Nvidia Quad-SLI kicked by ATI Crossfire...

[Sharktooth]

Link: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/quad-sli-two.html

To sum it up two ati radeons x1950xtx (crossfire) are faster, cheaper, less power hungry and less noisy (on idle) than the nvidia Geforce 7950GX2 Quad-SLI (4 chips) solution.

[Inventive Software]

That is almost purely down to ATI's superior shader handling and them finally getting Crossfire right, and comes as no surprise to me, especially since I knew that after last months PC Format.

[foxyshadis]

It's okay, Nvidia already has the solution... hex-sli (http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1016/nvidia.jpg).

Okay, the middle port is actually for physics, but still...

[Sirber]

I only see 3 PCIE.. how can they put 8 cards?

[dragongodz]

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2009991,00.asp

to sum it up 2 nvidia 7900 gtx(sli) can also kick quad-sli's rear end along with crossfired x1950xtx's.
to be fair i can show reviews where sli'd 7900 gtx's and crossfired x1950xtx's swap backwards and forwards for top speeds depending on the games. so really these 2 setups are both extremely powerful and give people a choice if they have that sort of money. :)

quad-sli is very new and really the drivers etc need a lot of work done. the end of the first review and the one i post here both agree on that.

[Sharktooth]

Nvidia says they have problems with DX9... they say the true potential of quad SLI will be unleashed with DX10... but AFAIK the 7950GX2 doesnt support DX10 features (no unified shaders, etc)... it seems like they're spreading BS to gain some time to fix the drivers.
Also:
In our overall showdown between ATI and Nvidia for extreme hi-res gaming, we're going to have to give the edge to ATI. At $900, the new X1950 Crossfire setup generally outperforms the others, especially with AA and AF applied (and isn't that why you would buy such an expensive graphics setup, to enable features like AA/AF?). The X1900 Crossfire solution is actually fairly impressive. Sure it's slower than the X1950 at the very highest settings, but often the difference isn't huge, and at $700 it's substantially less expensive than any of the other dual-graphics setups tested here. If you do play a lot of OpenGL titles, then the 7900 GTX in SLI mode is a more robust solution for high-end gamers with high resolution displays. But most games today use DirectX, and ATI has the edge today.
For multimedia tests also look at this article: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1916966,00.asp

[foxyshadis]

I only see 3 PCIE.. how can they put 8 cards?

8? By hex I mean 6, with two chips per card that's only 3 cards. (Which is how quad sli is defined now.)

[Dayvon]

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2009991,00.asp

to sum it up 2 nvidia 7900 gtx(sli) can also kick quad-sli's rear end along with crossfired x1950xtx's.
to be fair i can show reviews where sli'd 7900 gtx's and crossfired x1950xtx's swap backwards and forwards for top speeds depending on the games. so really these 2 setups are both extremely powerful and give people a choice if they have that sort of money. :)

quad-sli is very new and really the drivers etc need a lot of work done. the end of the first review and the one i post here both agree on that.
LOL

Maybe it's just me, but the article you linked has the 1950XTX Crossifre beating the 7900gtx SLI in almost every single benchmark (by small margins though). Or did i read the pictures wrong :D?

[dragongodz]

Or did i read the pictures wrong ?
no but you obviously failed to understand what i thought was pretty straight forward sentances. so lets see if i can make it a little clearer for you.

to sum it up 2 nvidia 7900 gtx(sli) can also kick quad-sli's rear end along with(/same as/ just like) crossfired x1950xtx's.
see the bracketed part i just added ? does that make it clearer ?
how about if i say this. 7900gtx sli can beat quad sli. x1950xtx crossfire can beat quad sli. so both 7900gtx sli and x1950xtx crossfire can beat quad sli. so therefore this is not just something special to x1950xtx crossfire.

to be fair i can show reviews where sli'd 7900 gtx's and crossfired x1950xtx's swap backwards and forwards for top speeds depending on the games.
firstly i would always reccomend reading atleast 2 or 3 reviews to rule out any testing errors or strangeness. secondly small frame rate differences i would call a tie and not a win, eg 30fps compared to 31fps or even 170fps compared to 180fps. i have seen plenty of fanboys crow over getting something like 180fps claiming to p0wn others getting something like 170fps but anyone with any experience will know you wont see any real differences with those speeds.
heres another little review just to show how powerful BOTH are.
http://www.rage3d.com/reviews/video/atix1950/index.php?p=5
as you can see nobody could claim it to be an nvidia biased site. :)

so i stand by what i said.
so really these 2 setups are both extremely powerful and give people a choice if they have that sort of money.

