Triple-GPU Scaling: AMD CrossFire Vs. Nvidia SLI

[zulutech]

Guys! Why didn't you test two 6970s up against the 570s! Its a more fair test.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]zulutech[/nom]Guys! Why didn't you test two 6970s up against the 570s! Its a more fair test.[/citation]The 6950's won, what's unfair?

 

[cburke82]

The 6950's won, what's unfair?

It is 100% unfair.... To Nvidia that is lol makes there more expensive product look bad :lol:

 

[zulutech]

[citation][nom]cburke82[/nom]It is 100% unfair.... To Nvidia that is lol makes there more expensive product look bad[/citation]
Proves that Radeons are better for a lot of things. But the 6950 is a tier lower than the 570.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]zulutech[/nom]Proves that Radeons are better for a lot of things. But the 6950 is a tier lower than the 570.[/citation]Yes, the GTX 570 is the cheapest current model to support 3-way SLI. The problem isn't that the 6970 wasn't used, the problem is that Nvidia doesn't currently make a cheaper 3-way SLI solution.

 

[cburke82]

Proves that Radeons are better for a lot of things. But the 6950 is a tier lower than the 570.

single card to single card you are 100% correct. But seemingly based on these tests when you go up to 2-3 cards with there powers combined BAM the cheeper one tier lower cards get all hulked out and start smashing things lol But for real this time they do pull ahead even if only by a small margin with 2-3 cards and thats cool for 6950 owners

 

[peanut_316]

im new to the forums here....nice review on the triple GPU configuration...wish this came out before i bought my 3 570s..but oh well...

Can toms hardware do a review on same thing but add 5760x1200,5760x1080 and 7680x1600 resolutions in play i would like to see the results...

 

[jowunger]

I would like to see more newer games, like Rage, Hard Reset and of course the most important game: BATTLE FIELD 3 compared. Its nice to see older games like Crysis to reflect their relative speed on newer cards but newer games use more tessellation which makes it worth testing it.

 

[fultzy92]

actually you can get not only a three way config but a 4 way config on some 6770's. and i would assume that they are cheaper then the 6950. although they would never keep up with the 570's

 

[billybobser]

[citation][nom]Rizlla[/nom]You can see that AMD knows multicard setups are the future. Now i really want to get my 6950[/citation]

What?

I mean, I can see no reason why multi card is the future.

The fact that you have to spend money on an entirely new shell and connectors, more power, heat, noise. Is that the future?

Also, given the issues (micro stuttering in dual mode, no drivers for new games), it seems to be a solution for 'enthusiasts' and the very rich.

Sure, we can all dream, and pat AMD on the back for how awesome the top 0.5% is, but their and our bread and butter lies around the mid range single card solution.

 

[Guest]

GPGPU test...? 😛

 

[airborne11b]

Finally something AMD/ATI does right. I prefer Nvidia cards (because their 3d vision 2 technology is far superior to the ATI HD3D), but at least AMD users can reap some benifits from 3 way scaling over Nvidia (In some cases)

A few problems to note though that many people seem to be dismissing, but I notice from the charts, is that even though the end conclusion showed a win for ATI, scaling was better for Nvidia in a few games (AvP, Crysis). So the end conclusion could have been flipped in Nvidia's favor had the game selection been different.

Also, most people don't go with Tri-SLI / 3 way Xfire because it's generally overkill. Not to mention the more expensive motherboards and PSU to support it all at this stage in the game really kills any price/performance viability.


My take away from this article though is that it seems that getting best performance/multi GPU scaling for your rig depends a lot on the games that you prefer to play and a little luck of the draw.

For example, I suspect Crysis 2, BF3, and Skyrim probably favor Nvidia scaling.

 

[CrackityJones]

Bought triple 6950s right after you guys wrote that article in August about micro-stuttering and showed the trip 6870s dominating games w/no stutter issues. Had to get the 2gb. Looks like I picked the right cards!

 

[skullzero]

This is stupid. I can get a gtx 660 ti for the same price as one with as good frame rates on more graphically intense games...