Evga's new board: 7x PCIe slots, XL-ATX form factor

[Corporate Thug]

http://www.evga.com/articles/00501/

this thing looks insane. I didn't even know "XL-ATX" even existed as a form factor.

 

[MegaWorks]

:shocked:

 

[OCGuy]

4 way SLI? Wow, the records are going to be shattered, even with poor 3-4 GPU scaling. The best so far are 4 275s with poor OC ability due to heat (2X 295s)

4 285s or 380s all overclockable......I.....my SO is going to kill me.


:heart: EVGA

 

[Shmee]

Wow, is there driver support for this yet? That is amazing. What card combos are supported? Time to ogle more, later...

 

[palladium]

Nice.. wonder if it supports 4 way CF..

Also, they should release an equivalent GTX 295 for 8 GPU goodness.........Or maybe make the board workstation size ( cant remember the form factor) and put in another CPU socket. Now that would be a kickass rig...

 

[PCTC2]

Originally posted by: palladium
Nice.. wonder if it supports 4 way CF..

Also, they should release an equivalent GTX 295 for 8 GPU goodness.........Or maybe make the board workstation size ( cant remember the form factor) and put in another CPU socket. Now that would be a kickass rig...

There's different workstation formfactors, usually EATX or SSI CEB, but the problem is the number of expansion slots needed... XL-ATX is needed.

As for support, I'm only seeing EVGA's GTX285 Classified being supported for a while, or being the only supported card until this dies out along with any other extreme part (like SkullTrail). Maybe some GT300 support. Maybe some 4-way CF support, but with EVGA, as an NVIDIA-based company, I would doubt it.

 

[Mr Fox]

Originally posted by: OCguy
4 way SLI? Wow, the records are going to be shattered, even with poor 3-4 GPU scaling. The best so far are 4 275s with poor OC ability due to heat (2X 295s)

4 285s or 380s all overclockable......I.....my SO is going to kill me.


:heart: EVGA

Yeah but if you can't put the power to the pavement....... you are just jerkin yer gherkin....


This is such a joke...

Originally posted by:Hard OCP.com

http://www.hardocp.com/article...ce_gtx_295_quad_sli/11

Gameplay Experiences

Well we said we had some interesting and unexpected results at the beginning, and we weren?t kidding. We expected Quad SLI to blow us away in games and prove why we needed to spend $1000 on it. What we were left with though was a feeling that it didn?t provide us with anything, nothing that would make us want to install it in our own system as a gaming platform right now. Even at 2560x1600 it seems most games are content with a single GTX 295 or equivalent.

The only game where we saw a distinct advantage at 2560x1600 was Crysis: Warhead. The problem is though that this game is now old and tired, who is playing it anymore still? Even with the recent release of the latest patch and 64-bit support it doesn?t offer anything worth going back and playing it all over again for a unique experience. Even with Quad SLI we still aren?t able to maximize AA settings at 2560x1600 and enjoy the game at the highest possible visual quality. Maybe the next generation video cards will allow us to play this game at the highest possible visual settings, but what kind of replay value this game has to you is of course subjective.

That game aside, there were no other games that showed any appreciable gameplay advantage with Quad SLI over a single GTX 295. In most of the games like Fallout 3 and FarCry 2 and F.E.A.R. 2 Demo we are already playing at the highest settings with just one GTX 295. Adding another does nothing but increase framerates; it doesn?t provide a better visual experience.

In the ONE game we really wanted to see a performance and visual quality improvement, Grand Theft Auto IV we found out that anything over two GPUs is useless. We really wanted to see Quad SLI and 4870 X2 CrossFireX blow GTA4 away and let us crank up all the settings, and we know you all wanted to see that as well. Unfortunately this game is so CPU limited that it has forced AMD to just shut off CrossFireX support altogether right now because one 4870 X2 is faster than two with CrossFireX enabled. The same was also true with Quad SLI.

