It's a matter of observing trends... not just looking at this one article and it's conclusions.
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NVIDIA 3-Way SLI and AMD Tri-Fire Redux @ [H]
- Thread starter FrgMstr
- Start date
Indeed. The reason I read [H] reviews is the low-BS factor.
My take away: NV has a noticeable edge on bleeding edge over-clocked rigs that you'll pay dearly for. AMD has the value advantage in spades and will yield better perf on rigs people are most likely to actually own.
Not all gamers run over-clocked monsters. Some of us build rigs right behind the bleeding edge and aim for the value
erf sweetspot. Right now that is dominated by AMD GPUs.
Porter_
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that's fine and dandy but i disagree with the way you're interpreting the trends. to me it's obvious that they revisited this out of their own curiosity and to satisfy their readers. i see no bias in [H]'s reviews. i'm not stating this because i happen to be posting on their forums, it's just the way i see it. frankly i can't see how anyone finds bias in their reviews because their recommendations fluctuate with each generation of gpu's, based on real results.
If they are driver level extras then no its still not worth it.
Very nicely done article......as always.
I applaud the effort and looking into what people were saying about the first article.
Now I am going to be looking to build a new system I guess.....
Isn't that X79 board coming out soon?
Q4 likely. Im itching to upgrade and have money set aside for a biggie. Debating on P67 or wait for X79
Love the follow up. But I must say, I'm absolutely flabbergasted that people would think there's no difference between a 3.6GHZ Core I7 920 and a 4.8GHz Core I7 2600k. The cpu is all and all faster in every single way, so if it can get info to the cards quicker, why wouldn't we see a performance increase? Especially, when we're benching 3x video cards. I'm honestly surprised AMD performed about the same or worse (in one game) but they might be at their limits, (or it's the NF200 controller, or some CAP issue, as others have stated... *shrugs*.)
Anyway, it only cements my decision to sell the GTX465 I have and get a 6950 or three.
Great job Kyle and Brent. Also, can't wait for the Quads review.
Anyway, it only cements my decision to sell the GTX465 I have and get a 6950 or three.
Great job Kyle and Brent. Also, can't wait for the Quads review.
I am impressed by your honesty and investigating reader's concerns. I had not revisited the original thread after the first few pages, so I had no idea another article was coming.
I also voiced the CPU limitation for the single video card reviews, and my posts went ignored. With the affordability of the sandy bridge systems, I will again suggest that you use a sandy bridge chip for all video card reviews. The i7 920 at 3.6Ghz has shown its usefulness, but a new 2500k + motherboard are only $400, which is more than affordable for your enthusiast readers.
I also voiced the CPU limitation for the single video card reviews, and my posts went ignored. With the affordability of the sandy bridge systems, I will again suggest that you use a sandy bridge chip for all video card reviews. The i7 920 at 3.6Ghz has shown its usefulness, but a new 2500k + motherboard are only $400, which is more than affordable for your enthusiast readers.
Kyle and Brent, that was a great followup to the article. I hope you find out soon from ATI why F1 2010 saw such negative scaling when jumping to the new testing platform. Out of curiosity, how are you guys planning on testing the quad vs. quad? I can just see Brent knocking out the power within an 8 block radius as soon as he flips the switch on the quad Fermi rig
You are definately damn right about that. Not all of us are comfortable in overclocking CPU's to the bleeding edge as many of us just want a nice performance boost without worrying about all the instability issues that you could run into. I usually only overclock as far as a processor will let me go on stock voltage.
Indeed. The reason I read [H] reviews is the low-BS factor.
My take away: NV has a noticeable edge on bleeding edge over-clocked rigs that you'll pay dearly for. AMD has the value advantage in spades and will yield better perf on rigs people are most likely to actually own.
Not all gamers run over-clocked monsters. Some of us build rigs right behind the bleeding edge and aim for the value
You are definately damn right about that. Not all of us are comfortable in overclocking CPU's to the bleeding edge as many of us just want a nice performance boost without worrying about all the instability issues that you could run into. I usually only overclock as far as a processor will let me go on stock voltage.
