Hi people
I've just found new tech website with tons of information about SLI. I don't have the time to make individual posts about every single article, so this is all-together article on SLI topic. One of the most valuable articles I have ever read on this topic.
Hopefully you'll like it, I know I did.
Revisiting SLI
Admittedly, we are skeptical of new technologies and products. After all, we think a healthy dose of skepticism is good since that means we reserve judgment until we saw proof to the contrary. When we first looked at what multi rendering has to offer with SLI, we were dismayed to say the least. From our experience, SLI doesn't always make good on its promise of performance. But at least, SLI have made good on the promise of quality, every time with every game
Crossfire: ATI's Answer to SLI - Part 2
Both Crossfire and SLI took some news time the past weeks with NVIDIA and ATI making the annoucement of supporting Havok FX physics. NVIDIA was the first to announce their support, back at E3 and ATI has followed suit in Computex. In general we think this is a good thing, particularly with SLI. This means if you don't experience a performance increase with a Havok FX enabled game in SLI, you can either use SLI to have SLI AA or physics.
Crossfire: ATI's Answer to SLI - Part 1
It's been a long time coming, but we finally decided to give in and test a Crossfire setup. For those of you out of the loop, Crossfire is ATI's take on the multi rendering solution, very much like NVIDIA's SLI. We were a little bit skeptical of multi rendering solutions in general, more so after looking at what SLI has to offer.
SLI: Myth and Reality - Part 2
Last week, we took a quick look at what NVIDIA's SLI has to offer. In that article, we concluded that while SLI does work, you should not expect tremendous gains in frame rates. In average, SLI can only offer around 30 % increase, occurring mostly when AA and AF are enabled. So, getting a single faster card is always better than putting two slow cards in an SLI setup.
SLI: Myth and Reality
Several weeks after the release of the GeForce 6 series, NVIDIA announced the rebirth of SLI. For the uninitiated, the moniker stands for Scalable Link Interface (and not Scan Line Interleaving from the ol' 3dfx days). The concept of SLI is pretty simple - instead of using a single card, you use two cards to render one screen by dividing the screen into two parts. If that's not possible, the two cards can take turns rendering the screen, ie. the first card renders all odd frames and the second card renders even frames. An intriguing idea and early test does show some promise. However, as most reviewers found out (later), SLI was anything but simple.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Contest time! Great prizes from Ocz!!! Win two OCZ 8800GTX cards and more!!!
OCZ is the name and Benching is the game! Show your overclocking skills and win OCZ gear for your system by participating in the first annual OCZ Benchmark Competition. The contest features three phases and a Grand Prize Winner who will be awarded two OCZ 8800GTX video cards, one 2GB kit of OCZ DDR2, one 1000W ProXStream power supply, and one OCZ air-cooled CPU cooler. The OCZ Benchmark Competition is part of OCZ’s growing forum community. The forums at.... provide dedicated expert technical advice and a place for OCZ fans and enthusiasts to trade overclocking tips and industry news. The site is managed by OCZ’s devoted support team and overclocking specialists.
Can SLI in a Notebook Beat Desktop Graphics?
The world of mobile computing has been evolving over the past few decades. There are many variations to fit the nature of the need. Some are highly portable, with extended battery life. But while portability has been the aim of most designs, some users find power wanting.
Desktop replacement notebooks are the most powerful portable systems available, but they represent the smallest segment of the mobile computing market..We have seen the power mobile systems such as the Dell XPS M1710 and the Eurocom D900K F-Bomb offered, which could meet the performance requirements of those looking for maximum frame rates while on the road. While those two notebooks employed a single graphics processor, how well does a system with dual graphics perform? That answer comes in the form of Nvidia's Mobile GeForce Go 7800GTX processors in SLI.
Quad SLI under the microscope
OVER THE PAST few years, we've seen an incredible number of extreme hardware solutions marketed to PC gamers: graphics cards that cost over five hundred bucks, thousand-dollar "Extreme Edition" CPUs, motherboards with more ports than Dubai, custom physics processors, and now even a "killer" NIC. Without a doubt, though, the most extreme of all of these offerings has to be Nvidia's vaunted Quad SLI. The concept of running four GPUs together for insane gaming goodness is more extreme than snowboarding down some wicked moguls into a vat of Mountain Dew at the X Games.
