3-way or 2-way SLi?

[mr0roboto]

I have an Asus Rampage III Formula MB, which has 3 PCIe 2.0 x16 slots, and can run dual or three-way SLi. I have an EVGA 8800 GTX 768 (768-P2-N831-AR), and I want to buy another one or two cards to run SLi. My board supports dual SLi at x16/x16, but three-way SLi is at x16/x8/x8. Assuming my power supply can support three cards, is it better to run dual SLi at x16/x16, or three-way at x16/x8/x8?

Also, this is for better game performance, mainly Diablo III. I know D3 does not have heavy graphics requirements like Crysis and other games do, but I want to be able to maximize my graphics power while I can still find 8800 GTX cards for sale.

Thanks!

Other info:
CPU: Intel Core i7 940
RAM: 6GB DDR3 SDRAM
OS: Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit

 

[KompuKare]

Now I've never run SLI/CF in my life... BUT are you sure this will be a good idea?

Using those somewhat simplistic voodoopower rating (VPR) the 8800GTX scores 53 and the card itself uses about 140W doing so (noisy too I think).
So two would be 280W and three 420W.

Dual SLI will not scale 100% (Tri-SLI is even worse), but lets be generous and say you get a 106 'VPR', that's the same score as the HD6850 (125W). So the SLI uses a lot more power and generates more heat and noise.

It will certainly more challenging with microstutter, profiles and the like but it may also not be much cheaper unless you get those 8800GTX for like £20-£30 (say $30-£45) and stick to only two.

BTW: The VPR list is somewhere on ABT but the bookmark I had and googling it both coming up as virus alert so beware.

 

[blastingcap]

8800 series was great in its time but it's got pitiful performance/watt and VRAM these days, plus SLI will mean added noise. Is your PSU beefy enough to handle 2 or 3 of them?

I know I am not answer your q, but I would just sell it off and use the proceeds to help buy a single GPU card at 40nm or 28nm. A single 6850 can handle D3 just fine. Overclock it and you will be at very high framerates indeed.

And to answer your Q, 2-way SLI doesn't scale perfectly and 3-way SLI is even worse, so if I had to, I'd stick with 2-way SLI.

 

[Ieat]

Sell your current card and get a used 6850 or gtx 460. No practical reason I can think of to sli such old cards.

 

[Jaydip]

The other users nailed it down,don't go ahead with ur plan

 

[toyota]

8800gtx sli or tri sli? lol, what year is this?

sell that old card and get you a gtx670 if you want to play demanding games. that would be faster than 3 8800gtx cards while using way less power, having newer features and having 2gb of vram instead of 768mb. you never even mentioned your resolution though so you may not even want a gtx670 if playing below 1920x1080/1200.

 

[nenforcer]

Don't bother with it, its not cost effective to SLI an old video card like that especially with your modern gaming rig.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

A 8800gtx = 4850. 6850 is nearly twice as fast or about as fast as 8800gtx sli. 6870 will come close to tri sli

 

[BallaTheFeared]

The older cards are decent but there is a huge train wreak of older cards occupying the sub $100 market. There are three generations within $40 of each other, 8800's go for around $50, you can get a 275 for about $70 and a 280 for about $80 as well as 460s for less than $100.

 

[guskline]

I'm selling both a GTX 460 768 or a Radeon 5770 in the for sale section.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2243032

 

[FalseChristian]

If you hate microstuttering with 2 GPUs in SLI you'll really hat it with 3.

 

[lopri]

no-way SLI is better.