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The only thing we are bias towards is value. But what we suggest you can take it or you can leave it, all the data is there for you to make your own conclusions should they be different than ours.
Keep in mind in this thread alone we have been called out for being bias for NVIDIA and for AMD. That just makes me think we are getting it right.
causticspill
Limp Gawd
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Great set of articles. Do I have a [H]igh end system or the budget for one? No, but I enjoy seeing what these top-tier rigs can do. Plus, I get to learn something too- in this instance so does [H], and likely, even AMD and nVidia.
The candor and humility from Kyle and Brent is also impressive. Surprising? No, but impressive.
The candor and humility from Kyle and Brent is also impressive. Surprising? No, but impressive.
D
Deleted whining member 223597
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Kyle and Brent, that was a great followup to the article. I hope you find out soon from ATI why F1 2010 saw such negative scaling when jumping to the new testing platform. Out of curiosity, how are you guys planning on testing the quad vs. quad? I can just see Brent knocking out the power within an 8 block radius as soon as he flips the switch on the quad Fermi rig
You are definately damn right about that. Not all of us are comfortable in overclocking CPU's to the bleeding edge as many of us just want a nice performance boost without worrying about all the instability issues that you could run into. I usually only overclock as far as a processor will let me go on stock voltage.
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...-590-quad-sli-review-power-temp-noise-oc.html
http://www.guru3d.com/article/his-radeon-hd-6990-crossfire-review/9
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-590-sli-review/3
Lies? Stupid? Can we please express ourselves a bit better? This language is flame bait at best. Be better than that. Thanks. - Kyle
On another note, great review and thanks for revisting it. It shows that AMD is the best choice for most of us who do no-mild OC's. It also shows that AMDs cards are at their max with the current CPUs and therefore more practical, while Nvidias seem to still be limited by current CPUs with really high overclocks which makes them less practical.
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Who is the hell is spreading lies? I want to know because i'm just joking around given the image a certain piece of silicon has.
Also who said anything about buying a budget CPU? I only commented on the fact that not all of us buy a processor and overclock it to within an inch of its life. Notice no mention in my original post was mentioned of what kind of cpu whether budget or not. Read the post before drawing paranoid conclusions like some conspiracy theroist.
Also who said anything about buying a budget CPU? I only commented on the fact that not all of us buy a processor and overclock it to within an inch of its life. Notice no mention in my original post was mentioned of what kind of cpu whether budget or not. Read the post before drawing paranoid conclusions like some conspiracy theroist.
I never said anything about HARDOCP fudging results... the numbers are numbers and people will come to their own conclusions based on them. I take some issue with the fact that this entire line of articles are not apples to apples comparisons (2x AMD cards versus 3x NVIDIA cards)*** and that there seems to be an ongoing trend that when NVIDIA takes the lead the topic is dropped (as if that was the preconceived conclusion) and when AMD takes the lead the topic is "Redux" over and over again. Whether that is because the majority of readers are NVIDIA fans (and as such, beg HARDOCP to revisit the conclusions) or that certain staff members are the biased ones the result is the same... an NVIDIA bias. *shrug*
I could not really care less who is on top this week... it's just a pattern I've noticed and I don't expect everyone to have noticed (and I am certainly NOT making any assumptions about HARDOCP staff being intentionally malicious in any way).
***traditionally 3x physical cards will outperform 1x dual GPU card + 1 single GPU card...
Very interesting article and a HUGE thumb ups for listening to the community and revisiting results.
I am pretty happy with my 4.4GHz i7 / GTX580 SLI combo, but I have on occasion debated if picking up a 3rd 580 might be worth it. Your first article really put the brakes on that - but it looks like it may be a worthwhile upgrade afterall.
I am pretty happy with my 4.4GHz i7 / GTX580 SLI combo, but I have on occasion debated if picking up a 3rd 580 might be worth it. Your first article really put the brakes on that - but it looks like it may be a worthwhile upgrade afterall.
TwistedAegis
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I think the bias is to expect a setup that costs $500 more to outperform the cheaper setup; further, the 3 seperate cards should, as you say, beat a dual + 1 setup. It isn't that nVidia won, thus it is the right conclusion. It is the logical conclusion based on the two points above.
