Bit tech Quad SLI 295 GTX

Great find Liquid, nice in depth review... are you thinking about Quad SLI again... ? I know you didn't enjoy your last quad SLI experience....

Hey L1qu1d, just out of curiosity, do many games utilize Tri-SLI (effectively)? I know last time I had SLI it worked awesome with two cards in recent games.

If it weren't for Nvidia's raw power, it would have a major disadvantage when dealing with the ATI innovation. Its like comparing a smart average build guy (ATI) with a dumb Strong jock (Nvidia). (This isn't a Jock stereotype its just an example don't take it personal all you jocks on these forums LOL!)

Now Mr EXT64:

Dual cards are a god blessing. When it comes to 3 cards, they scale better than 4...and seeing some results 4s can show some decent scales.

What I noticed the higher the resolution the more the cards actually scale and start pulling their own weight. But as an example I'm on my 1680x1050 monitor now, and I get around 400 fps in devil may Cry 4, when I disable tri sli I get around 250-300 fps. So I think its a pretty decent scale

Games like Half life 2 (which honestly need only 1 card mostly) the game doesn't scale with tri 2 well. I kno that when I had quad I would drop down to 20 fps in CSS.

Crysis uses tri sli amazingly, unlike Crysis Warhead which only benefits from 2 of my cards for some reason.

Games that use it effectively in my opinion:

COD4+5
Devil May Cry 4
Crysis
Bioshock
Far Cry 2
world in conflict (Most of the time)
Brothers in arms

There are others that don't come to mind. But the ones that don't scale with tri sli, mostly scale when I hit 1920x1200 or higher.

I'm surprised that the 280 GTXs are doing soo well. In sli they outshine even the quad sli cards...I wonder what tri sli could do to the competition

Kinda mad that none of the cards are using the latest drivers except the 295 GTX....

yup thats why I don't deal with quads anymore. By the tie they get them working the way its supposed to it just loses all interest.

And ATI takes lead only @ 2560x1600 and the game is unplayable in Crysis at parts And remember its only the quad Crossfire.

If you look at the results it was mainly in fallout 3 and Crysis with AA 2560x1600. the rest of them was mostly Nvidia cards

Take a quick look at the review again.

And I just wanted to add that its now 6 months for the 4870 X2 and quad fire still isn't what the 9800 GX2 was after 6 months....so I'm pretty angry bout that.

Remember this is comparing a complete setup against an incomplete 280s setup and 260s setup etc. I would love to see tri sli put to the test against these cards, then we'll see what resolutions can do

If you recall the Guru3D Intel i7 review, 280s tri came out ontop using the old drivers, with these drivers, on ATI and Nvidia, both card companies made some leaps and we need updated benchmarks.

Most ppl here play games in 1680x1050 or 1900x1200, nvidia seem to perform well at those RES. Even my "old" 9800gtx+ perform well at this res.

But i think its still proving that nvidia didnt acheived what the wanted .....

Yup, the Min FPS is pretty bad ... in some case in HIGH res HIGH setting.

What about your TRI-Sli L1qu1d ???

I read it completely yeah in most games the GTX 295 takes the lead but in some other games the HD 4870 X2 takes the lead but hopefully better drivers will improve the performance.

The tri-280s work great, its just for any1 that actually paid for them (I traded my 2 9800 GX2s with my friend, he doesn't need a gaming rig) its pointless up till now. I mainly game with 1 280 GTX since theres no point in pushing more heat in the case pointlessly.

I don't have any min frame rate problems at all with the Tri setup, although there are a handful of games that lower in AVG frames but increase in min frames when tri is enabled. Thats easily fixed by going into regular sli. A good example would be the sh!ty Nfs Undercover game

Either way I'll say this again, this card fails to surprise and catch my eye. WAIT for the 5000s and the 300s ppl don't go Quad serioulsy alot more head aches than there should be, I went through it. Most games use 3 GPUs (ie Crysis). Unless you get an X2 card and then wait for the X2 to go down in price.

I would say that the ATI 4870 X2 being about 100$ cheaper (150$ at some stores) its still the best buy.