MultiGPU Update: Does 3-way Make Sense?
by Derek Wilson on February 25, 2009 2:45 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Power Consumption
No surprises here really. 3-way hardware requires more power at idle and load. Remember that these numbers are total system power consumption, but that these numbers are run with the 3dmark Vantage POM shader test. This means the rest of the system isn't pushed very hard at all. Depending on the game, you could expect real load power draw to be 50 to 100W higher.
While NVIDIA hardware seems to handle idle power a bit better, at load 3-way SLI tends to require much more than 3-way CrossFire. But this is in line with what we saw with 2-way solutions as well.
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7Enigma - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - link
Derek,Please keep the new way. I was one of the proponents of the zero rating after the last article and it shows nicely what can and can't handle a given resolution. Sure you can turn down the eye candy, but that's not the point of the article...especially when you are talking about 3-way.
We could just turn all the settings down to medium and a single 4850 would be the value king! (/sarcasm)
Antman56 - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - link
I think demonstrating crossfire using 4850s with 1 GB of ram each would have created a "sweet" price/performance result.These 4850s show us what happens when there isn't enough memory to compliment a video card's processing potential.
Spivonious - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - link
I find it interesting that the 4870 512MB leads the value charts at "normal" resolutions (still way higher than I run).I think as a follow-up to this series you should look at playability statistics and see if getting anything more than the 4870 512MB is worth it at 1920x1200 and below.
fixxxer0 - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - link
only if both girls are hotStraightPipe - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - link
only one of the girls needs to be hot, the other will be so busy licking your balls it wont make a difference.Jansen - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - link
And if it is not a "Devil's 3-way"...That's with two guys.