Sono comparse in rete le prime recensioni di un sistema nVidia Quad SLI - prossimamente anche su queste pagine grazie ai test dei nostri colleghi di Monaco che stanno testando la soluzione.
I primi risultati, a dispetto di tanta potenza, sono molto deludenti; ecco le prime conclusioni dei nostri colleghi:
Xbitlabs:
During the testing we also experienced numerous crashes and freezes in different situation, primarily in high resolutions or with high levels of SLI AA enabled, which is why we could not compete quite a number of test runs. After numerous crashes we decided to switch to a 1000W power supply unit bought in Northern America, as we believed that the 660W power supply shipped with the system (as there are no higher-wattage power supplies in Europe) could not supply enough power for the machine. Even after the 1kW PSU was installed, the crashes and freezes remained.
The continuous crashes, freezes and problems of the currently shipping Nvidia GeForce quad SLI systems may be associated with early revisions of the hardware, but as the hardware is shipping to customers, any issues with stability are totally unacceptable.
Techpowerup:
If you already have a Ferrari and a nice boat and now need something new to impress your friends you could shell out at least 7k for a Quad SLI system and a 30" widescreen gaming display. All other users may want to go for a more cost-effective and stable solution.
Over the years NVIDIA has greatly improved their SLI drivers to be rock stable and very performance efficient. If they can do the same to their Quad-SLI drivers I think we will see a winner. But until then you better wait till the quirks are sorted out.
Quad-SLI seems to be a very promising solution. Hats off to the engineers who managed to put so much GPU power into so little space without any thermal or power issues.
Our other tested system was ATI's X1900 XTX Crossfire. Even though ATI entered the multi-GPU market a lot later than NVIDIA, they successfully improved their product and now have a very competitive solution. When asked about Quad-Crossfire ATI told us that they "are looking into it". Right now ATI has the better solution for gaming at maximum detail at ultra-high wide-screen resolutions.
In sintesi oltre ai numerosi problemi di stabilità riscontrati, le prestazioni sono tutt'altro che "impressionanti" e non staccano le concorrenti dei test, ovvero i sistemi classici in SLI e Crossfire dual card.
Ecco alcuni risultati:
In attesa di provare un sistema Quad SLI con impazienza, possiamo trarre un primo spunto dal lavoro dei colleghi:
Come lo per SLI in gioventù ci sono ovvi problemi con i driver e la mancanza del supporto del software si fa sentire, tuttavia conoscendo nVidia sappiamo per certo che le prestazioni in futuro dovrebbero subire un boost prestazionale evidente. L'unico quesito che potrebbe rimanere aperto è il seguente: perchè proporre una soluzione così "innovativa" e altrettanto problematica senza le dovute certezze di prestazioni al top fin da subito?