GTX 590 SLI PCIE?

[STOPOT]

Hey,
If I want to run GTX 590s in SLI what PCI-E do I need. I have the main one on 16x, but the remaining slots are 8x and 4x, can I still run a GTX 590 in SLI with the other slots, and will this impact performance as compared to a 16x? Thanks

 

[mdd1963]

lack of performance scaling of quad SLI aside (a single 590 is plenty for a single monitor, and where the second 590 might help for multiple monitors, the 590's framebuffer limit of 1.5 GB might be an issue), most P67 SLI mbs run just fine with x8 + x8 config...

Is your MB SLI certified/capable?

 

[STOPOT]

Its certified for SLI its the z68ma-d2h-b3, I was just wondering if the PCI speed was going to impact performance of SLI GTX 590s

 

[photonboy]

I suggest you read the article on the main page on micro-stuttering.

Basically every game with a single monitor will run at maximum settings at 60FPS with a single GTX590.

It's very difficult to find places where you'd benefit with a second card, however I can guarantee you'll have more stuttering and way more NOISE.

Another thing:
The next series of NVidia cards will be released in Q2 2012. They will use the 28nm die and will be 2.5x to 3x as good for the same power, which means quieter and likely cheaper for the same price.

I highly suggest you stick with a single GTX590 and then upgrade to a 600 or 700 series when a game is released that would look better with a new card.

 

[photonboy]

Other:
NVidia has estimated that they will release a card in 2014 which will have up to 15x the processing of the current 500 series.

I highly doubt that what they refer to would translate into 15x the Frame Rates, but if it was 10x that would still be pretty amazing. Having said that, there would be no direct comparison because future games will heavily use Tesselation so any previous cards would do poorly if trying to compete using Tesselation.

However, no game manufacturer can justify making video games for 5% of the gaming world so these changes come slowly. Tesselation is probably the most important hardware change.

What is the MOST IMPORTANT change coming for video games?
I believe that would be not hardware, but a video game engine that is capable of on-the-fly adjustment of its resources so that it can achieve solid Framerates, without stutter. For example, in a more intense seen the gaming engine would automatically reduce PhsyX or some other calculation to maintain the Framerate. All the different processing elements would receive a priority value. The gaming engine would even be able to "look ahead" initially and adjust values for each level before they start.

The above gaming engine would not only eliminate stuttering, and provide more value out of the hardware by fully utilizing it (really, games that reach 150FPS but still stutter?), but the video game designers would not have to spend a huge amount of time tweaking the game; the "tweaking" of the number of objects and amount of processing would be on-the-fly and automatically configured for the system it is on. This approach may even eliminate the need for AMD or NVidia to provide driver updates to get better performance out of games, which never seems to work that great overall anyway especially for SLI and Crossfire.

The new 600 series due Q2 2012 will (or should) have the following changes:

1) improved multi-monitor support (to compete with AMD's EyeFinity)
2) better Anti-Aliasing (either even better AA or simply a reduced workload for the same value, or both)
3) 2.5x to 3x reduced power consumption
4) improved Tesselation (will be a huge deal in future games, but no big deal yet)
5) PhysX v3 support? (better PhysX is coming, but there's no news beyond that. This likely requires new graphics cards and new games which utilize the new PhysX v3 so no backwards compatibility)

 

[STOPOT]

Whats the specialty of the AMD multi monitor capability? Isn't it just like the surround on GTX's, can't you just fill all 6 slot if you going for SLI and that would be the same as AMD's multi display solution?

 

[photonboy]

AMD supports more monitors with fewer graphics cards.

I'm not sure of the exact details.

AMD: http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/amd-eyefinity-technology/how-to/Pages/faqs.aspx

NVidia: http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vision-surround-system-requirements.html

As far as I can tell, NVidia does not have a single-GPU card that can support more than one monitor.

That's crazy, because my HD3870 which is almost four years old supports two monitors at the same time, although probably not for splitting a game to both screens.