3DMark Fire Strike and Unigine Heaven
Now that we have taken a look at our gaming tests using our Frame Rating metrics and testing methods, we are including a set of tests from more standard benchmarks like Unigine Heaven and the new 3DMark benchmark.
I consider these tests to be somewhat of a "best case" for all the cards in our comparison. We aren't using our frame capture system, we aren't measuring frame latency, nothing like that; I think this should give you an idea of graphics performance if each vendor had the best result for each game.
Looking at just the graphics scores in our results here, on the Fire Strike result, the 2-Way SLI configuration scales by 93%, 3-Way by 35% and 4-Way by 10%. Under the Fire Strike Extreme test we see that move up to 96% for 2-Way SLI, 48% for 3-Way SLI and 30% for 4-Way. That latter set shows some fairly impressive scaling as you would expect for a benchmark focused on GPU horsepower.
Unigine Heaven shows equally impressive scaling at the 2560×1440 + Extreme Tessellation preset, though it does falter at 4-Way SLI at the 1080p resolution (not really surprising).
These are my favorite
These are my favorite articles.
Couple of requests:
Could you also include an evaluation of 4K-3D?
There we would expect an ideal of 50% of the frame rate of 4K, what will we actually see?
Also, what about the subjective factor? Yes, I see number going up on a chart, but does that translate into a “wow” factor? Same could be asked about 2K vs 3K vs 4K if the resolution does not translate into a better graphical experience due to textures etc. Numbers can’t tell that story.
Hey Ryan, I heard you talking
Hey Ryan, I heard you talking about sli profiles on the podcast. I can play Shadow of Mordor in 4k by going into the Nvidia Control Panel and enabling ‘Force Alternate Frame Rendering’ in the individual program setting. Running the benchmark after brought the fps up to 70 avg vs 40 fps before.
This is the first time I’ve tested with a game, I’m wondering if someday you can go back and test that setting with games vs using their sli profile.
Thanks
You guys really need to run
You guys really need to run skyrim with something like Kountervibe ENB or Opthfeldt ENB, a weaksauce card can run vanilla skyrim at good fps. Just a thought anyway.
Enb has issues with SLI and
Enb has issues with SLI and crossfire last I checked. Otherwise it’s something I would like to see as well.
Have you considered putting
Have you considered putting together a Xeon build with dual or quad socket CPUs to alleviate the CPU bottleneck for testing multi-card solutions?
Have you thought of testing
Have you thought of testing using the NetStor NA255A? That would allow for much cooler temperatures due to much better air flow. Your bandwidth going to/from the processor might be reduced but I think it is still rated at 128Gbps. I know it is an expensive expansion cabinet, but anyone willing to pay upwards to $4000 depending on video card, probably will be willing to pay $2200 for the expansion cabinet if it improves things.
Just n2 cool everything with
Just n2 cool everything with xeon CPU’s 64g ram and 4way sli…. be done with it… if one has the money…. multi cards onnly improve the experiance. not by much but can help make it better…. fuck it all
i would like to see a 3 way
i would like to see a 3 way SLI nvidia gtx titan black is it possibele
an information that is very
an information that is very interesting to read, because it has a great reading the contents of all, it is important for our knowledge sanagt, thanks to share his article.
visit my web : http://robiherbal.com/pengobatan-tradisional-ejakulasi-dini/
thanks to admin who has been
thanks to admin who has been providing the latest information that makes us be increased insight and new knowledge that is wide enough, of course, this makes us become more knowledgeable
http://robiherbal.com/obat-tradisional-gagal-jantung-kongestif/
I am just glad to see that my
I am just glad to see that my quad TITAN’s are smashing the hell outta these cards. I have no issues with scaling…..albeit when using 4k that is as the lower resolutions do not even push a quad configuration to use max clocks of the OC’d GPU’s. Let alone using “all” of the cards for that matter at lower resolutions.
I am easily getting over 100fps with everything in BF4 maxed, but AA off. And with DSR I get to play at 4k with a higher than average refresh rate as well. 100-120hz 4k anyone….?
