Tri-Sli Surround

[poo417]

Hi All

I was wondering if any of the guys with tri 470/ 480's could give me an idea of the kind of scaling and FPS they are getting over normal sli if possible. I am looking at replacing my 5970 with either 3 x 470's or 3 x 480's (and new PS!) depending on performance. I had convinced my self I could wait until either a proper refresh for fermi or HD6 was out but can't . I have seen some gpu use screen shots but no actual fps or scaling. I have seen some good scaling at 25x16 so I assume it is also good at 5760x 10/12.

Many thanks

 

[yuplis3d]

Just do it

From my experience i moved from eyefinity to surround, and surround is better for my taste, why?

Display port flickering is gone for good, tryied active DVI and VGA adapters and both had diferent issues, that 3rd screen output is just random shizin!.
Better drivers overall, battlefield bad company 2 had random crashes with eyefinity, so far 0 crashes with nv surround, scales pretty good, more power yea but the mininum FPS is better, so smoother experience overall.

i only have 2 470, don't think i really need a 3rd one atm everything is running above 40 fps, my res is 6080X1200.

Games, BFBC2 with is the most that i play, SC2 doesn't support 3ple display, World of warcraft, is like 60 fps on raids drops to like 40, they only games that i believe will benefit for a 3ple sli are metro 2033 and just cause 2. the rest of the games that i have tried are running fine with 2 sli,
the power consumption is around 600sh watts on full load.

also on this forum i read they were having issues with 3sli on BFBC2 dunno for sure but ill like the post so you can tell by yourself

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=325882

Do it you wont regret it. is smoother at the end.

 

[Dan_D]

Well I'm thinking about replacing my Radeon HD 5970 with a pair of GeForce GTX 480's in SLI. I've been looking into multi-GPU scaling for both ATI and NVIDIA and everything I've seen points to a second Radeon HD 5970 being a waste of money. That's unfortunate, but there it is. So on the NVIDIA side it seems to me that 3-Way SLI is scaling about like it usually does. Only at extremely high resolution is it of any use and even then its good for about a 20%-30% increase over 2-Way SLI. In other words you do get something for your money, but that third card doesn't give you much bang for your buck over standard 2-Way SLI configurations.

 

[poo417]

Just do it

From my experience i moved from eyefinity to surround, and surround is better for my taste, why?

Display port flickering is gone for good, tryied active DVI and VGA adapters and both had diferent issues, that 3rd screen output is just random shizin!.
Better drivers overall, battlefield bad company 2 had random crashes with eyefinity, so far 0 crashes with nv surround, scales pretty good, more power yea but the mininum FPS is better, so smoother experience overall.

i only have 2 470, don't think i really need a 3rd one atm everything is running above 40 fps, my res is 6080X1200.

Games, BFBC2 with is the most that i play, SC2 doesn't support 3ple display, World of warcraft, is like 60 fps on raids drops to like 40, they only games that i believe will benefit for a 3ple sli are metro 2033 and just cause 2. the rest of the games that i have tried are running fine with 2 sli,
the power consumption is around 600sh watts on full load.

also on this forum i read they were having issues with 3sli on BFBC2 dunno for sure but ill like the post so you can tell by yourself

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=325882

Do it you wont regret it. is smoother at the end.

Thanks for the reply that is my thinking. I am one of the lucky ones with displyport (well nearly only occasional lost display port message I have native DP monitors) I have never had any flicker or any other weirdness. I am really looking at getting more performance. On all high settings no AA, AF or HBAO I get mostly 60 - 70 + fps (big explosions in my face >45) @6048 x 1080 with my 5970 @ 900/1200 BUT I get random CTD only in BC2. Having spoken to QA at dice running everything on low mostly solves the problem something to do with less render paths and conflicts. On low settings game runs great no crashes and looks ok. I just want all shiny stuff and high fps with hopefully less crashes.

Well I'm thinking about replacing my Radeon HD 5970 with a pair of GeForce GTX 480's in SLI. I've been looking into multi-GPU scaling for both ATI and NVIDIA and everything I've seen points to a second Radeon HD 5970 being a waste of money. That's unfortunate, but there it is. So on the NVIDIA side it seems to me that 3-Way SLI is scaling about like it usually does. Only at extremely high resolution is it of any use and even then its good for about a 20%-30% increase over 2-Way SLI. In other words you do get something for your money, but that third card doesn't give you much bang for your buck over standard 2-Way SLI configurations.

