Date:
Monday , May 05, 2008
Author:
Brent Justice
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
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9800 GTX vs. SLI vs. 3-way SLI. vs. Quad SLI

How does a 9800 GTX compare to SLI, 3-way SLI, and Quad SLI? We have completed an SLI scaling evaluation using our real world gameplay techniques as well as apples-to-apples testing to see what SLI, 3-way SLI, and Quad SLI can do to improve your gameplay experience.

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System Test Setup

We will be using a quad-core CPU based platform with the new EVGA 790i Ultra SLI motherboard and an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 (Overclocked to 3.66GHz), and 4GB of Corsair CM3X1024-1800CD Dominator DDR3 to make sure the system will not be bottlenecking the GPUs.

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Comparison Setup

We are overclocking our CPU from 3GHz to 3.66GHz (11x333) so that we can reduce CPU limitations for SLI if any.

For all NVIDIA GPU based video cards we are using the latest beta drivers, 175.12. We also have Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista installed.

Please be aware we test our video cards a bit differently from what is the norm. We concentrate on examining the real-world gameplay that each video card provides. The Highest Playable section shows the best Image Quality delivered at a playable frame rate. To get a better understanding of what we do, please read this page.

In our tables and graphs in this evaluation the abbreviation “TRMS” Indicates the use of NVIDIA’s Transparency Multisampling setting for Transparency AA. “TRSS” indicates the use of NVIDIA’s Transparency Supersampling.