EVGA Announces New 4-Way SLI Platform

My question is, what are you going to do with 4 x SLI exactly when a $100 video card will play some games at 2560!
Click to expand...

I think their primary goal was the top of the e-peen charts. They wanted to break records to have something to bandy about for marketing.

I just can't see this board having much benefit beyond that. I mean, diminishing returns are plentiful with this board. You're going to hit a ceiling on the CPU more than likely with 4x SLI cards. If it was a dual processor board, that had 4x SLI, then god damn, that makes complete sense. I'd love to see something like that, talk about the viagra of game machines

Awesome tech and sweet as hell to see someone do, you bet your ass. Functional for anything more than benchmarking, I have my doubts. 4 x 5800 would be sexy as shit though, just unf, bend over and shove that in, cause thats how I'd have to earn the dough to pay for such a thing.
 
stiltner said:
I think their primary goal was the top of the e-peen charts. They wanted to break records to have something to bandy about for marketing.

I just can't see this board having much benefit beyond that. I mean, diminishing returns are plentiful with this board. You're going to hit a ceiling on the CPU more than likely with 4x SLI cards. If it was a dual processor board, that had 4x SLI, then god damn, that makes complete sense. I'd love to see something like that, talk about the viagra of game machines

Awesome tech and sweet as hell to see someone do, you bet your ass. Functional for anything more than benchmarking, I have my doubts. 4 x 5800 would be sexy as shit though, just unf, bend over and shove that in, cause thats how I'd have to earn the dough to pay for such a thing.
Click to expand...

Don't forget we have i9 on the way. That's one CPU that will without doubt be able to push 4 GPU's, especially at 1920x1200 and above.

I budgeting for an i9 rig now and its going to cost a truck load. The minimum I'm looking at is $6000. I've looked at options that have hit $10k and then I came back to earth. $6000 is about the max I can spend but I expect a hellacious system for that. This might work nicely. With this wouldn't it be possible to do 3x SLI and use the forth card for physx?
 
Why in God's green earth would you need to spend $6,000 on a gaming rig? (or any kind of rig) Even if you throw away money at a 6-core EE processor just because you want the latest and the greatest, and you invest in tri-SLI... What exactly are you doing with the other $4,000? 1K on an IPS LCD, another grand on a SSD RAID array, aaand... Sorry, I give. I guess it's nice to have money to throw away.
 
Kaldskryke said:
Click the link in the article. These parts were used by K|ngp|n and Shamino to break all the Vantage records. Sure it's all LN2 cooling... but if you want benchmarks, there they be.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I read it and watched the video. Liquid nitrogen cooling and synthetic benchmarks (I prefer actual game performance) don't really give me a good idea of the diminishing returns that I'm wondering about. :)

3-way SLI is questionable enough as it is, I can't imagine 4-way gives you any more bang for the buck. Either way, I can't wait to see the first 3-way vs 4-way SLI benchmarks to come out and see what the actual price/performance delta is between the two.
 
Serpico said:
3-way SLI is questionable enough as it is, I can't imagine 4-way gives you any more bang for the buck. Either way, I can't wait to see the first 3-way vs 4-way SLI benchmarks to come out and see what the actual price/performance delta is between the two.
Click to expand...

Something tells me those that run the benchmarks aren't looking forward to it quite as much... :p On top of the snoozefest it's gonna be, I can't imagine the amount of potential headaches they'll encounter w/drivers, scaling, power draw, etc.
 
Impulse said:
Something tells me those that run the benchmarks aren't looking forward to it quite as much... :p On top of the snoozefest it's gonna be, I can't imagine the amount of potential headaches they'll encounter w/drivers, scaling, power draw, etc.
Click to expand...

Oh I agree, its ridiculous and I'm almost certain that performance per dollar is going to be very low compared to a single card or two-way SLI configuration.
 
The diminishing return on going beyond two-way sli is just ludacris. It amazes me how much people buy into this type of hype. Deep pockets or not, they are just throwing away dollars to enlarge their epeen. Extenze is much cheaper fellas.
 