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Kyle, I noticed that you guys have had some holes in the schedule since you are now working on a quad vs. quad article along with planning to revisit 3x vs 3x afterwards. Have you reviewers been given any information as to when you "might" start recieving ES or preview samples of a certain Sunnyvale based institution's upcoming piece of slicon that might plug into a motherboard with a certain socket with a + on it?
No comment.
I was just hoping for a yes or no answer.
Glad to see you guys finally start upping the CPU frequencies.
I wouldn't mind seeing some CPU usage graphs along with this. Is this more along the lines of SuperPi where it's not about computation, it's just about pure Ghz that gives better results?
I wouldn't mind seeing some CPU usage graphs along with this. Is this more along the lines of SuperPi where it's not about computation, it's just about pure Ghz that gives better results?
Lord_Exodia
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This is what I initially expected. The world is how I thought it was. Nvidia has always been more cpu dependent but since most people with uber high end videocards have a uber high end setup this was never really proven until now. AMD should lose performance in multicard until the vram runs out on nvidia hardware. Value and bang buck still favors AMD.
I knew beforehand that Nvidia shines best on faster cpu's and can truly spread it's wings. I remember commenting way back on a GTX 560 ti review about how it fared much better against the 6870 with a faster cpu as many other websites had shown but anyhow. ..
This leaves me with several known facts and some unanswered questions
Known Facts
AMD still has the best value hands down in price/performance
3 6970 could have been more competitive here (or 3 unlocked 6950s)
AMD still shines in terms of power consumption
AMD now can be considered more cpu efficient as well!!
Unanswered
Did nvidia's boost come from the faster cpu alone or did the 3rd card not being limited to 4x play a role here. If so, how much of a role did the pcie lane play vs the increase in processing power?
I knew beforehand that Nvidia shines best on faster cpu's and can truly spread it's wings. I remember commenting way back on a GTX 560 ti review about how it fared much better against the 6870 with a faster cpu as many other websites had shown but anyhow. ..
This leaves me with several known facts and some unanswered questions
Known Facts
AMD still has the best value hands down in price/performance
3 6970 could have been more competitive here (or 3 unlocked 6950s)
AMD still shines in terms of power consumption
AMD now can be considered more cpu efficient as well!!
Unanswered
Did nvidia's boost come from the faster cpu alone or did the 3rd card not being limited to 4x play a role here. If so, how much of a role did the pcie lane play vs the increase in processing power?
7Upping the frequencies is good for raw power ... but i think we all know that we should do reviews on lower frequencies right? I mean ... overclockers are a niche ...
Most users will just play with everything at stock ... or at low overclocks ...
So... it's like painting everything pink to look so wonderful ... but in the end... when someone gets the same hardware and test it on lower performance systems... they get really "WTF?"
So ... i think [H] does a nice job reviewing with the 3.6Ghz system ...
Most users will just play with everything at stock ... or at low overclocks ...
So... it's like painting everything pink to look so wonderful ... but in the end... when someone gets the same hardware and test it on lower performance systems... they get really "WTF?"
So ... i think [H] does a nice job reviewing with the 3.6Ghz system ...
fentzinator
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Can't wait for 3- 6970 tests. Will be interesting to see if I should pick up another 6970! Great review by the way.
7Upping the frequencies is good for raw power ... but i think we all know that we should do reviews on lower frequencies right? I mean ... overclockers are a niche ...
Most users will just play with everything at stock ... or at low overclocks ...
So... it's like painting everything pink to look so wonderful ... but in the end... when someone gets the same hardware and test it on lower performance systems... they get really "WTF?"
So ... i think [H] does a nice job reviewing with the 3.6Ghz system ...
I don't think anyone building the set ups mentioned in this review are your average Joe users.
These set ups are for the Extreme gamers who also happen to be Overclocking enthusiasts.
Like really, who's going to get 3 x 580's and run their CPU at stock?
KaptainKhaos
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kyle\brent Any feedback on performance at default clock speeds on the 2600k system ? Guess i'm trying to dig at how much the newer platform p67/2660k played in the difference's you've seen. thanx
TwistedAegis
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From the prior review thread, it looks like Kyle OC'ed the computer prior to sending it to Brent, so the reviewed cards never touched the machine at stock speeds.