But does Quad SLI live up to its practically built-in hype? Can running four GPUs in tandem catapult you into a zone of pure extremeness, where new frames flow like water, object edges are feathery smooth, and textures are so perfectly mapped to surfaces that you're utterly convinced they're real?
I dunno. I'm just making this stuff up as I go along. But we have tested Quad SLI in order to see what it's like to play games on a quad-GPU system. We've also popped open the metaphorical hood on Quad SLI to see how it works. Along the way, we found a few unexpected things, as well.
But does Quad SLI live up to its practically built-in hype? Can running four GPUs in tandem catapult you into a zone of pure extremeness, where new frames flow like water, object edges are feathery smooth, and textures are so perfectly mapped to surfaces that you're utterly convinced they're real?
I dunno. I'm just making this stuff up as I go along. But we have tested Quad SLI in order to see what it's like to play games on a quad-GPU system. We've also popped open the metaphorical hood on Quad SLI to see how it works. Along the way, we found a few unexpected things, as well.
Overclock Your PC For Top Performance
At its most basic level, overclocking is exactly what its name implies—making a component, such as a CPU, memory, or video card run at a clock speed above its rated frequency. If you’re willing to accept (and are equipped to handle) the extra heat and increased power consumption that inevitably result from overclocking your components, your reward is a PC that performs better—sometimes much better—than before.
Changing the mode by which the memory clock speed is linked to the FSB (frontside bus) is the most common way to overclock system memory. Some motherboards, such as those based on the Nvidia nForce 680i SLI chipset, also give users the ability to manually adjust memory clock speeds completely independent of the FSB.
Just my quick comment is that this article is a great reading material for beginners/overclockers out there! So be sure to get the written issue of CPU magazine, issue April 2007, Pages 64-70.
I would include more text and pictures from this, but I haven't had the time to contact CPU magazine, and ask for a permission to use more of the text/pictures from this great article.
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Changing the mode by which the memory clock speed is linked to the FSB (frontside bus) is the most common way to overclock system memory. Some motherboards, such as those based on the Nvidia nForce 680i SLI chipset, also give users the ability to manually adjust memory clock speeds completely independent of the FSB.
Just my quick comment is that this article is a great reading material for beginners/overclockers out there! So be sure to get the written issue of CPU magazine, issue April 2007, Pages 64-70.
I would include more text and pictures from this, but I haven't had the time to contact CPU magazine, and ask for a permission to use more of the text/pictures from this great article.
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New D-Tek FuZion GFX GPU Block Available
The all-new D-Tek FuZion GFX CPU block will bring a new level to GPU cooling with its direct impingement design, appearance, and high quality manufacturing. Unique to the FuZion GFX is the mid chamber design that provides good flowrates while utilizing direct impingement to the GPU core that puts this block at the level we normally see only in CPU cooling designs. The GFX is the perfect match for the newly released FuZion CPU waterblock. The baseplate of the block is 100% copper and features dense rounded pins. The low profile design of the FuZion GFX allows installation with Nvidia SLI and ATI's CrossFire systems.
Ask Dan: Two 7950s or one 8800?
I'm in the process of buying a new computer, and I have come to a crossroad with video cards. I cannot determine if I am better off getting 2 Leadtek PX7950GT 512mb cards and running in SLI or getting 1 nVidia 8800GTX 768mb card.
What would your recommendation be? Will I get greater performance in games running 2 cards? Or is it better to just get one top-end card?
Jason
Fortunately, the rat's nest that is video card comparisons has become much simpler these days, which makes it very easy for me to answer your question. No, just kidding. It's as bad as it ever was, if not worse. Fortunately, it is possible to convey some vague idea of the current state of play without presenting you with 108 graphs of benchmarks from different games at multiple resolutions and with and without different levels of anti-aliasing.
There's no real-world situation I'm aware of in which a single GeForce 8800 GTX will be slower than a pair of GeForce 7950 GTs
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What would your recommendation be? Will I get greater performance in games running 2 cards? Or is it better to just get one top-end card?
