The Definitive Multi-GPU Press Review World Tour Nine leading press review websites joined forces to put together the most comprehensive review series ever published on multi-GPU systems/gaming. The end result yields one final verdict: "NVIDIA's SLI is clearly more stable and mature than ATI's Crossfire, there is no debating that fact."
NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX and NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT July 2006 Honored by PC World as two of the 100 Best Products in the July 2006 issue, the NVIDIA® GeForce® 7600 GT and GeForce 7900 GTX deliver an ultra-realistic gaming experience with extreme high definition gaming and home-theater quality video. Highly rated on their design, performance, and specifications, the NVIDIA® GeForce® 7600 GT and GeForce 7900 GTX represent the cream of the crop in their categories.
HardOCP: NVIDIA GeForce 7900 Series Preview "Go out and buy a GeForce 7900 GTX SLI setup as it will provide you the best overall gaming experience on the planet. If you can afford that, let us suggest you grab you one of those big ass widescreen displays too. And don’t weenie out at 24” like we did, you might as well go for the gusto! "
Tom's Hardware: SLI Motherboards For Athlon 64 "In the end, the SLI platform from NVIDIA represents the optimum when it comes to 3D games, because the option of working with two graphics cards is enticing, to say the least. It is with exactly the gaming clientele that DFI can make its mark, because its board includes the equipment that the aspiring gamer needs, without making any compromises in terms of available features. Most importantly, the LANParty NF4 LSI-DR proves to be a master at overclocking, thanks to its high-quality components."
Techpowerup.com: Albatron K8SLI -- 8.7/10 "The Albatron K8SLI is a board designed with cost in mind, but performance has not been left out. All benchmarks show that it can compete with other more expensive boards. If you want to overclock you can definitely buy this motherboard, it should have enough headroom for any CPU or memory you will throw at it. Hardcore overclockers might want more BIOS settings to tweak their board with, but for everybody else there are enough options."
Neoseeker: Gigabyte 8N-SLI Royal Review- Editors Choice "The Gigabyte 8N-SLI is an excellent all-around performer, and its overclocking capabilities were outstanding. I had so much fun tweaking the system that you will likely soon see a followup article on tweaking the 8N-SLI here on Neoseeker. The 1066 Mhz front side bus really helps make the nForce4 shine; the memory bandwidth in Sandra increased by almost 40% with careful tweaking of the memory parameters and the bus speed."
Hardwarezone: ASUS P5ND2-SLI Deluxe- 4.5 / 5 "From what we've seen so far, the P5ND2-SLI Deluxe chalks up another win for ASUS scoring strong on features with first-rate gaming performance. The P5GD2-SLI Deluxe is not only an excellent piece of gaming hardware, it is to the Pentium what the A8N-SLI Deluxe should have been for the Athlon. The board can be found retailing for US$233, a fair sum but definitely worth for its target user group. If only the board performed more consistently in all our tests and was free from the PEG link issue, the ASUS P5ND2-SLI Deluxe might have walked off with full marks."
ViperLair: ASUS A8N SLI Review "Pros: Good performance, ActiveArmor, impressive storage options, SLI, good overclocker, and stable."
VR-Zone: Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI Review "The Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI has just about everything one might need in a motherboard, full of features and most importantly, the board is nothing less than rock stable."
PCStats: Zenith VNF4 Motherboard "NVIDIA integrates lot of good stuff into its nForce4 chipset. Serial ATA II is an emerging technology and the NF4 already supports it. NVIDIA is still the only chipset manufacturer to build a hardware firewall into its chipsets as well."
PimpRig: DFI LanParty UT nF4 SLI-DR Review "The DFI LanParty UT nF4 SLI-DR is a motherboard targeted towards the performance enthusiast market, and they hit the target. The multitude of hardware options and BIOS tweaks will put a smile on the face of an overclocker for days."
Legion Hardware: nForce4 RoundUp! "The Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI is my personal favorite of the bunch as it is a well balanced product, offering a bit of everything, for this reason I am going to give it the "Value Award". The ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe is another impressive product making it a difficult choice between the K8NXP-SLI and the A8N-SLI Deluxe. Therefore I am going to give this motherboard the "Performance Award" for its consistently strong performance. Finally, the DFI LANPartyUT NF4 SLI-DR is certainly a "Must Have" item for overclockers and it too will be receiving an award!"
Tbreak: nForce4 SLI Intel Edition Review "NVIDIA's entry into the P4 chipset segment is certainly impressive. NVIDIA also provides better built-in features such as support for ten USB 2.0 ports, four IDE drives along with four SATA drives than can be mixed to create RAID and their Active Armor Firewall technology."