Zarathustra[H];1037202822 said:
That notion was disproven awhile ago, though. Guru3D did a 580 3-way SLI review a few months back at 25x16 and its graphs clearly illustrated a CPU bottleneck in some games (using a highly OC'd i7, IIRC).
KaptainKhaos
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would be interesting to know at what point cpu wise a gtx 580 tri-fire solution unleashes its potentially or does it scale linearly with increased mhz , guess i might just have to do some of my own testing Also would be easy to test at default clocks although that's not very [H].
Also would be easy to test at default clocks although that's not very [H].No, that would be a very much mistaken upgrade. For resolutions above 1600p, you'll want 2GB vRAM, especially with the kind of cash you'd be spending where you'd expect to enable copious AA at will.
So an AMD solution or the 580 3GB.
Michaelius
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I wonder if it's like that on all OSes Vista/win 7 32/64?
D
Deleted whining member 223597
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My bad didn't know you were joking. Your username made it a bit more difficult to know if you were joking or not, my bad
Its kinda interesting that some people are still not content with the tests. Cmon guys its been redone with a faster CPU just like you requested and your still not happy, I guess its hard to please people these days.
As I said before...It shows that AMD is the best choice for most of us who do no-mild OC's. It also shows that AMDs cards are at their max with the current CPUs and therefore more practical, while Nvidias seem to still be limited by current CPUs with really high overclocks which makes them less practical.
Don't worry as you're okay. I put a at the end of the post to signify that I was joking, considering that Brett joked in the previous thread about how his new 4.8ghz test bed was going to cause a power outage or something.
at the end of the post to signify that I was joking, considering that Brett joked in the previous thread about how his new 4.8ghz test bed was going to cause a power outage or something.My bad didn't know you were joking. Your username made it a bit more difficult to know if you were joking or not, my bad
Its kinda interesting that some people are still not content with the tests. Cmon guys its been redone with a faster CPU just like you requested and your still not happy, I guess its hard to please people these days.
As I said before...It shows that AMD is the best choice for most of us who do no-mild OC's. It also shows that AMDs cards are at their max with the current CPUs and therefore more practical, while Nvidias seem to still be limited by current CPUs with really high overclocks which makes them less practical.
TwistedAegis
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Even if you're OC'ing to the bleeding edge, unless you want to spend $500 for an average of ~10% on the 5 games tested here, the AMD solution is the better choice. Keep in mind too that if you went 3x6970 it would narrow that gap even further, plus give you the extra 500MB per card for more IQ.
But really, for $100 cheaper you can get 4x6970s, each with the larger framebuffer, for the same price as 3x580s. It's almost $300 cheaper if you get the 3GB 580s.
Prices using Newegg's lowest price for each card.
3x580: $1470
3x580(3GB): $1620
4x6970: $1360
4x6950: $1020 (HOLY CRAP now there is value!)
So really, unless money is no object and you plan on going quad-SLI for the highest end rig possible, why do 3x580? Doesn't make any sense to me from either a cost or a performance perspective, either do tri-fire or quad-fire 6970 for less. Shoot, if you go unlocked 6950s...it's just ridiculous the extra power you get for the $ from AMD this generation.
I still think something is really wrong here.
Why does AMD cards not getting faster, (and sometimes even getting slower!), with a faster CPU speed, like Nvidia's cards? It's not logical at all. I would really like someone to come out with a logical answer to that.
Why does F1 getting SLOWER with a faster CPU speed? It's not logical at all.
My Quad-Fire set-up is not behaving like that on my Maximus IV P67.
I hope AMD will comment on those strange results.
Why does AMD cards not getting faster, (and sometimes even getting slower!), with a faster CPU speed, like Nvidia's cards? It's not logical at all. I would really like someone to come out with a logical answer to that.
Why does F1 getting SLOWER with a faster CPU speed? It's not logical at all.
My Quad-Fire set-up is not behaving like that on my Maximus IV P67.
I hope AMD will comment on those strange results.