NVIDIA 3-Way Gets Second Opinion

We posted last week about HotHardware’s article on NVIDIA’s latest enthusiast-bound SLI configuration. There’s no denying the fact that three GPUs in a single rig is drool-worthy, but the performance gains were not incredibly large and the power consumption was unbelievable.

Anand has now taken the new setup for a spin and has similar thoughts. He adds that it would be a bad idea to run out right now to build such a system with G92 right around the corner. Considering that the GPUs for 3-way will set you back $1,500, holding off until the next incarnation sounds like a great idea.

I am still amazed at the sheer power 3-way rigs require. Even at idle the power drain is around ~400W. NVIDIA needs to design a card with a low-power-draw mode like our CPUs have. Power bills are high enough, but to have them increase that much further when the computer is at idle is rather pointless.

NVIDIA always does this. We got Quad SLI with the 7950 GX2, only to be replaced shortly thereafter by G80, and now we’re getting 3-way SLI with the 8800 GTX/Ultra, which we all know is on the way to being replaced by G92. Investing in a 3-way SLI setup today would be a terrible idea, you’re buying into old technology and you’re buying it after it’s already been made obsolete by a new GPU. It’s only a matter of time before G92 makes its way up the food chain, and three of those bad boys with even more shader power should give us a much cooler running, and faster, 3-way SLI setup than what we’ve tested here today.

Source: AnandTech