CanadaOwnsJoo said:
im still miffed they wont send me another heatsink for my classified so i can put my audio card in the 1x slot, i have to waste a 16x slot and take my cards down to 8x because of a rubbish heatsink design

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/4904/evgaclassified.jpg

and they reused the same sink it looks like but moved it up lol
Click to expand...

Grrrr, I wish I'd noticed that before I ordered my step-up to the classified.

Maybe I'll just go back to on-board sound. I don't absolutely NEED the features of the Forte.

Oh well, sorry to go off topic :).
 
It looks like after you are able to cram all 4 dual slot video cards in there, that the rest of the pci-e slots will be all covered up. So why do you need to have 7 pci-e slots? Just evenly space out 5 of them or something. :confused: It's going to get real hot in there :eek:
Don't see why you would need 4 video cards, aside from it being freakin sweet. What game(s) are going to be able to utilize that much?

Otherwise looks sweet, any body willing to give me loan so i can buy one? :D
 
Congratulations EVGA, on reaching a new and unparalleled level of absurdity and outright stupidity.

All SLI, inclusive CUDA, has severe diminishing returns past two. Diminishing returns that make 8 socket Pentium II/III look fantastic by comparison. That is why manufacturers physically limit CUDA systems to a maximum of two cards. That is why Quadro PLEX is two cards (besides the fact that it's a single 16x link, which is in and of itself a wonderfully stupid design bottleneck.)
But no, it wasn't enough to design and produce a board where you waste two cards and a load of PCIe lanes. You had to go and one up yourselves with "XL-ATX," a fantasy based form factor which is about as likely to get approved and accepted as, say, shrinking MicroATX and not changing the name. What's even more hilarious is the fact that the mounts have to be unchanged from ATX, because it's a fantasy name. All it does is limit it to cases with extra room below the motherboard mounting. Which is increasingly rare these days.

My hat's off to EVGA. I didn't think this "gamer" gear stupidity could get any worse. But boy, they sure as hell went for it AND succeeded on this one!
 
I like the board idea with having all those PCIe slots. Too bad the board will cost $500 dollars....

I'd rather have SLI + a Physics card + my X-fi and a slot or two left over for something else.
 
AreEss said:
Congratulations EVGA, on reaching a new and unparalleled level of absurdity and outright stupidity.

All SLI, inclusive CUDA, has severe diminishing returns past two. Diminishing returns that make 8 socket Pentium II/III look fantastic by comparison. That is why manufacturers physically limit CUDA systems to a maximum of two cards. That is why Quadro PLEX is two cards (besides the fact that it's a single 16x link, which is in and of itself a wonderfully stupid design bottleneck.)
But no, it wasn't enough to design and produce a board where you waste two cards and a load of PCIe lanes. You had to go and one up yourselves with "XL-ATX," a fantasy based form factor which is about as likely to get approved and accepted as, say, shrinking MicroATX and not changing the name. What's even more hilarious is the fact that the mounts have to be unchanged from ATX, because it's a fantasy name. All it does is limit it to cases with extra room below the motherboard mounting. Which is increasingly rare these days.

My hat's off to EVGA. I didn't think this "gamer" gear stupidity could get any worse. But boy, they sure as hell went for it AND succeeded on this one!
Click to expand...

QFT, and I HATE QFTing this because I really love EVGA's products. That said, nobody is ever off the hook for stupid crap, and this is definitely in the stupid crap category. :)
 
heatlesssun said:
Don't forget we have i9 on the way. That's one CPU that will without doubt be able to push 4 GPU's, especially at 1920x1200 and above.

I budgeting for an i9 rig now and its going to cost a truck load. The minimum I'm looking at is $6000. I've looked at options that have hit $10k and then I came back to earth. $6000 is about the max I can spend but I expect a hellacious system for that. This might work nicely. With this wouldn't it be possible to do 3x SLI and use the forth card for physx?
Click to expand...

Dude, with a system like that you had better be using an appropriate display to go with it, H-IPS or bust. If I see a sig with that beastly expensive rig outputting to a TN panel I'm going to shit a brick. :p ;)
 
And dude, on the topic of diminishing returns, why $6000?

