NVIDIA's 3-way SLI: Can we finally play Crysis?
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 17, 2007 3:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
What resolutions do you need to be running?
If you're willing to spend over $1,500 on graphics cards alone, we're going to assume that you've already got a 30" display at your disposal. But in the off chance that you don't, will you see any benefit from having this much GPU power? We took a closer look at three of our benchmarks to find out.
Bioshock, the best 3-way SLI scaler we've seen today, paints a very clear picture. The 3-way 8800 Ultra setup is CPU bound until we hit 2560 x 1600, while the normal 2 card setup doesn't even come close to being CPU limited, even at 1680 x 1050.
What this tells us is that as long as the game is stressful enough, you'll see a benefit to a 3-way SLI setup even at low resolutions, just not as much as you would at higher resolutions. Pretty simple, right?
Unreal Tournament 3 shows absolutely no benefit to adding a third card, and even shows a slight performance decrease at 1680 x 1050. It isn't until 2560 x 1600 that we see any performance difference at all between the two and three card setups.
With Crysis we didn't adjust resolution, instead we varied the image quality settings: medium, high and very high. Just as with varying resolution, adjusting image quality settings increases the impact of 3-way SLI. Unfortunately where 3-way makes its biggest impact (very high quality), we're at an unplayable setting for much of the game.
What sort of a CPU do you need for this thing?
We've already established that at higher resolutions 3-way SLI can truly shine, but how ridiculous of a CPU do you need to run at those high detail settings?
The theory is that the better a game scales from 2 to 3 GPUs, the more GPU bound and less CPU bound it is. The worse a game scales, there's greater the chance that it's CPU bound (although there are many more reasons for poor scaling from 2 to 3 GPUs).
| Clock speed | Bioshock | Oblivion | Crysis |
| 3.33GHz | 103.8 | 49.0 | 43.2 |
| 2.66GHz | 101.7 | 48.3 | 37.3 |
| 2.00GHz | 90.9 | 47.3 | 30.9 |
In Bioshock, the difference in performance at 2.66GHz and 3.33GHz is negligible, but once we drop the clock speed to 2.0GHz you start to see performance drop off. What this tells us is that even at mid-2GHz clock speeds, even a 3-way 8800 Ultra setup is GPU bound in Bioshock. And even at 2.0GHz, the 3-way setup is far from fully CPU bound as performance is still better than the two card system with a 3.33GHz CPU.
Similarly, Oblivion isn't CPU bound at all. Even at 2.0GHz, we don't see a significant drop in performance.
Crysis does actually benefit from faster CPUs at our 1920 x 1200 high quality settings. Surprisingly enough, there's even a difference between our 3.33GHz and 2.66GHz setups. We suspect that the difference would disappear at higher resolutions/quality settings, but the ability to maintain a smooth frame rate would also disappear. It looks like the hardware to run Crysis smoothly at all conditions has yet to be released.
We feel kind of silly even entertaining this question, but yes, if you want to build a system with three 8800 Ultras, you don't need to spend $1000 on a CPU. You can get by with a 2.66GHz chip just fine.
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kilkennycat - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - link
...it's far more likely to be used by a (nV) video card functioning as a GPGPU for either gaming --- or in the short-term --- professional desktop applications. nV is making great strides in the professional scientific number-crunching and signal-processing communities with their CUDA toolset running on their current GPU offerings. They currently own ~ 86% of the "workstation graphics" market, but in a rapidly-increasing number of cases, graphics is not the sole function of the current nV workstation hardware. Wait for nVidia's next generation silicon and driver software which will be far more focussed on seamlessly merging GPU and GPGPU functionality. Also, wait for their true next-gen motherboard chip-set and not the cobbled-together "780i" which will implement symmetrical PCIe2.0 on all 3 PCIe x16 slots. Arriving about the same time as their next gen GPU family. Mid-2008 would be my guess.aguilpa1 - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - link
Funny how your review doesn't address this blatant issue. yes it will run tri sli but don't expect it to do with the same Yorkfield used on the test board they used. Engineering samples of the QX9650 ran fine on the 680i SLI's but were changed with the retail versions. Whether it was Intels pissy way of getting back at Nvidia for not licensing SLI to them or Nvidia's way of making a buck off of selling an almost already obsolete board (nehalems coming next year). At this stage...who cares.ilovemaja - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - link
that quote: His response? "JESUS". "No", I said, "not even Jesus needs this much power".Is one of the funnyest things i heard in my live.
Thanks for another good article, you are the best.
acejj26 - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - link
In Crysis, you say that the third card offers a 7% performance boost over the 2 card configuration, however, it is only offering 1 fps more, which is just about 2%. Those numbers should be changed.Sunrise089 - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - link
Not complaining, but I've noticed the last several GPU articles have been written by Anand, which isn't his normal gig. On top of that we get a reference to another GPU editor from back in the day. What's up?compy386 - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - link
I'd be interesting to do a comparision between SLI and Crossfire once AMD gets some drivers out that actually support quad SLI. I saw a board on newegg that looks like I'd fit 3 3870s as well.AcydRaine - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - link
AMD doesn't support "Quad-SLI" at all. There are a few boards on Newegg that will fit 4x3780s. Not just 3.compy386 - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - link
The 3870s take up 2 slots so I only see boards that fit 3. Most of the boards will take 4 3850s though. Again, I'd like to see the performance number comparisons for scaling purposes.compy386 - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - link
The 3870s take up 2 slots so I only see boards that fit 3. Most of the boards will take 4 3850s though. Again, I'd like to see the performance number comparisons for scaling purposes.SoBizarre - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - link
Well, I’m glad to see this evaluation of 3-way SLI. It just gave me an idea about overcoming performance issues in games like Crysis. There is no need for building ridiculously expensive machines which draws insane amount of power. I have a better solution (although it won’t work for all of you). I’m just not going to buy a game which I can’t play in its full galore on decent system, at mainstream resolution (1680x1050).I don’t expect the latest and greatest, “show off” kind of a game to be playable at 2560x1600 with highest settings, full AA and AF. Not on a system with Q6600 and single 8800GT. But if you can’t do it on a system like one used by Anand here? Well, then it’s becoming ridiculous.
I’m trying to imagine a proud owner of machine with QX9650 @ 3.33GHz, 3 (that’s THREE) 8800 Ultras and shiny 30-inch monitor, not being able to play a game he just bought. What would be his thoughts about developer of that game? I guess not the pretty ones…