NVIDIA Quad SLI Interview

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FrgMstr

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NVIDIA Quad SLI Interview - We have an exclusive interview with NVIDIA about their launch into true enthusiast Quad SLI. Today marks the release of the beta driver with official DIY Quad SLI support. We ask some tough questions and get no-nonsense answers that should help you make your Quad SLI decision.

Please give the interview a read and leave your comments. If you have any other questions you would like to ask about Quad SLI, please post them here and if we can get enough together that have merit we will ask for another interview on the subject.

Thanks!
 
Great job as usual [H]!

The sweet spot for Quad SLI on today’s hottest games (F.E.A.R, Quake 4, Prey, Battlefield 2, Far Cry, Doom 3, Half-Life 2 Lost Coast, etc.) is 2560x1600 with SLI8x antialiasing and 16x anisotropic filtering. At this setting, you will see from 30% to 80%+ gains compared to dual GeForce 7900 GTX graphics cards.
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Wow, I did not expect those kind of percentages. I'm sure you Dell 30" ers out there will appreciate that.
 
I am curious as to why the cards do not exhaust most, if not all, the generated heat out the back of the case?

Many nF4 motherboards have the chipset located in front, and between, the 8x8 or 16x16 PCIe slots. Logic dictates that if the chipset fan is pulling air from the immediate area where either a single or dual 7950GX2s exhausts their generated heat then chipset temps would also increase.
 
Interesting read, great job [H]!

Question: I had a look at the PSU list on the nVidia website and I'm wondering...is 700W a recommended minimum for a Quad-SLi setup? I've been looking around at other sites and such, and some boutique dealers like Alienware are only putting in 700W PSUs in their Quad SLi systems...is 700W enough, or is this a case of 'you-must-have-X amount of power-or else you're screwed'?
 
AceGoober said:
I am curious as to why the cards do not exhaust most, if not all, the generated heat out the back of the case?

Many nF4 motherboards have the chipset located in front, and between, the 8x8 or 16x16 PCIe slots. Logic dictates that if the chipset fan is pulling air from the immediate area where either a single or dual 7950GX2s exhausts their generated heat then chipset temps would also increase.
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I think the reasoning is that they need abient temperature air coming in to cool their GPUs. If you are pulling air in that is already 110F+ it makes it a bit harder to cool your equipment. That said, we see ATI do it, so there is some obvious differentiation here.

But that is a good questions for a follow up.
 
DoomRulz said:
Interesting read, great job [H]!

Question: I had a look at the PSU list on the nVidia website and I'm wondering...is 700W a recommended minimum for a Quad-SLi setup? I've been looking around at other sites and such, and some boutique dealers like Alienware are only putting in 700W PSUs in their Quad SLi systems...is 700W enough, or is this a case of 'you-must-have-X amount of power-or else you're screwed'?
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From what NVIDIA is telling us, and their testign specs, 700W should be fine. I honestly don't think NVIDIA is going to steer you towards underpowering and possibly damaging the card as I am sure they are not cheap to RMA.
 
Great read! Looking at their Quad-SLI approved list of power supplies, I saw an entry for a FSP BoosterX 3 2x150W 5.25" bay mount power supply. Anyone have one of these or know of a review of it? My only concern is that Nvidia says the 7950 GX2 cards push 142W per board, 284W total. This bay mount PS would be nearly maxed out on its 150W per rail. Would this be a big issue running stock and would this pretty much hang up any OC chances?
 
Great job, [H]! Here are two questions:

What about that motherboard with four PCI-E slots? Could that be used to do quad-SLI with four 7900GTX's?

Will they continue to release "X2" cards along with the single card for each new generation or refresh?
 
I don't see this board on the approved Quad-SLI list. I'm running Quad on it now and I must say the performance is nowhere near my expectations. My previous setup with dual 7900GTX's was MUCH more powerful at 1920x1200, and I'm wondering if I'm not truly running in Quad at all... I may not even be running more than one GPU... Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
 
DoomRulz said:
lol, well, I HOPE not :p

2nd question; concerning RAM: the list of SLi certified RAM is rather short...I'm getting the following type of RAM in my new rig:

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=18595

Is this SLi certified? Or at the very least, will it work? :confused:

Oh, and how does RAM affect SLi? What difference does it make as far as choice of RAM is concerned?
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Well this is where NVIDIA slapping the SLI logo on everything gets a bit confusing. The SLI on the ram means that 590 SLI motherboards that have a correctly programmed BIOS can use the additional EPP settings on the stick of RAM to auto overclock the ram with the right components. So really any ram can be used, you just wont get the EPP benefits.
 
ir0nw0lf said:
Great read! Looking at their Quad-SLI approved list of power supplies, I saw an entry for a FSP BoosterX 3 2x150W 5.25" bay mount power supply. Anyone have one of these or know of a review of it? My only concern is that Nvidia says the 7950 GX2 cards push 142W per board, 284W total. This bay mount PS would be nearly maxed out on its 150W per rail. Would this be a big issue running stock and would this pretty much hang up any OC chances?
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This is just my opininion, but I would suggest not going this route. Make sure you have enough power for these guys. Trying to save money on power is not going to give you the win with these setups.