Thanks for the reply. It was announced this morning that they have tri/quad finity fix on the way but I am afraid I have lost hope waiting for them to fix it. I am sure there will only be a bit of difference with the third card but even 20% more can be the difference between not playable and playable. Some of the 2560 x 1600 scaling I have seen with tri 480's and DX11 have been very good in the region of 2.5 - 2.8
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-480-3way-sli-review/6
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-480-3way-sli-review/7
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-480-3way-sli-review/8

So was assuming it would be getting similar performance with surround but as ATI have shown very well multiple screens is not the same thing as one big one.

 

[poo417]

Well I have just bitten the bullet and ordered 3x 470 with coolermaster HAFX case so will see what the scaling's like. If they are not powerful enough I will send them back and get 480's instead.

 

[harmattan]

I tried tri-sli with 480 GTX twice over the past couple months (using beta surround and 258.96 WQHL)...

• In single-screen mode, it's great. Scaling is good (on avg., I'd say +25-30% over dual 480s).
  
• Surround was, in a word, a shit-show. Scaling and game compatibility was all over the place. I'd say 7-10 games I tried either had major scaling issues (worse than dual cards), graphical bugs (especially with shadows) or both.

Both times I got so frustrated I moved back to dual sli and sold the other 480. All tri-sli reviews I know of were tested on single screens (e.g., guru3d), so not really any good indications there.

 

[poo417]

I tried tri-sli with 480 GTX twice over the past couple months (using beta surround and 258.96 WQHL)...

• In single-screen mode, it's great. Scaling is good (on avg., I'd say +25-30% over dual 480s).
  
• Surround was, in a word, a shit-show. Scaling and game compatibility was all over the place. I'd say 7-10 games I tried either had major scaling issues (worse than dual cards), graphical bugs (especially with shadows) or both.

Both times I got so frustrated I moved back to dual sli and sold the other 480. All tri-sli reviews I know of were tested on single screens (e.g., guru3d), so not really any good indications there.

Cheers. That is my concern. I will find out on Monday when it all arrives. I had a suspicion that it would not be as good or simple as a single screen. I was looking at the big single screen solely as processing power point of view and not an fps comparison. There is a chap on wide screen gaming forum getting good gpu use with three on many games but has not posted any FPS as yet. If it is as bad as you say I may send back the 3 x 470's and just get 2 x 480's.

Thanks for the info.

 

[Dan_D]

It was announced this morning that they have tri/quad finity fix on the way but I am afraid I have lost hope waiting for them to fix it. I am sure there will only be a bit of difference with the third card but even 20% more can be the difference between not playable and playable.

Who said they'd fix / improve multi-GPU scaling? NVIDIA or ATI/AMD? Link?

 

[poo417]

I will try and find the link it was on twittter from one of the catalyst guys

http://www.rage3d.com/index.php?cat=75#newsid33966578

I would not hold my breath though. They denied it was only a problem a few weeks ago. If I thought they would fix it soon I would be getting a 5870 or another 5970 instead of going green.

 

[Astrodave]

I find this very odd as I always got awesome scaling with my 4850CF solution. Many games were 100% with the worst case being 50%. I'm picking up my 2nd 480 today so will see how SLI scales compared to crossfire. I don't see how it could be any better than 100% though...

 

[IRSmurf]

I can report NV's Surround is awesome with SLI GTX 480's. Can't comment on tri-SLI.

If you've got the means, I say why not? Until I'm achieving a solid 120fps at 5280x1050 in 2D or 60fps at the same resolution in 3D, I'll never have enough power in my rig.

 

[revenant]

surround does rock. feels more solid than eyefinity to me.. but that could just be the extra horse power... I was only on a solo 5870 and now two gtx470s.. the nice thing about tri-sli srround is you can connect one display to each card making each card a frame buffer... with two card SLI one card becomes a buffer for two displays and that card runs hotter than the other one..

 

[poo417]

I find this very odd as I always got awesome scaling with my 4850CF solution. Many games were 100% with the worst case being 50%. I'm picking up my 2nd 480 today so will see how SLI scales compared to crossfire. I don't see how it could be any better than 100% though...

It is specific to Eyefinity with more than 2 gpu's. The perfomance is terrible. Often much worse than normal CF. So having tri or quadfire and eyefinity just did not work. It is like a slide show.

surround does rock. feels more solid than eyefinity to me.. but that could just be the extra horse power... I was only on a solo 5870 and now two gtx470s.. the nice thing about tri-sli srround is you can connect one display to each card making each card a frame buffer... with two card SLI one card becomes a buffer for two displays and that card runs hotter than the other one..

The main reason for going to 3 cards is one display per card so I am hoping it works even just BC2 for now would be good.

 

[Dan_D]

I will try and find the link it was on twittter from one of the catalyst guys

http://www.rage3d.com/index.php?cat=75#newsid33966578

I would not hold my breath though. They denied it was only a problem a few weeks ago. If I thought they would fix it soon I would be getting a 5870 or another 5970 instead of going green.

