CyberPower and Falcon Northwest Go Quad SLI

[pschmid]

Two high-end PC makers put dual-core CPUs and four graphics processors into their latest systems. Who wins the Quad SLI challenge?

 

[FeareX]

That whole quad-SLI sounds nice. But if you see it in the benchmarks, it aint ready yet. Only FEAR took the performance out of it.

It gives you the bragging rights but not sky-high performance.

I would say, wait some more time and then look into quad-sli

 

[amddiesel]

"Drools" but will wait to quad sli later

 

[foshizzle]

These benchmarks further confirm that Quad SLI sucks at this point.

Now, I know that the point of this article is to show other builder's results with Quad SLI, but doesn't it seem like there have been a heck of a lot of articles on the 'boutique' system builders lately? Has anyone here actually bought one?

Ok back on topic:
Only now do I think that even SLI is really even getting to be 'mature'. I think it's going to take much longer to get Quad SLI up to par than it did to get SLI up to par.

 

[Senator]

seems like the best card out right now is the X1900XTX....don't waste ur money on anything else!

 

[ikjadoon]

Ack, man! Why can't THG ever review Overdrive PC?? It'll biyatch slap that FNW with superior speed, faster clocks, and best of all: A better cabling job.

Also, why does THG just quote what the manufacturer does, instead of really checking it out? No offense, but quoting some support specs, looking inside, then running benches isn't a thorough review. I guess the system's themselves weren't really the focus of the review, just Quad-SLi. I again say you should've chosen OverdrivePC for a Quad-SLi rig, but....

Yeah,Quad-SLi is a waste, even SLi isn't worth it except for those 5%. No reason to SLi low-end cards because a faster single card can beat them and no reason to SLi high end cards because that is wasted power. I did a little survey, a majority of users play on 12x10, then 10x7, then 16x12. SLi will provide little increases at those resolutions, maybe some at 16x12. Even the eye-candy cranked up, I can't justify a multi-GPU system unless you 1) Want bragging rights 2) Have some motive to waste money 3)You have a huge monitor with a huge res, ex. 25x16. Otherwise, a single card is better.

Also the X1950XTX is faster than the 7950GX2 is a few places...

~Ibrahim~

 

[DPolkowski]

Doesn't mean I can't ask them for a system for the fall.

 

[sailer]

Two high-end PC makers put dual-core CPUs and four graphics processors into their latest systems. Who wins the Quad SLI challenge?

The question isn't "Who wins the Quad SLI challenge", but who looses it. The lowly Monarch SLI machine beat the quad machines almost everywhere, and the single X1900 XTX machine was right next to these best of the best machines. If anything, this hardware review showed how to waste the most money for the least performance gain.

I think the overclocking should also be taken into consideration. Sure, FNW beat the Cyberpower machine, but the FNW was overclocked. Why not test the machines as equals? Either overclock both, or use normal clocks for both. That said, remember that even with the overclock, the FNW machine often lost to a standard clocked Monarch and barely beat a standard clocked X1900 XTX. Somehow, I think this review only shows how bad the quad idea really is.

 

[my1dollarlife]

I don't understand why these companies are wasting their time putting these systems to market. You would have to be an out right idiot to purchase a high end machine right now based off of the Athon CPU. Most high end dual-SLI set ups are already maxed out because of lack of CPU power when using athlon chips, so why add two more?

Better yet, why is Tom's wasting employee research time doing a review on them? And what was with that lame conclusion, it sounded like it was force fed to them from the manufacturer. None of the benchmarks supported any consideration to purchase these systems, and Tom's should have said something about that.

 

[Heyyou27]

Ewww FX60s; with an X6800 performance would hopefully be better.

 

[sojrner]

wow man, chill.

they did not mention that quad is not worth it b/c those that buy boutique systems do not ask/worry about price. They pay the extreme premium to get the best system. Best service, best components etc even if it is only a tenth of a % higher then a much cheaper system.

for us on a budget, we just look to drool.

 

[sojrner]

Ewww FX60s; with an X6800 performance would hopefully be better.

