be downloaded from the LinuxBIOS SVN server.
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Nforce 650I SLI - 680I LT SLI - 680 SLI review benchmark and overclocking

NVIDIA is historically known for its graphics card, this company also developed for several years chipsets. Since the first chipset nForce dedicated to Athlon processors, division chipsets of NVIDIA made big jump,.
In the beginning, the chipsets nForce were exclusively dedicated for AMD processors . Nvidia succeeded in taking INTEL license in 2005 , which allowed them to propose chipsets compatible with intel processors . The chipsets nForce for INTEL processors do not have for the moment big success as those intended for AMD platform . It should be noted that the first nForce 4 for INTEL was a full disaster, ( is was not fully compatible with intel processors ), whereas nForce 590i SLI corrected the situation , but as u already know this chipset was coupled with the arrival of Core 2 Duo and this chipset showed poor overclocking potential for such processor .
In order to correct this situation, NVIDIA released the nForce 680i, chipset launched at the end of 2006. This chipset as u already know has various problems with Serial-ATA, but this was corrected later , the price of motherboards was very high ( about 300 euros ).

This article is a must-have for everyone because of directly compares nforce 650/680 with Intel's 965/975 chipsets

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Alienware Area-51 7500 Gaming System

Today in the hothardware labs, we have the Alienware Area-51 7500, which features Alienware's signature, unique aesthetics and some of the most powerful hardware available today.
The Area-51 7500 can be configured to be one hell of a gaming system, one that most of us can only dream about. The Cyborg Green-colored monster (this system is BIG and HEAVY) that we received was shipped in a black box with Alienware logos on it.

What would a high-end PC be without the latest and greatest video cards? It wouldn't be much to brag about, right? Well, no worries here. The picture below highlights the presence of not one but two NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX video cards in SLI mode. It doesn't get much later and greater than that right now. Considering the size of those cards, it's a good thing the Alienware P2 chassis is an extended ATX case. You can see that the cards actually go beyond the motherboard.

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Ultimate Overclocked PC only needs 500W power supply

First INQpressions Overclocked Kentsfield, Nforce 680i, dual Nvidia 8800GTX SLI, Evercool water cooler
UNTIL AMD'S QuadFather is out in numbers (and, for many apps, even after that), Intel Kentsfield or officially, Core 2 Extreme QX6700, rules the roost in the PC desktop space. Combine it with the performance driven Nvidia Nforce 680i based mainboard and dual 8800GTX cards running in SLI, say 2GB of Corsair, OCZ or Geil low-latency high bandwidth memory at DDR2 1066 levels, add the usual hard disks, DVD and, well, cool the CPU with some watery stuff so that it doesn't get really hot when fragging enemy soldiers or compressing those HD DVDs and you have the ultimate Xmas 2006 PC present.

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Important message regarding memory and the EVGA 680i motherboard

NVIDIA has investigated end user reports of high performance DIMM failures on the NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI-based platforms. During this process we have been in close contact with DIMM manufacturers and the DRAM manufacturers they rely on to understand the failure scenario. By working with our community, we believe that the observed failure is a breakdown of the silicon in the DRAM caused by the prolonged application of 2.4V on the voltage rails of the DIMMs.

NVIDIA’s own internal testing has observed this failure on multiple motherboards using different chipsets (both NVIDIA and non-NVIDIA chipsets). This issue is not directly related to motherboards using the NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI MCP or other chipsets.

If you are using this type of memory and are experiencing this issue, NVIDIA recommends contacting your memory manufacturer or system manufacturer for additional information and warranty information.

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