Thanks for the link. I don't visit Twitter, ever. So I didn't see that. And yeah, I'd definitely consider going with another Radeon HD 5970 over dual GeForce GTX 480's any day of the week if I thought that it would be worth while.

I find this very odd as I always got awesome scaling with my 4850CF solution. Many games were 100% with the worst case being 50%. I'm picking up my 2nd 480 today so will see how SLI scales compared to crossfire. I don't see how it could be any better than 100% though...

ATI's dual GPU scaling is fine. The Radeon 5970 and other dual GPU Crossfire rigs are proof of that. When you step up to 3 or 4 GPUs the picture changes dramatically. In some games dual Radeon HD 5970's can beat anything on the market right now. Though just as often you end up with worse performance than a single Radeon HD 5970 offers. The rest of the time you get inconsistent results everywhere in between. I'm actually very disappointed in ATI/AMD this time around because we saw the exact same issues with the 4870 X2 and ATI/AMD has never done anything to address it. That is what I consider a failure of epic proportions equal to the assrape NVIDIA committed against any enthusiasts who unwisely purchased dual 7950GX2 cards for Quad-SLI.

Right now I'd love nothing more than to see AMD address the CrossfireX scaling problems. I'd rather have dual Radeon HD 5970's in my machine right now than a pair or even three GeForce GTX 480's in 2 or 3-Way SLI. While I like NV Surround's ability to use DVI ports for all three monitors, I do not like the SLI requirement to do so. Otherwise I conjsider them fairly equal outside of performance which clearly favors NVIDIA much of the time. Again due to ATI/AMD (once again) not having their shit together when it comes to drivers. And that's sad because they've come a long way and the issues I use to have in tons of different games are gone. Any issues I do typically see are remedied in a timely fashion with driver updates. Outside of piss poor CrossfireX scaling I've got little reason to complain about their current drivers. 10.3b, 10.4, and now 10.7 have all worked flawlessly for me. I know I'll need more power to drive 3x 30" Dell monitors than what a single Radeon HD 5970 can offer. Again I wish they'd get their shit together on the scaling issues because I'd be down for another Radeon HD 5970 right now.

 

[kllrnohj]

Thanks for the link. I don't visit Twitter, ever. So I didn't see that. And yeah, I'd definitely consider going with another Radeon HD 5970 over dual GeForce GTX 480's any day of the week if I thought that it would be worth while.



ATI's dual GPU scaling is fine. The Radeon 5970 and other dual GPU Crossfire rigs are proof of that. When you step up to 3 or 4 GPUs the picture changes dramatically. In some games dual Radeon HD 5970's can beat anything on the market right now. Though just as often you end up with worse performance than a single Radeon HD 5970 offers. The rest of the time you get inconsistent results everywhere in between. I'm actually very disappointed in ATI/AMD this time around because we saw the exact same issues with the 4870 X2 and ATI/AMD has never done anything to address it. That is what I consider a failure of epic proportions equal to the assrape NVIDIA committed against any enthusiasts who unwisely purchased dual 7950GX2 cards for Quad-SLI.

Right now I'd love nothing more than to see AMD address the CrossfireX scaling problems. I'd rather have dual Radeon HD 5970's in my machine right now than a pair or even three GeForce GTX 480's in 2 or 3-Way SLI. While I like NV Surround's ability to use DVI ports for all three monitors, I do not like the SLI requirement to do so. Otherwise I conjsider them fairly equal outside of performance which clearly favors NVIDIA much of the time. Again due to ATI/AMD (once again) not having their shit together when it comes to drivers. And that's sad because they've come a long way and the issues I use to have in tons of different games are gone. Any issues I do typically see are remedied in a timely fashion with driver updates. Outside of piss poor CrossfireX scaling I've got little reason to complain about their current drivers. 10.3b, 10.4, and now 10.7 have all worked flawlessly for me. I know I'll need more power to drive 3x 30" Dell monitors than what a single Radeon HD 5970 can offer. Again I wish they'd get their shit together on the scaling issues because I'd be down for another Radeon HD 5970 right now.

Single monitor tri-CF scales better than tri-SLI, by quite a lot:

http://www.hardware.info/nl-NL/articles/amdnampoZGCa/Clash_of_the_Titans_3way_SLI_GTX_480_test/13

SLI 2 v. 3 scaling is ~27%. CF 2 v. 3 scaling is ~47%. It's actually good enough to more than overcome the slight advantage SLI has in dual scaling. 3v1 is 128% for SLI, but 152% for CF.