And to me…honestly it seems
And to me…honestly it seems as if something is wrong with either the system setup, or a software issue. The scaling you guys are getting as opposed to others’ is just down right ugly. And those Frame Times….Oh my goodness. I’d have to say that it would be an unpleasant experience there. Something I have no issues with here as well.
http://us.hardware.info/reviews/5623/3/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-sli–3-way-sli–4-way-sli-review-benchmarks-battlefield-4
BF4 right here.
Sure, I’m late to the party.
Sure, I’m late to the party. But it should be noted that whenever one card has data that isn’t physically on it’s own memory, that memory MUST be shared via PCI Express.
PCI Express is very fast compared to your LAN, or Cable Modem. But compared to a modern video card’s memory bandwidth? It’s nothing.
So, the more that must be shared, the quicker the PCI Express bus becomes the bottleneck.
BUT, this doesn’t have to be the case. A game that takes SLI into consideration can split workloads that don’t have hazards (one doesn’t depend on data the another must complete first), then minimal memory must be synchronized across the bus. Now, I’m merely speculating–as I have no experience writing AAA games–but if I were to guess, I would say that this is the reason for the large disparity between 0% gain, and 90% of ideal gain for those SLI setups. It all comes down to how those workloads are organized.
So with all of that in mind, it might be useful to compare SLI (even 2X) with differing PCI Express lane speeds.
The motherboard featured has four x16 lanes, and one x8. So try two cards, with one card on 8x (meaning the synchronization will occur at the lowest common denominator of 8x). Also try making the 8x card the “primary” card and see if that changes anything to see if the primary card gets the most data and the secondary gets only supplementary. (I don’t know what the memory mirroring/sharing strategy is for SLI.)
Lastly, a switch handles routing PCI Express traffic, and while the motherboard seems like a beast, it’s possible that chip is unable to satisfy the throughput of ALL lanes simultaneously. So motherboard chipsets can definitely be the bottleneck in these scenarios.
PCI Express 4.0 is slated for late 2016, and doubles the bandwidth of lanes. It stands to reason a typical PCI Express switch’s throughput will increase. So one could, in the future, see if the same cards on a newer 4.0 motherboard ends up with higher throughput. Even though the cards can’t run faster than 16x, it’s less likely that the switch would be overwhelmed.
This is fun stuff. If you’ve got the time and hardware, I’d definitely recommend trying these variations. The knowledge could help you in future write-ups.
Would Palit GeForce GTX 980
Would Palit GeForce GTX 980 Trio ‘s be good in SLI? What would be the best configuration (e.g. 2-way sli, 3-way sli)?
For gaming, stick to the
For gaming, stick to the fastest single core card you can find (980TI OC’ed on water) to about 1400. If you need high res 120+ FPS use two of these on air or water. Dont go 3 way on SLI, just a big hassle. My setup is 4X Palit 980 TI on water, but not using SLI but for GPU render using Cuda.
I’m currently running 4X
I’m currently running 4X Palit 980 TI on water cooling and my scaling is 100% increase pr. card. There is more to multiGPU than SLI and gaming. I’m now using Octane render and this is scaling almost perfectly, even up to 8-12X GPUS. This uses any Cuda core available (even from different cards) and does not use SLI functions.
Not impressed with Nvidias SLI controls, as 3+ GPU setup in SLI often will cause trouble in games as many cant even handle more than one card properly. As a result, you have to physically disable some of the graphics cards on the motherboard, a really akward and not well thought through solution for daily use.
Can you explain the following
Can you explain the following numbers:
From my point of view I get:- 5937 points 1-way SLI
- 11628 points 2-way SLI (95.86% increase compared to 1-way)
- 17160 points 3-way SLI (189.03% increase compared to 1-way)
- 22315 points 4-way SLI (275.86% increase compared to 1-way)
How do you come to:
I find this really useful
I find this really useful because i was considering if to buy another graphics card (sli) and it seems like 2 way has the biggest performance increase than having 2 or more and for the money your going to spend its wise just to get 2 way sli for a performance increase, thx
I’d like to know how many of
I’d like to know how many of you that say more than 2 cards is pointless, has actually tried it? If you did try it and didn’t use proper settings via 3rd party software for it, well it’s no surprise why your experience sucked. 3/4-way is the only way to go if you run 3 screens, Enjoy high graphics and high fps+Hz not 60/60 more like 90/75 minimum.