Not to be outdone by our resident SLI chick, I wanted to share with everyone my experiences with 3-way SLI®.
As you may know, we launched 3-way SLI in November of 2007 and it got some great reviews (FiringSquad, PC Perspective, Hot Hardware to name a few). This technology is definitely not for the faint of heart as it does require some investment of time, energy, and money to build your system. But as the product manager for it, I wanted to make sure that I experienced 3-way SLI just like any other enthusiast building a new PC would.
So how do you go about building one? Let me go through some of the important details on how to build your own 3-way SLI PC properly.
- GPUs: Three GeForce 8800 GTX or Ultra. These are the fastest GPUs on the planet and I get three? I can’t wait. I chose the 8800 GTX.
- Motherboard: Today 3-way SLI is supported on nForce 680i and 780i. More motherboard support is coming soon, but these are terrific gaming platforms. I picked my nForce 680i motherboard as I have had it now for almost a year and we made sure that 3-way SLI was backwards compatible to our “Built by NVIDIA” motherboards that had three PCI-E slots.
- Power Supply: Having a high-quality power supply that provides the peak power needed for a 3-way SLI system is really important. This is why we created a new category in the SLI Zone Certified Products section. There are quite a few options, but we only recommend power supplies that have been through our certification. We do all the hard work for you! I chose a PC Power and Cooling Turbo-Cool 1200W model.
- Case: The backbone of your PC. Case design and cooling is something we are really passionate about at NVIDIA. You can have great PC components, but if the case can’t provide the proper cooling or space needed for your components, your gaming experience will be poor. I chose the Cooler Master CM Stacker 830 NVIDIA Edition. We have these for sale at our NVIDIA Gear Store.
- Additional Cooling: Any enthusiast will tell you, sometimes you need more cooling in your PC. 3-way SLI does create additional heat that you need to move out of the case, but we have done extensive testing to make sure your GPUs run great under these conditions. The three most important areas for adding additional cooling in a 3-way SLI PC are: side-cover fans to blow air onto the GPUs; the front fan to bring air into the case; and back fans to help move air out of the case. If you configure your 3-way SLI PC with these fans, your PC should run great. I chose Antec Green LED 120mm fans that have three speeds, with a peak of 2,400 rpm. I run them at 2,000 rpm to maintain good cooling, but with less noise. I originally had four 120mm fans on the side, but found with better cable management and adding the fans on the front and back that my PC still ran just as cool.
- Monitor: I would be crazy to choose anything less than a 30-inch 2560x1600 display. 3-way SLI lets you run at the highest resolution with all settings turned on. I chose a Dell 3007 WFP since its one of the most popular 30-inch displays out there.
- 3-way SLI Connector: 3-way SLI requires a unique SLI connector in order to operate properly. If you buy a brand-new nForce 780i motherboard, this connector will be in the box. However, if you are like me and used an older nForce 680i motherboard, you’ll have to get one separately. Don’t worry though, as we worked with some partners to carry these connectors in retail. Please visit the 3-way SLI website on SLI Zone for a list of stores where you can purchase this connector.
Here are some pictures of the final working system.
That seems like a lot of work, but boy is it worth it! My favorite game lately is Call of Duty 4. I can game on that thing for hours on end. So I installed it on this new PC, fired it up, went to the settings menu, and immediately set everything to the highest available, something I haven’t done on a game in a long time—since I have been using a 6600 GT SLI system to game with for a while now.
The first time I logged into a team multiplayer game and started playing my jaw literally dropped. If you have never seen 2560x1600 4x antialiasing at 60 fps with all effects turned on, it will blow your mind. I let our GPU public relations manager, Brian Burke, try it to make sure it was fun and playable. I think he enjoyed it, even though he died rather quickly.
I am attaching some of my screenshots you can view below to see COD4 at this resolution. Once you click to the Picasa page, click on the Download Photo link on the right hand column to get the full resolution photo.
So was 3-way SLI worth it? I absolutely, unequivocally love it! Has anyone else out there tried it? Please feel free to comment.
It sure would be nice if the fans on my 9800 GTX would run at the proper speeds so my 3-way rig would stop overheating. You're killin' me - UPDATE YOUR DRIVERS NVIDIA!
Posted by: kwilliam71@gmail.com | August 14, 2009 at 12:34 PM
Well I dove in and got myself 3 ASUS 9800GTX's and boy... it DOES kick ass... still playing around with the AFR's and all that jazz but thus far... so worth it for me...
Posted by: holy hell! TIS WORTH IT! | April 05, 2008 at 02:22 PM
Tri Sli is currently only available for the GTX and the Ultra 8800 series. That may change in the future so we shall see.
As for the difference in CoD4. Yes...there is a difference. You can set high resolutions on a less capable card and take a screenshot....looks great....not playable though. Tri will let you play at those higher resolutions and sustain a high FPS (mine is set at 125 and I dont dip below that too much)
Posted by: FISH | March 25, 2008 at 09:25 AM
Is there really a difference in tri-sli especially when playing COD4, I saw the pics and they look exactly the same when i play. I am running an 8800gts 640ssc. Thought I would upgrade but having second thoughts now, just not worth the investement imo.