And 5970 CFX scaling is pretty damn impressive at 65.5%, not that much below dual CF's 70% or dual SLI's 80%

Eyefinity is where CF's scaling vanishes. But on a single monitor, CFX rocks.

the nice thing about tri-sli srround is you can connect one display to each card making each card a frame buffer... with two card SLI one card becomes a buffer for two displays and that card runs hotter than the other one..

Uh... what? The number of monitor connections per card is irrelevant. Each card still has to render the full image, so they all have identical frame buffer sizes in both dual and tri sli surround.

Also, 2D surround tri-sli scaling is nonexistent: http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=172712 (0 gain going from 2 to 3 cards - according to heatlesssun in this forums, 3d surround scales just fine, only 2d surround is broken)

 

[revenant]

[snip]

Uh... what? The number of monitor connections per card is irrelevant. Each card still has to render the full image, so they all have identical frame buffer sizes in both dual and tri sli surround.
[snip]

actually it does make the card with the most display connections warmer.. my top card ran about 20c warmer on load than my bottom with two display connections.. that number dropped by about 5c when I tested with two displays on the bottom card.. only tested it once though just before I went on water, after someone else reported the same findings.. my top card still runs warmer on load, by about 2c on water and it gets the coolant first.. I have fans moving air all around the cards also.. it *could* be just thermodynamics (ala heat rising) but I am pretty sure surround works the main frame buffer a little harder..

 

[Dan_D]

The problem with CrossfireX scaling is that its all over the place. Especially with the Radeon HD 5970. What's worse is the pathetic scaling with Eyefinity is actually the worst thing for me since I plan to use 3 30" panels.

So it looks more and more like I'll be switching to GeForce GTX 480's in the near future.

 

[heatlesssun]

I tried tri-sli with 480 GTX twice over the past couple months (using beta surround and 258.96 WQHL)...

• In single-screen mode, it's great. Scaling is good (on avg., I'd say +25-30% over dual 480s).
  
• Surround was, in a word, a shit-show. Scaling and game compatibility was all over the place. I'd say 7-10 games I tried either had major scaling issues (worse than dual cards), graphical bugs (especially with shadows) or both.

Both times I got so frustrated I moved back to dual sli and sold the other 480. All tri-sli reviews I know of were tested on single screens (e.g., guru3d), so not really any good indications there.

I've not had those issues. Scaling isn't that great in my experience with 2D in single screen or Surround, but no issues with performance, just no scaling most of the time.

In 3D scaling however is 100%. So basically no scaling in 2D whatsoever, no bugs, but 100% in 3D.

 

[poo417]

I've not had those issues. Scaling isn't that great in my experience with 2D in single screen or Surround, but no issues with performance, just no scaling most of the time.

In 3D scaling however is 100%. So basically no scaling in 2D whatsoever, no bugs, but 100% in 3D.

Thanks for the reply. I will find out the results on Monday Tuesday. Any sort of scaling will be a bonus. If there is no scaling I will probably send these back and get 2 480's instead.

 

[poo417]

Have been thinking over things last night I am now wondering if it would be better just to go for 2 480's for the moment and get the third when/ if it starts to work in surround. I don't think I will get enough benefit over my 5970 with just 2 470's. What seems to be the best idea? I am wary of waiting on the drivers sorting it out. I have used both NV and ATI over the years and have seen many times over the years things just not getting fixed.

The stuff is due to arrive today. I have not seen anyone getting scaling with 3 cards in surround. This was my main point in changing to NV as I hoped they would get good scaling in surround with 3 cards as ATI have still not fixed this. In saying that the 10.7a beta have quadfire fix that seems to be working with some games.

Cheers

 

[poo417]

Well sent the 3 470's back and got 2 480's until the drivers support 3 properly. All set up very easily. I am glad I did not just go for the 470's as there is not a huge difference in fps from my 5970 @ 900/1200. I would say lightly higher average slightly lower max and higher min which is important. The big difference is I can use AA and not much changes in FPS. I look forward to the drivers supporting TRI-SLI surround properly.

Thanks everyone for the advice and help.

 

[poo417]

Bringing this one back up. To the guys with Tri-Sli 480's and surround have the new drivers sorted out the performance problems. I know 3d seems to be ok but am using 2d.

Cheers

 

[heatlesssun]

I've experienced any performance problems. 3 way SLI in 2D tended to be zero in most gmaes I've tried butI've really not gone backmto look at this again as ever6thing I'veried tended to run great anyway. Will need to take another look at this.

 

[poo417]

That would be great thanks. It was mainly no performance gain or even less with tri and stuttering that lots of people were complaining about when the surround drivers were first out.