Jason
Fortunately, the rat's nest that is video card comparisons has become much simpler these days, which makes it very easy for me to answer your question. No, just kidding. It's as bad as it ever was, if not worse. Fortunately, it is possible to convey some vague idea of the current state of play without presenting you with 108 graphs of benchmarks from different games at multiple resolutions and with and without different levels of anti-aliasing.
There's no real-world situation I'm aware of in which a single GeForce 8800 GTX will be slower than a pair of GeForce 7950 GTs
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Budget PSU Roundup with HardwareCanuck - part 2 !!
Well, here we are in what seems to be an almost weekly occurrence: another power supply roundup by yours truly. This time we will be looking at a little more powerful models than we were last time; 500W to 600W models that all come in at under $105. Sounds like a great deal doesn’t it?
In this day and age we are faced with ever increasing power demands from higher-end components such as Nvidia’s 8800-series and AMD’s almost-mythical R600 cards. To power these beasts (or at least the 8800-series because of AMD’s tight lips about their card) and a proper processor, consumers should be looking at a minimum of a 450W power supply. If you start adding more than one hard drive and perhaps some overclocking, you are suddenly faced with the purchase of a 500W or more power supply. While this proposition can make some people weak in the knees (and bladders) there are relatively cheap 500W and above power supplies out there. It is in exactly these situations where the PSUs in this roundup come into play.
This test includes:
FSP Blue Storm II 500W
Cooler Master Extreme Power Duo 600W
Nmedia MP-500 (500W)
Enermax FMAII 535W
Silverstone ST50EF-PLUS (500W)
Mushkin HP-550 (550W)
This is the one test that made these power supplies crap their pants and call for mommy; 8800GTS cards in SLI ( as shown on this picture)
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In this day and age we are faced with ever increasing power demands from higher-end components such as Nvidia’s 8800-series and AMD’s almost-mythical R600 cards. To power these beasts (or at least the 8800-series because of AMD’s tight lips about their card) and a proper processor, consumers should be looking at a minimum of a 450W power supply. If you start adding more than one hard drive and perhaps some overclocking, you are suddenly faced with the purchase of a 500W or more power supply. While this proposition can make some people weak in the knees (and bladders) there are relatively cheap 500W and above power supplies out there. It is in exactly these situations where the PSUs in this roundup come into play.
This test includes:
FSP Blue Storm II 500W
Cooler Master Extreme Power Duo 600W
Nmedia MP-500 (500W)
Enermax FMAII 535W
Silverstone ST50EF-PLUS (500W)
Mushkin HP-550 (550W)
This is the one test that made these power supplies crap their pants and call for mommy; 8800GTS cards in SLI ( as shown on this picture)
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CrossFire and SLI dongle-less / bridgeless performance analysis
Multi-GPU rendering in games. Ah, truly a geek's dream come true; to be able to drop in an extra graphics card and double the performance of a game, or keep the lovely performance and up the resolution and IQ a couple of notches. But the two consumer multi-GPU implementations - SLI and CrossFire - aren't without their caveats, right?
Let think up a few drawbacks you might have on your mind. There's price, drivers, game compatibility, platform issues, power requirements, the setup and more. Oh, what a minefield... except it's not quite that bad and it's continually getting better.
We could wax lyrical about how yes, some single cards cost and perform the same as two cards in dual-GPU mode, but that with two cards there's the upgrade path of buying one now and another later... or we could talk about how game support is constantly being tweaked with every driver release. In fact, we could rattle on for hours about it, especially with assistance of a Hoegaarden or two.
Let think up a few drawbacks you might have on your mind. There's price, drivers, game compatibility, platform issues, power requirements, the setup and more. Oh, what a minefield... except it's not quite that bad and it's continually getting better.
We could wax lyrical about how yes, some single cards cost and perform the same as two cards in dual-GPU mode, but that with two cards there's the upgrade path of buying one now and another later... or we could talk about how game support is constantly being tweaked with every driver release. In fact, we could rattle on for hours about it, especially with assistance of a Hoegaarden or two.
Bridgeless and dongle-less multi-GPU rendering isn't exactly new. We've seen it on lower-end SLI and CrossFire solutions, but now it's starting to rear its head higher up the product ranges, where the lack of a dedicated inter-card link might have a bigger impact. Shall we see if it does?