I mean, I'm not one to shy away from spending money, the home theater in my sig by itself costs more than all of my computers combined, but what is a $6000 PC getting you that $2000 doesn't? As it stands I can't even justify moving from an E8400 to an i7 920, not after looking over benchmarks and seeing how games are still far more GPU limited than anything else, and i7 at this point is a sidegrade or a downgrade in game performance. Things like video encoding is a different story obviously, but I don't know if you plan on doing more than playing games on this thing.

Not ripping into you, just curious for the sake of discussion. :)
 
Even if he intends to use it for production work I don't see how he spends 6 grand on the rig in any sensible fashion... To reiterate what I said in a previous post, even with an EE processor (usually a waste unless you're a lazy OC'er w/money to burn), and an SSD RAID array (overkill for most), and tri-SLI, and a nice 30" display... I can only come up with a setup that burns thru like $4,000. How he gets to $6,000, let alone the alternate $10,000 config he alludes to, is a mystery to me.
 
Obviously you guys aren't into other hobbies.

DSLR - a good set of glass will set you back $6,000.

Sports cars - a supercharger is at least $3,500, tires might go as high as $500 for one. A turbocharger + labor + tunning might set you back more than $6,000.
 
So what's that got do with anything? He said he was spending $6,000-$10,000 exclusively on a new computer rig... We're not shocked that he's spending $6,000 on his hobby, we're shocked that he's spending $6,000 in computer parts, context is everything.
 
Hulk said:
Obviously you guys aren't into other hobbies.

DSLR - a good set of glass will set you back $6,000.

Sports cars - a supercharger is at least $3,500, tires might go as high as $500 for one. A turbocharger + labor + tunning might set you back more than $6,000.
Click to expand...

I explicitly said that I'm not above spending cash if it makes sense. As I said before, the home theater in my sig is significantly more than all of my computers combined (somewhere in the $17000 range), my DSLR kit is in the thousands and I'm probably going to buy a Canon 5D Mark II body pretty soon if the rumors of 24p video firmware are true, etc etc.

I'm not ripping on him, I'm simply asking about the utility of spending $6000-$10000 on a computer, that's all. It just screams diminishing returns to me, particularly for gaming since there is still little to no (to negative) benefit going from a Penryn C2D to an i7 920. The GPU is still the bottleneck. Is he running a renderfarm, what? I'm just curious, I'd like to know what he's going to do, that's all.
 
LIke i said on the post on Video section:

This is Nvidia's new GTX 380 ;)
 
Hulk said:
Obviously you guys aren't into other hobbies.

DSLR - a good set of glass will set you back $6,000.

Sports cars - a supercharger is at least $3,500, tires might go as high as $500 for one. A turbocharger + labor + tunning might set you back more than $6,000.
Click to expand...


6k for a DSLR?


what kind of cheap junk are you buying? :D

given the funds my D3 rig would easily breech into 5 figures and thats without trying for numbers.

D3
14-24
24-70
70-200
50 f1.4
28 f1.4
SB900 x2 or 3


some pocket wizards...
 
Serpico said:
And dude, on the topic of diminishing returns, why $6000?

I mean, I'm not one to shy away from spending money, the home theater in my sig by itself costs more than all of my computers combined, but what is a $6000 PC getting you that $2000 doesn't? As it stands I can't even justify moving from an E8400 to an i7 920, not after looking over benchmarks and seeing how games are still far more GPU limited than anything else, and i7 at this point is a sidegrade or a downgrade in game performance. Things like video encoding is a different story obviously, but I don't know if you plan on doing more than playing games on this thing.

Not ripping into you, just curious for the sake of discussion. :)
Click to expand...

Well first of all 1 TB of SSD storage is going set me back at least $2k to $3k. Core i9, probably the FIRST extreme CPU in sometime that you'll have to buy to get the benefits.

Looking at 4 GT 300's or whatever they're called, 3x SLI and one for physx/ 3rd monitor.

