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GTX260 Tri SLI - anyone try?

ascstinger

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very nice setup... quite envious, even though my one gtx280 is already overkill for the 1440x900 I'm limited to
 

HeavyH20

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what made you get 3 gtx260's instead of 280's :p

I picked GTX 260 Tri SLI since I had yet to see anyone test that configuration. Pure curiousity.

You rich folk, hogging all the good video cards, one of those 260's could have be mine if i had some cash.:(lol.:)

Well, they are only $279 :) I still recall people paying $295 to upgrade an existing video card from 4 MB to 8 MB.

very nice setup... quite envious, even though my one gtx280 is already overkill for the 1440x900 I'm limited to

"Overkill" does not exist ! There is no such thing. :)
 

ascstinger

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rofl true, but overdrafting the checking account does :p
 
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I have run all the 3DMark06 tests to determine DX 9 SM 2 and SM3 scaling as well as DX10 with 3DMark Vantage. I am just tallying up the results to show how well the items scale or do not scale. I will post up the results Friday night, so keep posted!


wow that almost makes me want to grab the bottle of lube. total hotness.
 

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I picked GTX 260 Tri SLI since I had yet to see anyone test that configuration. Pure curiousity.




"Overkill" does not exist ! There is no such thing. :)

lol well done I was curious as to how the 260's performed, can't be more than a few fps less than 280's
 

HeavyH20

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Results







 

Wile E

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Hmm, scales pretty well in Vantage. Not so much in 06 tho.

Do you have these figured out in percentages, by chance?
 

HeavyH20

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Notes

So, is Tri SLI worth it? Depends. If you are using older DX9 games (SM2) at mainstream resolutions (1680x1050 and below), no. Newer DX9 apps (SM3), maybe. DX10 games? Definitely. The scaling is much better with DX10.



Note that with DX10, going from one card to two almost doubles performance (about 90%). As for triple SLI, you get a 240% increase over a single card. So, if you are getting 20 fps in DX10 with a single card, you will get about 38 FPS with two and 48 FPS with three. Pretty decent scaling.
 
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cdawall

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can you give us some crysis numbers?
 

HeavyH20

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Yup, that is coming up next. I was going to test at all the resolutions.
 

cdawall

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Benchmark Scores They're pretty good, nothing crazy.
heavy, thats a nice build man... congrats on the vantage top score too.

my friend wants a rig to game on his 30"... i was thinking of going tri-sli for his build because of the cost/performance (3 GTX 260's much cheaper than 2 4870x2's or 3x280's) and these numbers are just what ive been looking for. Looks like they scale well enough to justify the money.

I think im gonna go for the older ones tho, since i can keep the build below $2G for that... do you think an E8500 @ 4-4.4Ghz would bottleneck these cards at high-rez? should i go with a quad?
 
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Very nice mini-review and straight to the point. Overall it seems two cards offer the best scaling for now, as far as 3DMark 06 and Vantage are concerned. If you can find the time and do some gaming benchmarks it would be great. Or even some older 3DMark benches like 01/03/05 or FurMark/FluidMark.

I intend to get a second GTX 260. (I got a P6N Diamond quad-SLI mobo) but I'm waiting to get my brand new PSU which should be in my hands early next week.

By the way, for anyone who is really interested, here is someone who has done single, sli, and tri-sli comparisons between GTX 260 and GTX 280 cards (link below) plus he threw in 9800GX2 and 9800GTX SLI setups into the mix.

http://forums.slizone.com/index.php?showtopic=23084
 

HeavyH20

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More gaming results to follow. I found that during the testing that I really needed to up the ante over the planned tests. Company of Heroes, for example, at 2560x1600 with no AA averaged 59.1 FPS. Pretty good, but then I started layering in AA. 4xAA 58.3 FPS, 8x CSAA 57.9, 16xCSAA 57.6, then it started to drop with 8xQ CSAA at 50.1 FPS and 45.7 FS with 16xQ CSAA. It felt very much like ATI scaling on the AA front.

I think I am going to revisit 3DMark06 with high AA and AF settings to see what happens to the scaling. I suspect that is where Tri SLI will show an advantage like we saw in Vantage. We shall see.
 
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Johnnyfive1995

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I would really like to see Crysis benches both with the tool and in game screens with FPS if possible.

I have 2x260's in SLI and am about to trade up for 2 280's but trading up to 3 260 216 sp's seems awful interesting. I am a big Crysis fan and am anticipating some Far Cry 2 goodness.

Some of my personal screenshots to show my dedication to this extraordinary game.





 
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for my advice got 2x 8800 ultra or if your mobo support 3 way sli do go for 3x 8800 ultra , far cry 2 in official review run on two 8800 ultra , and the 8800 ultra is good for 30 inch monitor , and is about 200$ now
 
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I still can't get over how beautiful Crysis is.

On topic however, quite an interesting thread. Thanks for being one of the first to try this HeavyH20 :laugh:
 
A

atarist

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not 2 go of topice here i am reading this fred here and my web-browsers going nuts at the bottom of
my web-browser it says transferring data from www1.picturepuch.com and slowing my p.c. Down.??

any way that tri-sli set up looks like it can handle any game you chuck at it.
just out of couriouse doz the middle crad get hot saying its in between 2 cards.
 
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picturepush is probably where the images are hosted. Spell check would help a lot too :|
 

3xploit

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@ Johnnyfive1995 those screenies are gorgeous :eek: what custom cfg are you using there?

on topic: cant wait for crysis results!
 
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I meant a spelling checker (like the one that is included with FireFox), as it would make it easier for other people to read what you write.
 

ShadowFold

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HeavyH20

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Small update. I did some individual card testing to see what each one could do. The common denominator is 750 on the core, about 1550 on the shader and 1225 for the memory clock. I can also hit 4.4 GHz on the CPU. Now, can I do all that at once? Three cards at those clocks and the CPU at 4.4? Unfortunately, no, I think I ran into a power issue. I have a new PSU coming that will supply 1200 Watts and while I was at it, I picked up a QX9650. I have seen plenty of those reach 4.0 GHz on good air or watercooling which looks promising for the phase.

I will post up some screenies in the meantime with Crysis while I wait for the updates to see how far I can push this setup. The PSU is key (here Friday) and the CPU is the optional item (here next week) :)
 
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