GEFORCE 8950 GX 2 AND GEFORCE 8800 ULTRA
The passed exhibition ceBIT 2007 many where assured that in the following block NVIDIA will release video card geForce 8950 GX2 and GeForce 8800 Ultra. It is assumed that they will be announced on 17 April; however, associates with the reference to NVIDIA briefing told that about the accessibility Of geForce 8800 Ultra will be possible to speak only during May. NVIDIA is assured that the performance of this video card will be sufficient to complete with Radeon x2900 XTX. Associate also speaks about the possibility of appearance for geForce 8800 Ultra during May; however, it called the ultra high price on the order of $999. Let us note that we have more optimistic data about price and characteristics of the new high end chip from NVIDIA…
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Interview nVidia Europe - Video - Warning it's on French
Following the publication on O/C TV, which presented a short interview of Stephan Quentin, person in charge for the relations presses nVidia Europe of the south. We wanted this time to propose the complete version to you.
Good numbers of questions are treated there. Amongst other things, various ranges of chipsets left by the firm, the role of electric consumption, SLI 2, the future of the GPU G80, G81, the point of view of the company with respect to the overclocking and still well of other, with final ton of infos which should like greatest number the.
Good visionnage with all.
Just my quick comment is that this text was translated from French. So below are original links, with links to google translating service. And a link to Episode 2 of O/C TV which is on English (yey...)
Interview nVidia Europe - French
Syndrome-O/C TV : Episode 2 - March 2007 - English Version
Good numbers of questions are treated there. Amongst other things, various ranges of chipsets left by the firm, the role of electric consumption, SLI 2, the future of the GPU G80, G81, the point of view of the company with respect to the overclocking and still well of other, with final ton of infos which should like greatest number the.
Good visionnage with all.
Just my quick comment is that this text was translated from French. So below are original links, with links to google translating service. And a link to Episode 2 of O/C TV which is on English (yey...)
Interview nVidia Europe - French
Interview nVidia Europe - Translated text
Last link is the direct link to O/C TV, second TV show which include (and it's on English!!:
- Little summary on the First episode, some nombers, problematic...
- Overview of new AMD's chipset : AMD 690
- Piece of the arriving interview of nVidia South Europe (G80, i680...)
- Piece of the arriving interview of Intel France on arriving products (Quadcore, overclocking...)
- Interview of a famous overclocker : Shamino from VR-Zone.
Syndrome-O/C TV : Episode 2 - March 2007 - English Version
DFI LANPARTY UT NF590 SLI-M2RG AM2 Motherboard
With the introduction of Intel’s’ Core 2 Duo, AMD has been beaten performance wise when it comes to high-end market segment. In the lower budget market AMD has still a decent piece of the pie.It has not only the reputation of the well know Athlon 64 architecture that has proven itself before, but also the price advantage. In my opinion Intel doesn’t really have a CPU that fits in that segmentation of the market.Today we’ll be testing a DFI NF590 SLI-M2R/G. This is a mainboard for AMD AM2 CPU. In combination with an Athlon 64 3500+ we’ll take a closer look at this board. This review will consist out of several parts.
Galaxy designs own nForce 680i SLI and claims 30 per cent power reduction
It seems as if NVIDIA's graphics card partners have realised that diversifying out to producing motherboards is a sensible move. We've now seen a handful of partners team up with the green team's chipset division and launch nForce 680i SLI offerings. Galaxy stands out because it hasn't run with the excellent reference design. Rather, its engineers have redesigned the PCB to achieve, it reckons, a 30 per cent reduction in wattage for its custom design. The layout is good and overclockability should be excellent. We'll see just how good when we get one in for review. Launch is currently slated to be one month away.
ATI CrossFire and NVIDIA SLI in Terms of CPU Performance
We proceed with the series of articles, which can be entitled "Nitty-Gritty of iXBT.com Testlab", devoted to results of our inhouse tests - they can be interesting to some of our readers. This article will be devoted to consequences of one our experiment: what if equip CPU testbeds with the most powerful graphic solution - two video cards in CrossFire (ATI) or SLI (NVIDIA) mode? There were some disappointments, but the results were funny. OK, let's see...
