NVIDIA's Double Graphics Whopper: SLI Comes to Market

Test Setup

We tested the SLI configuration with GeForce 6800 Ultra and GT with both the ASUS and MSI motherboard. We only gathered comparison data for single-card operation from the ASUS board. We used an Athlon64 4000+ (corresponds to Athlon FX-53) and 1 GB RAM as a CPU. For the Power Supply, we used an Antex True Control ATX (1.0) PSU with 20-pin main power connector. We did not face any power issues during our tests. We also tested a 760W workstation PSU, just to see if our stability problems had to do with power.

Due to the stability problems described earlier we decided to forego overclocking tests.

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System 1
CPUAMD Athlon64 4000+
FSB200 MHz
MotherboardASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce 4 SLI)
Memory2x Kingston DDR400 KHX3200/512, 1024 MB
HDDSeagate Barracuda 7200.7 120 GB S-ATA (8 MB)
DVDHitachi GD-7000
LANNetgear FA-312
Power SupplyAntec True Control 550W
System 2
CPUAMD Athlon64 4000+
FSB200 MHz
MotherboardMSI K8N Diamond (nForce 4 SLI)
Memory2x Kingston DDR400 KHX3200/512, 1024 MB
HDDSeagate Barracuda 7200.7 120 GB S-ATA (8 MB)
DVDHitachi GD-7000
LANNetgear FA-312
Power SupplyAntec True Control 550W
Drivers & Configuration
GraphicsATI Catalyst v4.11NVIDIA v66.93
ChipsetIntel Inf. Update
OSWindows XP Prof. SP1a
DirectXDirectX 9.0c
Graphic cards used for Benchmarks in this article
ATIRadeon X800 XT PE PCIe (520/560 MHz, 256 MB)
NVIDIAGeForce 6800 Ultra PCIe (420/550 MHz, 256 MB)GeForce 6800 GT PCIe (350/500 MHz, 256 MB)GeForce 6600 GT PCIe (420/550 MHz, 128 MB)
Benchmarks
3DMark 2005Standard Resolution
Unreal Tournament 2004Custom TimedemoMax Details/QualityMap : Assault-FallenCity
Call Of Duty v1.4Max Details/QualityDemo : VGA
Doom3Demo : Demo1High Quality
Farcryv1.3Custom Timedemo cooler01Very High QualityFlashlight : On
Flight Simulator 2004Custom VideoCustom QualityScenario : Hong Kong at Dusk
Battlefield Vietnamv1.2FRAPSMax Details/QualityMap : Ho Chi Minh Trail
The Sims 2FRAPSMax Details/QualityCustom Scene
Half-Life 2Three custom TimedemosMax Details/Quality

Benchmarks

3D Mark 2005

3D Mark 2005, Build 110 :