Nvidia says they have problems with DX9... they say the true potential of quad SLI will be unleashed with DX10... but AFAIK the 7950GX2 doesnt support DX10 features (no unified shaders, etc)... it seems like they're spreading BS to gain some time to fix the drivers.
from what i understand the problem is in the directx software so when they say it will be better under directx 10 they mean the directx 10 software will fix atleast some of the problem quad sli is showing. we will have to wait and see how true that is of course.

[Dayvon]

@ dragongodz

Well that was quite a rant based on a small comment, but ok. I was just commenting on what appeared to be an error on your part. No need to get pissy.

The other reason I commented was the sound of the phrase "to be fair i can show reviews where sli'd 7900 gtx's and crossfired x1950xtx's swap backwards and forwards for top speeds depending on the games". This phrase sounds defensive, like you are trying to validate one product despite its inferiority. It seemed to me to be an opinionated statement that encouraged me to counterbalance your statement.

Basically I agree with your last statement though, "so really these 2 setups are both extremely powerful and give people a choice if they have that sort of money." Really its all about preference. ATI and Nvidia cards both have quirks. Both have general advantages over the other.

Just to throw it out there, I do tend to prefer ATI myself, but I consistently recommend Nvidia cards to others as well. No fanboyism here, and I hate seeing it in others as well. What matters most is that you get a good card for a good price that suits your needs, and hopefully exceeds your expectations.

[dragongodz]

Well that was quite a rant based on a small comment
ahh so spelling out what you mean because someone doesnt get what you wrote is now a rant ? afraid not.

I was just commenting on what appeared to be an error on your part. No need to get pissy.
pissy ? you havent seen me "pissy". its you who made the error in my meaning so i spelled it out so there would be no confusion.

This phrase sounds defensive, like you are trying to validate one product despite its inferiority. It seemed to me to be an opinionated statement that encouraged me to counterbalance your statement.
hmm sound to me more like its you who went on the defensive when i dared to say that the ati option was not some magic solution which killed all nvidia options, which the first post in this thread suggests.

No fanboyism here, and I hate seeing it in others as well.
and i hate incomplete information such as this thread started with. if you think of giving a more complete picture(with evidence) as fanboyism then you are putting a slant on what i wrote that is not really there.

What matters most is that you get a good card for a good price that suits your needs, and hopefully exceeds your expectations.
i agree. people can only base their decisions on the information they get though. which is why i gave links and suggested reading multiple reviews etc. i personally dont care what someone else buys. i have used both ati and nvidia cards for the record and been generally happy with both, except for those occasional quirks as you said.

[Dayvon]

I'm gonna cool it down a bit and not jump back.

I think you are right that the thread itself is quite off base as "kicking" QuadSLI is not accurate. They are fairly equal and any good review of the information will say so. Though to its credit, the 1950XTX is only a single GPU card, which shows its strength when matching up to the dual-GPU cards.

I apologize if you got the impression that I was demeaning towards you. It was a simple misunderstanding that I was humored by.

[dragongodz]

Though to its credit, the 1950XTX is only a single GPU card, which shows its strength when matching up to the dual-GPU cards.
and to expand and that it must also be said the 7900gtx is also a single gpu card. the 7950 x2 is the dual gpu card which was of course used to do quad-sli.

I apologize if you got the impression that I was demeaning towards you.
saying a person ranted and calling them pissy tends to give that impression. ;)

It was a simple misunderstanding that I was humored by.
understood. thats why i tried to make it exactly clear what i had meant, so there could be no more misunderstanding.