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Nvidia Plans Multi-GPU Technology Update
Nvidia Reportedly Readies SLI 2.0
Nvidia Corp., the world’s leading supplier of discrete graphics processing units (GPUs), is reportedly planning to update its multi-GPU SLI technology in March to enhance performance and features, thus making SLI more appealing to computer enthusiasts.
The so-called Nvidia SLI 2.0 technology – which, according to a news-story over VR-Zone web-site should be unveiled at CeBIT 2007 – should support work of 4, 6 and 8 graphics chips in parallel as well as support different graphics card’s operation in tandem. There are currently no clear details regarding the SLI 2.0, but the fact that Nvidia is looking forward to improve its multi-GPU technology deserves attention.
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Nvidia Corp., the world’s leading supplier of discrete graphics processing units (GPUs), is reportedly planning to update its multi-GPU SLI technology in March to enhance performance and features, thus making SLI more appealing to computer enthusiasts.
The so-called Nvidia SLI 2.0 technology – which, according to a news-story over VR-Zone web-site should be unveiled at CeBIT 2007 – should support work of 4, 6 and 8 graphics chips in parallel as well as support different graphics card’s operation in tandem. There are currently no clear details regarding the SLI 2.0, but the fact that Nvidia is looking forward to improve its multi-GPU technology deserves attention.
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Building an Affordable Gaming PC - Gaming machines don't have to be expensive
PC gaming is exceptionally popular and can be a lot of fun, but nobody likes trying to run a modern high-end game on a 3 year old, outdated system. At the same time, not everyone wants to drop thousands upon thousands of dollars on the most ridiculously equipped gaming rig from a specialty boutique computer builder. So what's the answer? Believe it or not, it's possible to get great gaming performance from a system that doesn't necessarily break the bank. Our goal today is to talk about building the best possible system you can for around $1500 US at the time of this writing. With some careful component selection, a little bit of knowledge, patience, and some tweaking, you can build a rock-solid gaming box.
Just my quick comment is that this guide was recently updated, so I hope it will be interesting to read for all of you gamers out there on a budget. One last thing that I wanted to add is just take a look which graphic card & motherboard the crew from Corsair recommended :-)
I think that you know the answer.
Enermax Galaxy DXX Series PSU
Today we are going to be looking at Enermax's current top tier unit the revised Enermax Galaxy, now called the Enermax Galaxy DXX (EGX1000EWL-01). This power supply was originally released as the Enermax Galaxy 1000w but has recently been revised to include an 8pin PCI-E adapter to support newer video cards that draw up to 300w of power. In addition to the 8 pin PCI-Express adapter modification we will see if Enermax has changed anything "under the hood" on the Galaxy DXX.
The Galaxy DXX is an interesting power supply in the way of our evaluations as most power supplies we have reviewed to date have at least paid lip service to the various iterations of the ATX specifications. The Galaxy DXX however, is designed to more closely follow the EPS/SSI design guide.
The Galaxy DXX is an interesting power supply in the way of our evaluations as most power supplies we have reviewed to date have at least paid lip service to the various iterations of the ATX specifications. The Galaxy DXX however, is designed to more closely follow the EPS/SSI design guide.
Design for the hard-core gamers that demand nothing less then perfect.
The Galaxy DXX is equipped to handle dual 300w video cards thanks to the new PCI E 2.0 standard. Enough juice to handle the meanest dual quad core CPU system and quad graphics card on the market today.
SLI Rig of the Month - April
Motherboard: SLI-Ready EVGA nForce 680i
Benchmarks: Highest 3dmark06 is around 17500 @ 4.2 ghz.
GPUs: 2X BFG Tech GeForce 8800GTX graphics cards
Case: Custom Mountain Mods 22" Cube built around Vapochill and 12" Elo TouchScreen LCD monitor
Cooling: Danger Den waterblocks on each GPU, Thermochill PA 120.3 Rad with 6 SilenX fans in push/pull, plus 7 other SilenX Fans mounted throughout the case
CPU: Intel Core2 Duo X6800 on stock Vapochill LS
Memory: 4 gigs OCZ 1066 RAM
Hard Drives: 750 gig Seagate
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