I purchased two 750 watt SLI certified PSUs this week for future 7950 GX2 testing. Half assing your power is just going to bite you in the end IMO.
 
HOCP4ME said:
Great job, [H]! Here are two questions:

What about that motherboard with four PCI-E slots? Could that be used to do quad-SLI with four 7900GTX's?

Will they continue to release "X2" cards along with the single card for each new generation or refresh?
Click to expand...

I can answer both of those for you.

"We don't comment on future products."

That said, with the right drivers Octo SLI should be doable although as noted NVIDIA is currently running into some DX9 limitations so if you see anything like this, it would likely be a while.....
 
From article:

"It turns out that DX9 doesn't support queuing of enough frames using standard D3D API programming practices (that would attain WHQL certification) to effectively support high-performance 4-way AFR mode used in Quad systems. Quad SLI instead uses "AFR of SFR" for many D3D games. In the future with DX10, we expect 4-way AFR to work as effectively as it does with OpenGL today."

I think this statement may be misleading in that they imply (or some may imply) that the current quad SLi will work with Dx10. Are these cards HDCP certified to work with Vista?

Ok, I like the article, however, I wish you would have asked about Dx10.
Is it still wait and see? I know were still a good 6 months off from Vista and Dx10, but I am abstaining from buying any hardware short of hard drives until that time comes and goes.

Why should I spend over $1,200 on video cards that will not support Dx10? :confused:

If I am way off base please correct me.
 
GodFodder said:
I don't see this board on the approved Quad-SLI list. I'm running Quad on it now and I must say the performance is nowhere near my expectations. My previous setup with dual 7900GTX's was MUCH more powerful at 1920x1200, and I'm wondering if I'm not truly running in Quad at all... I may not even be running more than one GPU... Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
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We ran into the same issues with our P5B Deluxe. Quad would not work. We we were suspicious as things did not feel right and we compared to a single 7900 GTX and found our performance worse than the single card. So what you are feeling from the gameplay being retarded might be exactly right.
 
JOESKURTU said:
From article:

"It turns out that DX9 doesn't support queuing of enough frames using standard D3D API programming practices (that would attain WHQL certification) to effectively support high-performance 4-way AFR mode used in Quad systems. Quad SLI instead uses "AFR of SFR" for many D3D games. In the future with DX10, we expect 4-way AFR to work as effectively as it does with OpenGL today."

I think this statement may be misleading in that they imply (or some may imply) that the current quad SLi will work with Dx10. Are these cards HDCP certified to work with Vista?

Ok, I like the article, however, I wish you would have asked about Dx10.
Is it still wait and see? I know were still a good 6 months off from Vista and Dx10, but I am abstaining from buying any hardware short of hard drives until that time comes and goes.

Why should I spend over $1,200 on video cards that will not support Dx10? :confused:

If I am way off base please correct me.
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GX2 does in fact feature HDCP support, but it is not a DX10 card. That will come with the next-gen cards.

If you want to wait for DX10, then don't buy Quad SLI now. DX10 is still not 100% for February of 2007.
 
Well with only 4 to 6 months away from DirectX10 i must force myself to hold off, But if Quad SLI on DirectX10 capaable cards is the future thats gonna be sweet. Grab those and a nice Conroe and youd be set.
 
AceGoober said:
I am curious as to why the cards do not exhaust most, if not all, the generated heat out the back of the case?

Many nF4 motherboards have the chipset located in front, and between, the 8x8 or 16x16 PCIe slots. Logic dictates that if the chipset fan is pulling air from the immediate area where either a single or dual 7950GX2s exhausts their generated heat then chipset temps would also increase.
Click to expand...