I was curious why no fx-62... the '60 is hardly amd's top-end

 

[foshizzle]

I was curious why no fx-62... the '60 is hardly amd's top-end

Very good question...why would anyone who is buying Quad SLI NOT get the top end CPU?

they did not mention that quad is not worth it b/c those that buy boutique systems do not ask/worry about price. They pay the extreme premium to get the best system. Best service, best components etc even if it is only a tenth of a % higher then a much cheaper system.

That is true, however in this case you would be paying a lot more to actually get LESS performance. I'm not sure how that makes any kind of sense. Bragging rights would be the only reason to own one of these. And I'm not talking about performance bragging rights. I'm talking about Hey- I've-got-enough-money-that-I-can-pay-top-dollar-for-non-top-performance-and-I-don't-even-care! bragging rights. Now those would be bragging rights that I'd like to be able to afford

However, if I ever got there I sure as heck wouldn't waste my money on one of these...

Edit: haha this is post number 69

 

[sojrner]

Very good question...why would anyone who is buying Quad SLI NOT get the top end CPU?

methinks this points to the fact that maybe this review was a long time in coming? Perhaps they had these systems for a while... a LONG while? Or maybe they did the review way back when and it took forever to get it translated? lol... just seems fishy

and I agree about the performance. People w/ $ are weird though, and "worse" performance may be a draw in some strange way. who knows? lol

 

[azmodean]

I just have to point out, in every benchmark except B&W the two quad cores run at a higher framerate than the X1900XTX in the high resolution settings, especially with AA cranked up. I think the ranking of the charts needs to take this into account or at least be mentioned.

In summary, the quad core does need some improvement (probably by lowering the strain it puts on the cpu), but it currently does operate at a faster rate than you can get anywhere else with image quality (resolution, AA, and AF) set to their highest. Another thing, how about someone who wants to run games through one of those matrox video splitters? I think you'd find that one of these quad systems would outperform pretty much everything else on the market with that setup.

Also I would very much like to see how a quad core system with a X6800 (overclocked even) would perform. (or at least an overclocked FX-62)

EDIT: Anyone who refers to a $3,700 dollar system as "lowly" needs to get their head checked. (I'm talking about the monarch, check the specs here)

 

[amddiesel]

SLI is for big lcds with big resolutions....not for "consumer level" lcds and crts...Bring the flames :twisted:

 

[ikjadoon]

Doesn't mean I can't ask them for a system for the fall.

I like the sound of that!

Great review and as forementioned, SLi is not for the majority of us with 17",19", 20.1" monitors.

I hate to mention OPC again, but they are selling the X6800 OC'ed to 3.76 on air...Just saying.

SLi/CF are for those few 5% of people who can actually use it. If you game 16x12 and above, SLi will help. Anything lower and a top end single-GPU will be fine....

All in all, I'd love a Quad-SLi machine, but I'd rather not pay for it.

~Ibrahim~

 

[minsc_tdp]

On this page:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/08/15/cyberpower_and_falcon_northwest_go_quad_sli/page6.html#3dmark05

The monarch system at 1024x768 has a value of 4,212, but the line is bigger than all the others, such as the Falcon below it at 13,346. I don't get it.

What charting tool are you guys using? MS Paint?

 

[sailer]

On this page:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/08/15/cyberpower_and_falcon_northwest_go_quad_sli/page6.html#3dmark05

The monarch system at 1024x768 has a value of 4,212, but the line is bigger than all the others, such as the Falcon below it at 13,346. I don't get it.

What charting tool are you guys using? MS Paint?

You're missing the 1 that's partly hidden in the Monarch line. It should read 14,212.

 

[minsc_tdp]

Damn that's hard to see though. I had to move closer to my screen before I believed you.

/getting old at 30?

 

[ikjadoon]

/getting old at 30?

Do you want an honest answer? lol, jk, I've made a similar mistake many times before. Cursed charts, why not just some numbers???

~Ibrahim~

 

[sailer]

Damn that's hard to see though. I had to move closer to my screen before I believed you.

/getting old at 30?

Old at 30? Wish I was that young again. I have a special set of glasses just for using with the computer. Maybe that's my advantage. Would be nice if the numbers were clearly written though.