Posted by: Marc | March 19, 2008 at 09:45 AM
i have a 680i mobo and dual 8800gt in sli. will triple sli work with three 8800gt cards. i hope you have the answer for me anyone.
Posted by: adisakti | March 14, 2008 at 08:59 AM
It looks like I've found my answer! Disappointing!
http://www.hothardware.com/printarticle.aspx?articleid=1112
Posted by: Cyberchief | March 13, 2008 at 08:43 AM
I have been searching for about 1 to 2 weeks to find out if the new GeForce 9600 GT could work in 3 way-SLI. Can someone tell me please if this could work? Until now I have only seen the 8800 GTX and Ultra that could work this way?
Posted by: Cyberchief | March 13, 2008 at 08:25 AM
got a 680i lanparty LT mobo, 2 x 8800 XFX ultras and 2 gig ram-- 3d mark 17,323... now change mobo for a xfx 780i and 4 gig ram, 3d mark 12,400... go figure???
Posted by: gaz | March 10, 2008 at 04:31 AM
Well...I think I just figured out something to help me improve performance.
When you step up to Tri-SLI you have an option to set SLI Performance Mode to 3-GPU AFR and 2 (as well as 4GPU). I went ahead and set it up with 3-GPU from the very beginning...and saw no improvements. Then...on a whim....I set it back to the standard AF1....and wow....what a difference in CoD4. So....for those that play CoD4...give it a shot.
Posted by: FISH | March 09, 2008 at 04:15 PM
Hello. I recently installed a 780i mboard (from 680i) and 3 8800GTX vid cards (all nvidia products from EVGA) and was wondering what settings you have set up for CoD4? I dont seem to be taking advantage of my third card as of yet (seemed actually better in standard SLI) so I must not have something running right. Using 3 AFR1. Anyway....water cooled it useing Zalman Reserator XT and their 8800GTX blocks (along with the cpu block). I added an extra pump and radiator for extra cooling and I keep my GPU's a cool 33C. I had a great time with the install....now....just got to get mysettings right :)
Posted by: FISH | March 07, 2008 at 03:58 PM
I have been an SLI fan for years (since the 6800 series was king of the hill) and this three card SLI seems like it's not worth it.. the gain you get from adding the third card is only like what, a 20% max performance gain over the two card SLI.. doesn't seem to scale too well.. maybe it's too much overhead on the system managing all three cards? regardless, it's not enough to justify giving up my x-fi. so I'll be sticking to my two card 8800GTX setup...
Posted by: rev | February 29, 2008 at 09:40 PM
lol my friend started his tri SLI lol by buying the mobo lol now hes poor xD lol anyway my 8600's SLI is good for me.
Posted by: desertion | February 23, 2008 at 01:30 AM
I would like to add a comment if you don't mind. I am excited about 3-way SLI. I have a high end system based on a QX9650, 780i, 3X 8800GTXs, 4GB mem, Dell 30" and Vista64. So I was expecting fun stuff but I started my 3-way SLI experience with Crysis. Perhaps that was a mistake. Even with all the tweaking it just is not stable. So I turn off SLI to get some play time in. I hope the driver and patch updates keep coming because I want this to work. In the mean time I play Tomb Raider and Bioshock and World in Conflict all maxed and the visuals are stunning. Anyway, Nvidia, get the drivers fixed will ya?
Posted by: Yurmother | February 13, 2008 at 08:46 AM
@ edborden.blogSITE SPAM
Are 8800GTX's eol? cause they are tri sli compatible too.
Posted by: [TMC]Kuyaglen | February 13, 2008 at 04:05 AM
Funny that no one seems to care that 3 way SLI doesn't leave you any room to add anything else, it was bad enough that normal SLI only left me with 1 PCI slot i could use (X-FI), so i had to build a second system for my capture card (the card cost $1200 and i wasn't going to not install it) Money is not an issue for me but i won't go 3 way SLI untill there is a new form factor
Posted by: Skullraider | February 11, 2008 at 10:31 AM
Sorry about that, the links to the pics are now up.
Posted by: Andrew | February 11, 2008 at 08:42 AM
We've been selling systems based on TripleSLI on 780i since the launch. Check it out: pugetsystems.com/deluge.
It's expensive because we can only do it with Ultras!! As soon as this gets opened up to the next-gen cards, Triple-SLI will be a no-brainer for the enthusiast market.
And COD4 is awesome.
Posted by: edborden.blogspot.com | February 08, 2008 at 02:36 PM
The links to the pictures don't work
@topic: 3 way sli is too expensive for 80% of the gamers i think. so you won't receive a lot of honest feedback.
Posted by: Master-T | February 08, 2008 at 02:06 PM