Guru of 3D: nForce4 SLI Intel Edition Review "The nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition mainboards will be a hip and trendy product for those that opt the high-end path. Overall I can only say that I was very much pleased with overall performance and stability, it simply was great."
Gamepyre Hardware: nForce4 SLI Intel Edition Review "Feature-wise, nForce4 SLI Intel Edition is nearly unmatched in virtually every respect. When paired with 2 NVIDIA video cards in SLI mode, the motherboard has the ability to have higher performance than any other equivalent Intel system."
3DNews: nForce4 SLI Intel Edition "NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition-based boards [are] much more attractive than other boards designed for Intel CPUs."
PCLab.pl: NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition Review "It is NVIDIA's product that will ensure our PC the highest performance especially for SLI configuration, fast memories and double core processor. There is no doubt that from now on motherboards based on nForce4 SLI Intel Edition will be chosen by a great number of Intel-oriented enthusiasts."
Hot Hardware: ASUS P5ND2-SLI Deluxe Motherboard Review "Asus' new P5ND2-SLI Deluxe, based on the new nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition chipset has proven itself to be serious powerhouse in our testing, bringing out some of the best all around performance we've seen from the Pentium 4 architecture to date. You simply can't argue with the consistently strong numbers this motherboard turned out when you look at it from all the angles we did in the HotHardware.com test labs."
XBIT Labs: NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition Review "NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition is not just as good as any of the competitors from Intel, but can boast a few serious advantages over them. The major pride of nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) is its rich functionality. Serial ATA-II and RAID 5, Gigabit network controller with ActiveArmor, and SLI mode for graphics cards - these are certainly the major trumps."
Hard|OCP: NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition Preview "Our expectations for the nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition chipset were high, and they were either met or exceeded. To put it succinctly, the nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition motherboard chipset looks to be just as good if not better than Intel’s 925XE part while delivering a more robust end user feature set."
NVNews.net: NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition Preview "Hard-core gamers that prefer Intel processors need to look no further than NVIDIA's nForce4 SLI to deliver the best gaming experience on the market today."
Hexus.net: NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition Review "From what we can ascertain, NVIDIA had two aims when engineering a chipset for the Pentium 4. The first was to break into a lucrative market that had been hither-to closed to it. The second was to replicate the performance success of its SLI chipset for AMD-based CPUs. It, I feel, has succeeded on both counts."
Hot Hardware: NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition Preview "With this chipset, NVIDIA has made the Intel platform far more attractive to hardcore gamers and enthusiasts who were contemplating a purchase of an SLI setup. The bottom line is that the NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition, is a feature rich, high-performance chipset that further ads to the appeal of an Intel based system."
ViperLair: NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition Preview "With the nForce4 SLI Intel Edition, this is the first time in quite a while that we're genuinely excited about something Intel related for gamers and enthusiasts."
The Power of Two: Intel Gets NVIDIA nForce4 SLI "Hard-core gamers who use Intel CPUs would want to take a long, hard look at nForce4 for Intel systems and motherboards. What may be a greater factor for the non-PC gaming community of users are the other features, such as the flexible RAID setup, the hardware-assisted TCP for gigabit Ethernet and the built-in hardware firewall."
Clubic.com: NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition Review "We have to say that the RAID implementation by NVIDIA is probably one of the best as it's so smooth and efficient.. When it comes to choose, the nForce 4 SLI Edition is for sure the best chipset for Intel processors if you are a gamer or if you want to overclock."
CNET: Dual-core duel: NVIDIA Raises the Bar "We can say that if you're looking to max out 3D performance in an Intel box, Nvidia's Nforce4 SLI Intel Edition is your only option".
CNET: Falcon Northwest Mach V Review "If our preliminary tests on a (non-SLI) dual-core Intel "white box" system are any indication, you'll see immediate performance gains with the dual-core Mach V in multitasking scenarios and when running multithreaded apps, such as Adobe Photoshop and Apple iTunes. And thanks to Nvidia SLI technology, the Mach V adds two high-end GeForce 6800 Ultras to the mix, which only increases overall performance."
PC Perspective: NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition Review "NVIDIA set out to make the fastest Pentium 4 platform and they succeeded -- period. The SLI technology is going to be the main draw to this new chipset and high end enthusiasts that are sticking with Intel are definitely going to be leaning towards this option for their next motherboard as it is the best choice for features and performance."
FiringSquad: NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition Preview "If you’re a hardcore gamer looking to get the most performance out of the Intel platform as possible, a motherboard based on NVIDIA’s nForce4 SLI Intel Edition should be at the top of your list of components to purchase."