We found that performance was actually faster in GTA4 with one GTX 295 than it was with two GTX 295?s with Quad SLI enabled! Moving beyond two GPUs actually degraded performance and worsened the gameplay experience. The sad fact is, GTA4 needs a massively faster CPU before we can see any appreciable differences over two GPUs in this game. Do not buy Quad SLI or 4870 X2 CrossFireX to improve GTA4 performance; it will do the exact opposite. If you already have one of these configurations take one card out for the best performance in GTA4.

Value

Quad SLI currently has no value. The GeForce GTX 295?s are pricey; still at $499. That means Quad SLI will cost you no less than $1000. That extra $500 is not going to buy you a better gaming experience with today?s games. Even F.E.A.R. 2 which was just released last week can already be run at its highest possible settings at 2560x1600 with just one GTX 295 or one 4870 X2. There aren't any gaming reasons to invest in Quad SLI OR 4870 X2 CrossFireX currently.

State of Support

As far as the hardware itself goes Quad SLI operated without any problems at all. Setup was a breeze, and it worked in the games we tested. Only one game demo did we have to mess with and that was because the profile was looking for a different EXE filename.

Compared to our past experiences with Quad SLI this current generation of Quad SLI has fixed all of those issues and is now so easy to setup a newbie could do it. We are impressed with the level of hardware and software support for SLI NVIDIA has garnered. They are certainly quick to the draw when it comes to new game releases like F.E.A.R. 2 in offering SLI profile support. This is one area where AMD really needs to step it up on.

Whenever a new game comes out like this NVIDIA has had a beta driver made specifically for that game to improve performance, and this is the kind of driver support we need for gaming. AMD needs to get on the ball with CrossFire profile support when games are released. The last thing we as gamers hate to do is sit on a game waiting to take advantage of our multi-GPU systems, we want the full power of our video cards to accelerate our games on the DAY the game is released and out on the shelf. If the developers are locking out AMD due to TWIWMTBP agreements, they should be shot as they are forsaking their fan base.

The Bottom Line

Overall Quad SLI is very fast, it can produce very high framerates. However, it doesn?t provide real-world gameplay improvements in today?s games over a single GTX 295. The same is true for 4870 X2 CrossFireX./B]These single video cards are able to play the latest games, like the recently released F.E.A.R. 2 at the highest possible settings at 2560x1600 already. The need for these high-end and expensive configurations isn't there right now for gamers. This is not to say the need may never arise, but right now this is where we are at.

It is all moot if the cards aren't available, and as of this writing all the GTX 295?s are out of stock at Newegg. Signs of poor hardware availability and support from the previous days of Quad SLI? We sure hope not, but right now it isn?t looking good if they are all out of stock and hard to find.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Maybe one of these would be good for a CUDA workstation, seeing as how the quad PCI-E slot MSI K9A2 Platinum mobo has apparently been discontinued.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Maybe one of these would be good for a CUDA workstation, seeing as how the quad PCI-E slot MSI K9A2 Platinum mobo has apparently been discontinued.

Wanna buy mine ? :evil:


How many total PCIe lanes are we talking about with the EVGA ?

IIRC, my K9A2 Platinum has 36. (maybe 38?)

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
How many total PCIe lanes are we talking about with the EVGA ?

Dunno, but supposedly it uses two NF200 chips like the Asus WS board.

 

[PM650]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Maybe one of these would be good for a CUDA workstation, seeing as how the quad PCI-E slot MSI K9A2 Platinum mobo has apparently been discontinued.

Haven't seen MSI's replacement for it using sb750? 790FX-GD70 :heart:

 

[Shmee]

Even if not for 4SLI, you could still use the slots for fancy RAID cards, and have build some super arrays lawl.

 

[Skott]

I'm glad I'm the type that uses just one video card. I bet that mobo is gonna be expensive.

 

[deimos3428]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
How many total PCIe lanes are we talking about with the EVGA ?

It should be 36 lanes like any other X58:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:X58_Block_Diagram.png

 

[hennessy1]

correct me if I am wrong but you would have to use 2 power supplies for that many cards correct? just for the number of 6 and 8 pin connectors? or even the wattage?