I have an SLI setup (two 6600 GT Top series ASUS cards) and I've been looking for some type of exhaust setup that would work well. The problem is that with the bridging piece of hardware between the cards, there is no room to put a fan in between the two cards. Also you can't put a slot fan above the top card as there is no slot there to put it. So you are left with adding another 80 or 120 mm fan higher up near the processor, or you can do what i did. I have a lian-li tower and I found out that lian-li has a blower fan that mounts right i front of the two cards and pulls the heat off the cards and exhausts it right out the back. The part has a number which is BS-01 Blower Fan, i found it at www.performance-pcs.com, and it is only about 25 bucks and they'll ship it via USPS at a very reasonable cost. I also added a 5.25 inch perforated bay cover to allow it to pull in some more cool fresh air from the front( this was my buddy Kent's idea, he installs hvac systems in houses). Now my temp for my two cards have dropped by 20 degrees from the mid 90's to the low 70's at load. I am very happy with this blower kit and it looks fancy to boot (if you have a see through side panel). I hope this answers some questions about one way to pull heat off of the SLI setup. I don't know how much it would help with QUAD SLI but by the sounds of it with the hot air still being in the tower, this could help with all that heat.
 
SCETR said:
I have an SLI setup (two 6600 GT Top series ASUS cards) and I've been looking for some type of exhaust setup that would work well......<snip>
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I would love to see pictures of what exactly you have going on.
 
Great article. All killer and no filler.

I guess my PC P&C 510 SLI is considered pretty pitiful these days. Man 1 KW of power for those bad boys......Im going to need another line to the house.
 
Excellent, I love these Q and A articles. I am a little disappointed in that in appears as though my current setup will never reach its full potential do to DX 9 limitations? Or did i miss understand? Oh man what about the the guys who dropped 10 k on the Dell machines.

I can always will mine to my kid and go DX10 Quad but what about the propriatary nature of the Dell rigs?
 
jacuzz1 said:
Excellent, I love these Q and A articles. I am a little disappointed in that in appears as though my current setup will never reach its full potential do to DX 9 limitations? Or did i miss understand? Oh man what about the the guys who dropped 10 k on the Dell machines.

I can always will mine to my kid and go DX10 Quad but what about the propriatary nature of the Dell rigs?
Click to expand...


The new XPS 700 that will launch on the 27th will be fully ATX compliant. Nothing proprietary about it, and that is straight from the mouth of Michael Dell. As for thse that bought the 7800 / workstation based Quad SLI, I doubt there will be much room for changing those boxes, but I got a feeling that the folks that dropped the coin on those boxes dont much care. :)
 
Very good read, so when are we gonna get some [H]ard Benchmarks for Quad SLi with the new now official quad SLi beta driver? I would love to see what Kyle and Brent Find after some real world testing. :D
 
Lord_Exodia said:
Very good read, so when are we gonna get some [H]ard Benchmarks for Quad SLi with the new now official quad SLi beta driver? I would love to see what Kyle and Brent Find after some real world testing. :D
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I doubt we will cover it till we see it coming out of beta. Still a lot of things to be fixed most likely.

I would suggest reading these two articles if you have missed them.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA4OSwsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA4MywxMiwsaGVudGh1c2lhc3Q=
 
Lord_Exodia said:
Very good read, so when are we gonna get some [H]ard Benchmarks for Quad SLi with the new now official quad SLi beta driver? I would love to see what Kyle and Brent Find after some real world testing. :D
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Kyle is right, i am about to dive in with some games (I got a bsod on the initial install of the beta driver ) things seem stable now and its time to do some gaming and see if i got a boost in performance. Beta is beta lol..............
 
Great read Kyle. Was glad to see my questions get answered. Wish they could have used 1.1ns memory instead of the 1.4ns and just ran it way short of it's full ability. Then, there would have been a lot of headroom for those watercooling.
 
Answers provided by Chris Daniel, Product Manager, NVIDIA SLI
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I want to give Mr. Chris Daniel a GIANT award for being so straightforward and helpful. It's rare that someone talking to websites doesn't give generic PR. This is good PR work which gives specific technical information and yet maintains the company "message."

Kudos!
 
The Dell 700s being standard ATX coming straight from Michael Dell's mouth doesn't mean that company has gotten any better at getting new drivers to their clients. This XPS I am typing this on has the latest Dell Nvidia drivers, from November. Standard Forceware drivers will not load. This seems like a dicey item to get with drivers being so important and Dell's usual lack of effort to qualify new drivers for their proprietary "Nvidia for Dell" parts.

Secondly, for DIY I haven't seen a Conroe compatible MB capable of Quad-SLI. With so many games reportedly CPU capped the Conroe becomes am important factor. Does AMD (and will AMD after the 27th) still have the best processor available for Quad SLI systems?

As stated earlier in this post, the Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe has not been able to run in Quad-SLI. What Conroe/Quad-SLI option is there if that is the case?

Bo
 
I am also interested in seeing pics of this along with detail relating to the configuration of your computer pertaining to cooling. And, if possible, decible readings from various points in and around the chassis. I'll exptrapolate the data and develop my own conclusion whether or not this route would fit my, or my customer's, needs.
Click to expand...

