Nvidia Tri-SLI Using Two Cards

[exar333]

I know you can't SLI a 295 with a 285 or a 260, but why didn't Nvidia built the 295 either exactly as two 260s or two 280/285s? They could have conceivably then allowed a user to get a dual gpu board (I will call it a "295") and SLI it with a single GPU board. This would be really cool and would make the upgrade path awesome for multi-GPU systems. I believe you can do this with AMD's 4870x2 and 4870, right?

Just dreaming here.

 

[Denithor]

Yes, you can triCF with 4870X2 + 4870. Not sure why nVidia set the hardware for the GTX 295 like they did - kind of a hybrid between 260 & 280 specs. They probably just didn't expect people to want/need to use tripleSLI with these cards.

 

[nosfe]

because dual 260s would have been too slow for what they wanted(single card performance crown) and the 280/285 would have been too hot to sandwich

 

[chizow]

I'd say part of it is performance and part of it is product branding and image. Its pretty obvious Nvidia does not want their high-end mult-GPU single-slot cards to directly compete and scale with their high-end SLI and Tri-SLI solutions with discrete graphics cards. Whether by clockspeed, VRAM, bandwidth, differences they've consistently cut the GX2 versions back so that they won't outperform the dual card versions. I'm sure heat/power does come into play somewhat with clocks and final specs, but it also sounds like they don't want a GX2 to be compatible in SLI with a single-card.

 

[nosfe]

another reason could be the yields, if part of a 285 would go bad they can stick it in a 295 instead of way down in a 260

 

[exar333]

Originally posted by: chizow
I'd say part of it is performance and part of it is product branding and image. Its pretty obvious Nvidia does not want their high-end mult-GPU single-slot cards to directly compete and scale with their high-end SLI and Tri-SLI solutions with discrete graphics cards. Whether by clockspeed, VRAM, bandwidth, differences they've consistently cut the GX2 versions back so that they won't outperform the dual card versions. I'm sure heat/power does come into play somewhat with clocks and final specs, but it also sounds like they don't want a GX2 to be compatible in SLI with a single-card.

You are probably right Chizow. As much as I like Nvidias offerings, I wonder if a little dose of "humble pie" might push them toward offering better interoperation of their products. If AMD/ATI has the single-slot single-GPU crown, I wouldn't be suprised to have them release a 260x2 and (1) tout the performance per dollar (2) energy usage (3) offer tri-SLI with this and a regular 260 using only 2 x16 PCIe lanes.

Oh well.

 

[dflynchimp]

They probably wanted to design the system so that their cumulative single GPU and dual GPU setups interlaced to provide evenly spaced performance tiers. The guy who mentioned the GPU binning is also pretty spot on IMO.