Conclusion

While Quad SLI launched 1.5 years ago with a few teething problems, NVIDIA appears to be off to a much smoother start with 3-Way SLI. Scaling was good in the apps we tested, particularly at 2560x1600. At this resolution, 3-Way SLI really shines. We saw nice improvements at 1920x1200 with 8xCSAA, but you may want to go even higher with your own system.

Of course, due to the extraordinary expense of 3-Way SLI, we don’t see this technology taking off anytime soon. You’ll have to invest in a $200+ nForce 680i or better motherboard, a 1,000W power supply, and three GeForce 8800 GTX or Ultra graphics cards; and don’t forget the 24” or 30” monitor. So clearly this technology isn’t designed for the average consumer who doesn’t game heavily. 3-Way SLI is intended for the hardcore gamer who craves the very best performance, and wants the best image quality available. For this type of consumer, NVIDIA's 3-Way SLI solution clearly delivers: this is the fastest graphics platform on the planet right now.

This is a very niche market, but clearly a market that both AMD and NVIDIA must feel is viable. After all, neither company would have spent the considerable R&D time and resources on this if they didn’t feel there was a market for it.

As we’ve told you in the past, the graphics subsystem plays the most significant role in gaming performance. Not the CPU. So if you want the best gaming performance possible, you should spend more money on graphics than the other system components.

With that being said though, we are disappointed that 3-Way SLI is only supported by NVIDIA’s most expensive GPUs, the GeForce 8800 GTX and 8800 Ultra. While we realize that it’s the high-end GPUs that will show the most benefit thanks to the larger frame buffer and wider memory interface, there aren’t a lot of gamers who are willing to fork over $1,500 or more on their GPUs alone. It just isn’t practical for the enthusiast on a budget who would like to take advantage of 3-Way SLI.

NVIDIA needs to expand 3-Way SLI to cheaper GPUs like the GeForce 8800 GT and GTS 512MB. In theory, AMD already provides 3 and 4-Way CrossFire to GPUs dating all the way back to the Radeon X1950 Pro from last year, so there’s just no reason why NVIDIA shouldn’t trickle 3-Way technology down to other GPUs. Hopefully this issue will be addressed by NVIDIA shortly.

In the meantime, 3-Way GeForce 8800 Ultra/GTX is here now and its a screamer when it comes to performance. If you can afford it, this is as close to gaming nirvana as it gets...