780i with tripple SLI

[The boy 4rm oz]

Is this worth it or just purely overkill?
Here is a link:
http://www.techpowerup.com/?43403

[NightrainSrt4]

After having SLI'd before, I now prefer one higher powered card over two lower cards. Having to deal with 3 cards just makes that situation even worse. Thats if your on any kind of a budget though.

If your really rich and money doesn't matter than I am sure we are going to see some 3dmark06 scores shattered and some really nice rigs.

For those on a budget, it just isn't going to be worth the money to have tri-sli.


As for the actual board itself it looks nice. Once you get all your graphics cards in there though, your not going to have much room for anything else. Even if you have single slot cards, I still prefer atleast one slot for airflow. But a tri-sli board is designed for tri-sli not 3 other expansion cards. Nice though.

[Spawn-Inc]

mmmm 3x 8800 ultra Black pearl!

[xRyokenx]

mmmm 3x 8800 ultra Black pearl!

Don't sell the ranch, dude.

That is crazy... 8500GTx3... that'd be about $210 for all three cards... I'd almost fork out an extra $100 for something better so I can upgrade later on. I still want to get two 8500GTs in SLi though, that'd be sweet. That's an upgrade for later on, heh heh.

/jealous

[khalie]

Nice one but it`s all going crazy, what come next.... we have skulltrail for Xeons with 4 pci-x 16 slots.
Next year what?! octo-sli?! when it will end... the answer is NEVER :(

[Spawn-Inc]

octo sli... pfft thats old news man!

link (http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7657&highlight=octo)

haha, its not real sli though since only there are only two sli bridges.

[The boy 4rm oz]

It is over the top and yeah I would prefer to have 1 8800GTX than 3 8500GT's.

[xRyokenx]

It is over the top and yeah I would prefer to have 1 8800GTX than 3 8500GT's.

Easier to upgrade and more economical, heh heh. I might get 2 8500GTs in SLI just because it'd be cheaper and only 30% lower in performance... we'll see. I still have no money and that stuff takes a while to save up, heh.

[khalie]

octo sli... pfft thats old news man!

link (http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7657&highlight=octo)

haha, its not real sli though since only there are only two sli bridges.

I saw that. I only use it as an example to show what we will see next. Right now we have max 4 pci-x cards, but after that what it`s going to be 6-8 cards. Think of a size of that board?! That would be huge.

[calumc]

Next up: multi core GPUs

[The boy 4rm oz]

Yeah probably, lol you never know.

[Spawn-Inc]

thats a good point (multi core gpu's) why cant they just slap a q6600 on a video card?!

[NightrainSrt4]

Not sure how true it is, but ive been hearing alot of rumors about the new coming GTX's or whatever the new topend cards are going to be that they are supposed to have two chips/cores on one board.

If that does turn out, it doesn't seem to far away now...


And for tri-sli and only being able to do 4 right now, with that board couldn't you run 3 gx2's for a total of 6 boards? But then again the drivers for the gx2's sucked monkey balls so why bother anyway.

[danthegeek]

I thought the third slot was designed to take over the physics?

[Spawn-Inc]

those cards are pci only AFAIK. it would make sense to put it to a pci-e slot IMO though. then i could (if i had lots and lots and lots) put in a sound card, physX card, and one of those killer network cards (http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/2076_large_killernic.png). even if it only lowers my ping 10-20 it will be worth it since i would have lots of cash.

[khalie]

With that amount of cards the air flow would be poor :( 2(3) video cards + physX card + networ + sound card = a lot of cards :)

[danthegeek]

I meant to say, I thought the third graphics card such as an 8800gtx would take over all physics processing instead of your cpu. The other two cards would then be for graphics. I dont know, maybe Im going mad or something lol.

[khalie]

yee you`re right (not about that madness ;) ) this would do just fine 2cards for graphics and one for phisics

[Spawn-Inc]

With that amount of cards the air flow would be poor :( 2(3) video cards + physX card + networ + sound card = a lot of cards :)

ahh but assuming i had lots and lots of money i would water cool everything! i mean everything!

i would have a custom built case and have like 5 loops, well maybe not 5, 4 haha. (1. gpu's 2. CPU 3. chipsets 4. voltage regulator and the ram) i would use 2x 120.3 thermochill rads, 2x 120.2 thermochill rads all outfitted with panaflows (both sides) anyway enough dreaming!

[khalie]

This would the job nicely done ehhh if I had lots and lots and lots of money.... i think i would do what you ;) ahhh sweeet dreams

[.Maleficus.]

The day that a game comes out requiring more than 3 graphics cards to run is the day I quit PC gaming.

But for me, the last upgrades I do to this PC will be 8800GT (eventually 2) and new monitor. Then I'm calling it quits on this build. I can't keep going through parts every 10-14 months.

[The boy 4rm oz]

This tri SLI is different to the ATI/AMD option where the third card would be for physics. This is Nvidia's answer to that idea, the third card isn't for physics, it's just SLI with 3 cards. The physics calculations is still done by the CPU but if I recall correctly the 8800GTX (and Ultra) do physics calculations on board so tri SLI with the GTX or Ultra would mean less strain on the CPU anyway so you wouldn't have to waste money on a PhysX card.

EDIT: the release of this chipset has been pushed back to December from a November 12 release.
http://www.techpowerup.com/?43645