Gaming Across Three Screens: GTX 460, GTX 480, And Quad-SLI

Features
By Thomas Soderstrom
published

Display spanning is quickly becoming the high-mark for serious gaming machines of all budgets, with more powerful cards allowing higher resolutions. Yet, as panel resolutions higher than 1080p become harder to find, do we really need more than two cards?

Benchmark Results: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat

Extra cards require additional system resources, but the first solid indication of a problem for quad SLI appears at our lowest S.T.A.L.K.E.R. benchmark test setting. From there, increased details burden the cards more than the CPU, and the quad SLI configuration pulls ahead.

Two GTX 460 cards play the game smoothly at all resolutions, but only with AA disabled. Three-way GTX 480 SLI pulls a minimum of 19 FPS in the Sun Shafts test at our highest test setting, so that configuration is probably playable. Anyone who wants to be completely sure their system can play every possible setting in every possible lighting condition will want to step up to quad-SLI.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
127 Comments Comment from the forums
  • amk09
    sweet jesus, quad sli uses enough watts to power a small town
    Reply
  • Bluescreendeath
    GTX480 Quad SLI - Yes, it can play Crysis. Maxed out at 5760x1080 too! :D
    Reply
  • duk3
    Sapphire’s 700 MHz cards
    They look like sparkle cards to me.
    EDIT: Now fixed, I thought it was funny that sapphire made gtx460s
    Reply
  • damasvara
    BluescreendeathGTX480 Quad SLI - Yes, it can play Crysis. Maxed out at 5760x1080 too!It's so hot, it can also make steak BBQ for you! Watch out for anti-terrorist bust over the Fermi thermal suspicion though... :lol:
    Reply
  • Now i am curious to see a performance difference between tri and quad sli in triple 30" 2500x1600 monitors (7500x1600 resolution).
    Reply
  • hurt74
    @duk3

    Isnt it nice to know that sappire tech now makes NVIDIA cards because the last time i know they are an ATI exclusive. Good job toms
    Reply
  • vicskyline96
    cool, so the drivers support quad 480s now? i wonder if they support tri SLI 200 series cards, i'm sure theres still people out there who want to try this on their older generation cards
    Reply
  • joytech22
    Wow, that power usage is insane! it's hard to believe that these 480's use so much power.. you'd need like a thermaltake toughpower 1500w or something, or maybe 2 PSU's!
    Reply
  • andrern2000
    4 GTX 480s are a gig. But how much price is it is totally another matter. I prefer to 2-way SLI GTX 480.
    Reply
  • vicskyline96
    cool, so the drivers support quad 480s now? i wonder if they support tri SLI 200 series cards, i'm sure theres still people out there who want to try this on their older generation cards
    Reply