So just pricing and looking. But the rig will have at least i9, 1 TB SSD, 3x GT 300's, and 12GB RAM.
 
ivesceneenough said:
6k for a DSLR?


what kind of cheap junk are you buying? :D

given the funds my D3 rig would easily breech into 5 figures and thats without trying for numbers.

D3
14-24
24-70
70-200
50 f1.4
28 f1.4
SB900 x2 or 3


some pocket wizards...
Click to expand...

Holy smokes, no comment lol

I use a D40 with kit lens + 35 1.8 lol :eek:
 
heatlesssun said:
Well first of all 1 TB of SSD storage is going set me back at least $2k to $3k. Core i9, probably the FIRST extreme CPU in sometime that you'll have to buy to get the benefits.

Looking at 4 GT 300's or whatever they're called, 3x SLI and one for physx/ 3rd monitor.

So just pricing and looking. But the rig will have at least i9, 1 TB SSD, 3x GT 300's, and 12GB RAM.
Click to expand...

That SSD setup is gonna cost you, yeah, but it'll be smoking fast. :) I'll come right out and say that 3-way SLI is questionable; I haven't seen a single benchmark that's told me it is worth it over 2-way. But I guess if money truly is no object... As for Physx, I have yet to read of any benefits by using a faster card. I use an old 8800GT for Physx (Mirror's Edge and UT3) and it works perfectly in conjunction with my GTX 285. It seems that we have yet to be anywhere close to a ceiling with Physx being held back by hardware. I reckon the minimum Physx capable hardware out there is more than enough to handle it for the foreseeable future. It isn't like GPUs which are the primary bottleneck in gaming and being faster is always better.

Again, not ripping into you, just looking at things that are delivering diminishing or zero returns. What are you planning on doing with it?
 
Hulk said:
Holy smokes, no comment lol

I use a D40 with kit lens + 35 1.8 lol :eek:
Click to expand...

I guess i should say, thats my fantasy rig. i didnt catch that first time through. haha

but what i do have:
d70
d200
18-70 3.5-5.6
80-200- 2.8 (old push pull)
50 1.8
35 f2.0 AIS
SB800 x2
SB600
 
heatlesssun said:
Well first of all 1 TB of SSD storage is going set me back at least $2k to $3k. Core i9, probably the FIRST extreme CPU in sometime that you'll have to buy to get the benefits.

Looking at 4 GT 300's or whatever they're called, 3x SLI and one for physx/ 3rd monitor.

So just pricing and looking. But the rig will have at least i9, 1 TB SSD, 3x GT 300's, and 12GB RAM.
Click to expand...

heatlesssun said:
I would like to see some benchmarks on this but yeah. I'm pricing my rig out now. And its going to be expensive, I'm looking at close to $10k for what I want. I doubt I'll actually come anywhere near that but we'll see. I really would love 1 TB RAID0 SSD storage, that alone is about $2400, but hopefully we'll see some step drops but I think we're looking for at least another 2 to 3 years before SSD are "affordable".
Click to expand...

That's inane... If you want a SSD right now then get an 80GB X25-M, or splurge on the 160GB version, maybe two of them in RAID if you've got money to burn... Anything more than that is simply a waste of time/resources unless you're doing some mission-critical stuff for your job or something. Two of the 160GB drives is still gonna run you $1,000, but 320GB should be more than enough for your OS and programs regardless of what type of user you are.

There's no reason to keep ALL your data on SSD right now... If you're working on a specific project/file and want the extra speed then just move it to the SSD 'till you're done.

As for the 4x GT300... Wtfever, you do realize that even a lowly 9800GT is more than capable enough of handling PhysX duties no? Regardless, even Tri-SLI is questionable unless you're running a 30", and if you're not it's just plain silly.
 
And SSDs won't live that long from what I understand. Why would you want a 1 tier SSD? >> Just get some SATA Drives.
 
Dunno what your source is, but most of the SSD selling today will probably be tossed out by users (who upgrade to something larger/faster) long before they ever start to die/decay naturally... They'll probably out-last your storage HDD if nothing else.
 
I want to know how they solved the option ROM issue. 4 video cards is a bit much to handle in that department.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top