GeForce 9800 GX2 in Quad SLI Tested

HD3870X2 is more suited for us

yes, but we can't

as if 9800GX2 is meant for the masses
people who can easily afford 9800GX2, should have much problems buying a second

Which costs money most of us cannot afford, even if you don't count the 1 KW PSU you need.

Crysis results tell otherwise Rutar, only setup that can run 1920x1080 High detail is Quad SLI setup

You seem to have too much time.

Quad SLi is so pointless, it isn't worth discussing

proving that it's not CPU limited
these Quad SLI results are more promising and show CPU limited in games is not yet today, CPU is outpacing GPU, as games rely on GPU for most of their fancy GFX works which takes the most power. hency games remain GPU limited

I like to see an article with E8200 CPU used in Quad SLI at resolutions 1920x1080 and higher in games with 4xAA/16xAF, before I would even consider calling the system CPU limited
what good is having Quad SLI or one single 9800GX2, if you can't run 4xAA/16xAF (or higher) ?

Combine the CPU with a suitable VGA and vice-versa. If you buy a $900 CPU, don't use a $200 VGA. If you get a $120, don't combine it with $700 VGA. But if I had to choose between those two weird setups, I would go for the latter

But you've got a point on the AA & AF scaling, should scale there, so it must be a driver issue. I call BS on Anand en HardOCP results though : Anand uses uncomparable skulltrail resuls, en HardOCP uses "real world testing", in other words, non repeatable and totally unreliable and uncomparable results. Games gpu limited ? Not any more I think (unless you use AA & AF).

Edit : the UT3 benches are not really representable either, Crysis scales nicely in their tests.

wait wait wait... Thorgal is claiming CPU limited ?
that does not explain the lower performance of QUAD SLI, no the fact that the 9600 GT comes so close.

Techreport, Anandtech, HardOCP and many others show much better results for 9800GX2 and they are not using overclocked CPUs for their tests.
you should now better than to say 9800GX2 Quad SLI is causing CPU limit, when it's clear that in FPS games, the GPU will remain the limit, especially at higher AA/AF

TT uses Quad Core @ 4ghz , too speedy for any game out there, overkill thus. Games are GPU limited, remember?

It all depends on cpu power really.When you're going this high in gpu performance, even a 3.6Ghz quad core cannot really make the difference between a quad crossfire or quad sli setup. You really need 4.5Ghz+ (quad) cpu power to see a bigger difference.

TT previous 9800GX2 results have not been on par with what we've seen on other sites, their 9800GX2 has been under performing since the start, where other sites have the 9800GX2 leading the 3870X2 by a nice margin, in TT benchmarks the 9800GX2 is hardly faster... so take these results with a grain of salt

TT UT3 bench:



TechReport UT3 bench (which is in line with other sites)