NVIDIA's GeForce 6 SLI: Demolishing Performance Barriers
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 23, 2004 10:23 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Far Cry Performance
Once again, no surprise that at 1024 x 768 there’s no real performance gains from SLI – having two of the fastest GPUs around means that even an Athlon 64 4000+ isn’t fast enough to extract the full performance of two GPUs at 1024 x 768. The difference between Far Cry and a game like Doom 3 is that even at 1280 x 1024, SLI doesn’t help out much either. For the 6800 Ultra the performance gain due to SLI is barely 6% and only 10% on the 6800GT; while we would normally be happy with these types of performance gains, remember that they are at the expense of purchasing two cards. The 6600GT gains a reasonable 19% boost in SLI mode, but that’s not enough to make it faster than a single 6800GT or Ultra.
We start to see some performance gains at 1600 x 1200, 23% for the 6800 Ultra, 31% for the 6800GT and 43% for the 6600GT. Once again, only the 6600GT really gets an appreciable performance gain here, but it’s still not enough to outperform a single 6800GT – although it comes extremely close.
The real performance gains for the 6800 Ultra and 6800GT happen at 1600 x 1200 with 4X AA and 8X AF enabled, improving performance by close to 60% for the 6800 Ultra and by almost 70% for the 6800GT. Once again, SLI makes higher resolution AA/AF modes playable where they weren’t before. For the 6600GT, SLI brings the performance levels up to that of a single 6800GT, but no faster.
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bob661 - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link
#33I found one here.
http://www.sharbor.com/products/EVGN5300004.html
I don't know if they actually have one in stock though.
jshuck3 - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link
Where are they getting the 6800GT PCI Express cards? I can't find them anywhere...are they even out yet or are these just review boards?L1FE - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link
#28 If the nextgen video cards are also SLI capable, then SLI offers even more performance for a new GPU launch. If you don't want SLI that's your choice, but SLI offers consumers a wider range of choices just because cominations now make it that much more complicated. Whether that's a good or bad thing is yet to be seen, but I like how it makes things exciting between new GPU releases.T8000 - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link
Altrough it is nice to see Nvidia take PC gaming quality one step further, these solutions are more expensive than ever before.But where does this money come from, you ask. Well, since CPU's are stuck at around 3 Ghz (or almost equal) for some time now, people look for other upgrades to buy.
And SLI is an easy way to explain that a top-end GPU solution now costs $1000 instead of $500, because it now contains two $500 cards.
But since SLI is much cheaper than pre-overclocked (Falcon/Alienware) solutions, it is currently worth its premium for a lot of users.
It also creates an interesting problem for ATI, to sell technology that is way behind for lowewr prices or to copy the SLI concept, hoping that their users are willing to wait.
miketheidiot - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link
#28 the next gen of both nVidia and ATI will be only a tiny jump over the current generation. We won't see another big jump until DX10 has been out for a while. The next jump will be a 9700 to 9800 style jump, if that.http://www.anandtech.com/news/shownews.aspx?i=2340...
VIAN - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link
Yeah, where is 8xAA/16xAF. I want that tested. I mean with all that power, who wouldn't want to see the results of the fabulous 8xAA IQ.FICo - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link
So does Nvidia now want everyone to buy 2 of their cards? I really hope its not popular. They should just design faster GPUs rather then relying on such a sledgehammer approach. Nvidia seem to bring out new GPUs once a year, and updates 6 months into a products life. So the new "Geforce 7" chip will be out end of spring time next year. Of course the performance of a single card "GeFroce 7 Ultra" will be a big jump as usual, and will most likely out perform todays PCs with dual 6800 Ultras. Nvidia's SLI technology is certainly interesting, shame its such poor value for money. Surely a dual core approach would be cheaper for the public to buy, yet still offering extra performance.Filibuster - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link
Dual Voodoo2 cards is what, 200Mpixel/s? :)Jeff7181 - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link
Thinking about it more, I think I'd rather just see some 32 pipeline GPU's with 512 MB of RAM and it's very own nuclear reactor to power it :)Souka - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link
Anyone want SLI cheap? don't even have to upgrade your moherboard.....For sale.... two 8mb 3dFx Voodoo2 boards wih SLI cable...PCI interface of course..... it rocked in the 90's....why not now?
:)