I use the Antec P150 (which now comes in Black as the "Solo" but with no PS) and it works well because the 'squirrel' fan from Silver Stone will mount vertically next to the PCI slots providing an exhaust in that lower area of the ATX case which tends to collect heat. The fan is the FX121. It was designed to fit in a shuttle I believe but it works well with the P150 as well.

Bo
 
RogerX said:
I want to give Mr. Chris Daniel a GIANT award for being so straightforward and helpful. It's rare that someone talking to websites doesn't give generic PR. This is good PR work which gives specific technical information and yet maintains the company "message."

Kudos!
Click to expand...

QFT. I hate interviews that go like this:

"How much of a performance increase will we see with the product?"

"Enough to justify your purchase of it."

"Who would benefit from this technology?"

"Anyone who can afford it."

"We've heard of users having problems with this. What do you have to say about that?"

"As always, we're working to fix these problems and improve our customer satisfaction."

"How does this work?"

"Better than our competitor."

:rolleyes:

I'm glad Mr. Daniel actually gave us some real answers here. Great job!
 
yea, i stopped reading most interviews now cuz thats exactly what they are. PR crap.

this one did give some half decent answers.
 
Noetic said:
Which 750watters are you planning on purchasing? My Fortron 700watt works, however it does not yield as stable of an o/c with my opty 170 as the Antec 550watt which I had used previously.
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SeaSonic SLI certified from Newegg.
 
Hey guys, I think I may be able to get you all some pics this weekend at the big gaming event here in Edmonton, AB. I don't own a digital camera (believe it or not), so I will borrow one. I will take pictures of the additional hardware I added (including the drilling in the back). I don't have any instruments to measure decibel readings though, so I can't help you on that one. I will talk to a buddy of mine at a computer store to see if he has some decibal reading instruments.

By the way, just to plug the event I am attending, it is called Fragapalooza (www.fragapalooza.com) and is in its 10th year. It certainly isn't as big as Quakecon but there are about 1000 pc's all connected and Intel and Nvidia and others are sponsoring.
 
hmm so the sweet spot is 8xaa 16xaf at 2560x1600 in fear ... etc .. i mean i was messing around with cs source at 2560x1600 @ 8xaa and 16af .. i was getting dips into the 40 fps range .. 16xaa and i was hanging around 40 all the time .. 32xaa and i was around 12 fps lol ..

anyone else mess around with 8xaa ?
 
jetjaguar said:
hmm so the sweet spot is 8xaa 16xaf at 2560x1600 in fear ... etc .. i mean i was messing around with cs source at 2560x1600 @ 8xaa and 16af .. i was getting dips into the 40 fps range .. 16xaa and i was hanging around 40 all the time .. 32xaa and i was around 12 fps lol ..

anyone else mess around with 8xaa ?
Click to expand...


As i undersatand it 8x aa is broken.
 
hmm so what type of fps are u guys getting in cs source or hl2 or fear with 8x aa and 16xaa ? at 2560x1600
 
Noetic said:
Thank you, however I am not seeing anything over 600 watts from them
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My bad, it was a Silver Stone, last 600s I bought were Seasonics.....
 
After reading through this article, I began to wonder if Quad SLI will require two full x16 PCI-E lanes for each 7950GX2 to get optimal performance. It seems to make sense if you consider that a 7950GX2 is like two 7900 GPUs on one video card and when run on a single PCI-E x 16 slot the bandwith is divided between the two evenly (x8, x8). When of course SLI is enabled on an older NF4 SLI motherboard the bandwidth is already split with x 8 bandwidth for each slot. Does this mean that when running Quad SLI on an older Nf4 SLI Motherboard that each 7950GX2 will have to split the bandwidth yet again for each GPU (x4, x4)? If this is true, will these cards be starved for bandwidth and therefore perform in a less than optimal manner?
 
Matthews316 said:
After reading through this article, I began to wonder if Quad SLI will require two full x16 PCI-E lanes for each 7950GX2 to get optimal performance. It seems to make sense if you consider that a 7950GX2 is like two 7900 GPUs on one video card and when run on a single PCI-E x 16 slot the bandwith is divided between the two evenly (x8, x8). When of course SLI is enabled on an older NF4 SLI motherboard the bandwidth is already split with x 8 bandwidth for each slot. Does this mean that when running Quad SLI on an older Nf4 SLI Motherboard that each 7950GX2 will have to split the bandwidth yet again for each GPU (x4, x4)? If this is true, will these cards be starved for bandwidth and therefore perform in a less than optimal manner?
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that Nvidia recommends a 32xSLI motherboard for QuadSLI...I think it's in the interview
 
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