I was in Best Buy the other day, and I noticed the newest Nvidia card was capable of three way SLI.

Who here has a rig that's capable of such a thing? Taking into consideration that it would take up almost a quarter of an average ATX case, the cost of three of those babies, the drain on the power unit and the problem of cooling three of those things at a time, would it all be worth the bother? The hobbyist in me says "Hell yes!" But the part of me that focuses on time, energy and budget curls up in horror at the thought.

SLI barely works properly, they should focus on fixing that first. Pretty sure theres a 4x one out too, or out soon.

I stopped upgrading my PC when I got my GeForce 6200, but yesterday I bought new bits to build a new up to date PC from scratch. I was A-MAZED by how big the new graphics card is. Its a 9600GT, a purely budget based purchase. I compared it to my old card and laughed.

I am scared to think about having 3 of these in one case, I don't see how it could work. The power consumption would be shocking, and the heat? I bet you could fry an egg on the side panel. Also, why would you need to have 3 cards? Its WAY overkill.

Tri SLI has been around for a while now.
Since the 8800GT days I think.

Really? I guess I'm behind the times.

lol when i upgrade my motherboard next im going to get another 2 9600's for this thing .. i want it ALLL!!

lol when i upgrade my motherboard next im going to get another 2 9600's for this thing .. i want it ALLL!!

you'll have to check whether the card accepts it, I don't think all of the cards let you 3 way sli them.

SLI barely works properly, they should focus on fixing that first. Pretty sure theres a 4x one out too, or out soon.

SLI actually scales very well as of the moment. You can see quite a hefty boost going from SLI to Tri SLI. Also, tri SLI makes use of the 8800 GTX & up. Not the 8800GT.

-LatinLegacy

Also,SLi and Tri SLi work best at really high resolution settings. Higher than 1920x1080. So if you are running 1280x1024 get a faster card rather than adding another video card.

actually they can do quad sli... now that your mind had been thoroughly blown your powersupply is probably WAY overpowered for your rig the GTX 280 the newest on the market uses ~ between 200-300W when pulling MAX your card cant even see that thing if your running over 500W PSU then you my friend have been fooled just use kill-a-watt and you can find out how much power your computer needs (KAW/.80) ~ your computers power needs

the more you know
add

actually the poster above me is incorrect tho more card DO help out with higher resolution display the dont work so well with higher resolution textures you have an ammount of memory on the card when you add in two more card it DOES NOT increase the memory the textures still have to be repeated on each card if your in the market for a new card get a hig memory high bus card

9600 buddy there were one of the firsts released with the new technology just one minor issue i have a x-fire mobo atm and i need a 1000w psu

SLI actually scales very well as of the moment. You can see quite a hefty boost going from SLI to Tri SLI. Also, tri SLI makes use of the 8800 GTX & up. Not the 8800GT.

-LatinLegacy

Hey, I was close enough. :p

actually the poster above me is incorrect tho more card DO help out with higher resolution display the dont work so well with higher resolution textures you have an ammount of memory on the card when you add in two more card it DOES NOT increase the memory the textures still have to be repeated on each card if your in the market for a new card get a hig memory high bus card

This makes no sense.
I was referring to the fact that adding another video card to a system that runs @1280x1024 won't make a big performance difference(maybe 2-5 extra fps)I said nothing about textures. I know that adding 4 512mb video cards to a system wont yield a 2gb video system,It's still 4 512mb video cards.

I do I do I do :D

I'll wait until bigger cases and cheaper PSUs come out.

PSU's cost £50 upwards from overclockers UK but the triple SLI thing seems like nvidia want to rake in the money by saying its really really good. SLI don't work so why say it does then say 3 cards can work with it?

Also,SLi and Tri SLi work best at really high resolution settings. Higher than 1920x1080. So if you are running 1280x1024 get a faster card rather than adding another video card.

Looks like I dont need to worry about this for a LONG while (my monitor is 1440x940 max, if Im not mistaken... looks great if you ask me, but definitely dont need to SLI)

From what I understand SLI allows to build anything up to quad, And there is probably only one motherboard able to handle that. While crossfire to my knowledge will let someone build up to a tri-graphics config. The only difference is that crossfire allows different manufactured cards (so asus, giga, etc) to be connect together, while SLI only allowes the same exact card.

I can be wrong I have stopped following this just because I have no money.

From what I understand SLI allows to build anything up to quad, And there is probably only one motherboard able to handle that. While crossfire to my knowledge will let someone build up to a tri-graphics config. The only difference is that crossfire allows different manufactured cards (so asus, giga, etc) to be connect together, while SLI only allowes the same exact card.

I can be wrong I have stopped following this just because I have no money.

I'm pretty sure what you said is right. :thumbsup:

I'm pretty sure what you said is right. :thumbsup:

I completely agree I have no money,

From what I understand SLI allows to build anything up to quad, And there is probably only one motherboard able to handle that. While crossfire to my knowledge will let someone build up to a tri-graphics config. The only difference is that crossfire allows different manufactured cards (so asus, giga, etc) to be connect together, while SLI only allowes the same exact card.

I can be wrong I have stopped following this just because I have no money.

Crossfire can handle 4 cards, again with select motherboards. It's the nearly released 'Crossfire X' that allows one to use different sorts of cards; normal Crossfire requires the same card to be used.

Crossfire can handle 4 cards, again with select motherboards. It's the nearly released 'Crossfire X' that allows one to use different sorts of cards; normal Crossfire requires the same card to be used.

Umm, I think that Croosfire X is release unless I miss read it. "Since the release of the codenamed Spider desktop platform from AMD on November 19, 2007, the CrossFire setup has been updated with support for a maximum of four video cards with the 790FX chipset; the CrossFire branding was then changed to "ATI CrossFire X". The setup, according to internal testing by AMD, will bring at least 3.2x performance increase in several games and applications which required massive graphics capabilities of the computer system, the setup is targeted to the enthusiast market. A later development include a dual GPU solution that was released in early 2008, the "ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2", featuring only one CrossFire connector for dual card, four GPU scalability." Wiki

I figure that only the internal guys at ATI have managed to handle creating the 3.2x performance increase

Umm, I think that Croosfire X is release unless I miss read it. "Since the release of the codenamed Spider desktop platform from AMD on November 19, 2007, the CrossFire setup has been updated with support for a maximum of four video cards with the 790FX chipset; the CrossFire branding was then changed to "ATI CrossFire X". The setup, according to internal testing by AMD, will bring at least 3.2x performance increase in several games and applications which required massive graphics capabilities of the computer system, the setup is targeted to the enthusiast market. A later development include a dual GPU solution that was released in early 2008, the "ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2", featuring only one CrossFire connector for dual card, four GPU scalability." Wiki

I figure that only the internal guys at ATI have managed to handle creating the 3.2x performance increase

Sorry, that should have read 'newly released'.