Gamers Depot: NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition Hands-on Preview "We feel that NVIDIA did an admirable job in its [of NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition] as it delvers performance in spades when compared to competiting chipsets [and] has the most robust features going."
Impress PC Watch: nForce4 SLI Intel Edition - NVIDIA's 1st chipset for Pentium 4 "The highest echelon among Pentium 4 chipsets. "When looking at the benchmark results, the nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition is clearly superior to its rival. There is no question that the combination of the nForce4 SLI Intel Edition and DDR- 667 memory extracts the best that the Pentium 4 platform has to offer."
Bjorn3D: Leadtek WinFast PX6600 GT TDH (Solo and SLI) "Overall, the Leadtek WinFast PX6600 GT TDH is a great little card for around $200. The included bundle adds a considerable amount to the package. The software and utilities are useful and handy while the games are very popular even if they aren't all that new. The PX6600 GT's performance is quite good and at times impressive, especially when in SLI mode."
Gamespot: ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe "The ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe easily makes our list of great motherboards. While the price may be sitting in the rather steep $200 range, we don't hesitate to recommend this motherboard for your next SLI rig. If you're on the path to getting two GeForce 6800 Ultras, adding the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe to your shopping cart will be a step in the right direction."
PimpRig.com: Leadtek PX6800 TDH 256MB PCIe (SLI) Videocard "Since the PX6800 has the option for the budding SLI technology it deserves a little more in the ratings. I give the Leadtek PX6800 TDH 9.5 pimp hats and award it the PimpRig Pimp Gear Award."
ExtremeTech: Killer Gaming Rig 2005 "Bragging rights as a PC gamer are fleeting, at best. Someone can always come along in a few months with a faster system. But as games become more graphics and CPU intensive, having the headroom inherent in our liquid-cooled SLI system means that we won't have to upgrade this system for a long, long time."
ASUS A8N SLI Review "We had a lot of fun working with this [NVIDIA nForce4 SLI] board and for that reason we strongly recommend it to anyone looking for a top of the line socket 939 board."
Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI: Multi-GPU Technology! "Known as the NVIDIA nForce4 SLI, this chipset supports a whole host of new and exciting features. The nForce4 series looks to be the best NVIDIA chipset creation yet."
Dual MSI NX6600GT-TD128E SLI Videocard Review "A single NX6600GT-TD128E is fast, and two in SLI mode can compete with a much higher end and more expensive Radeon X800XT based video card in most respects!"
ASUS A8N SLI w/ Dual 6600GT Combo OC Review "Well I'm more impressed with the board than the cards to be honest, as it offers pretty good overclocking at a very affordable price. If you compare it against the rest of the SLI boards out in the market, you will find that it is one of the cheapest. I applaud Asus for coming out with a plain-Jane version of the A8N for the consumers who do not need the extras."
Gigabyte 3D1 - Dual Core 6600GT SLi Bundle "The 3D1 doesn't quite match a single 6800GT when the settings are maxed out and doesn't offer any further upgrade potential. It will also limit you in the future to using Gigabyte motherboards, which could prove to be too restrictive in the future considering the investment. But if you've already decided on buying a 6600GT based SLi system, the Gigabyte 3D1 bundle makes a lot of sense. It will save you money on a standard 6600GT set-up, is effective and also will reduce system noise and increased stability over a two card solution."
AMDGamer: EVGA e-GeFroce 6800 GT SLI "Overall, the eVGA 6800GT PCI-Express offers excellent performance. For today's games a single 6800GT is plenty but for the extreme gamer with cash to spare an SLI setup is definately sweet. Image quality is simply outstanding. I noticed no glitches or stability issues while testing the cards individually or as a team."
XFX 6600GT PCI Express SLI Review "If you're the eye candy hungry guy/gal who needs to game at 1600 x 1200, the extra card will most often make a big difference for you. For a lot of the other gamers, one 6600 GT should suffice for nice gaming at 1024 x 768."
Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-SLI (NVIDIA nForce4 SLI) "All things taken into consideration, we rate the Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-SLI motherboard four out of five stars and highly recommend it for feature freaks, overclockers and others who feel Gigabyte's redundancy measures are of great importance. While it is a good board, it's not the perfect SLI board for all users."
eVGA e-Geforce 6800 GT PCI-Express SLI Review "Overall, the eVGA 6800GT PCI-Express offers excellent performance. In SLI the bandwith increase is enormous but so is the cost of an additional card. For today's games a single 6800GT is plenty but for the extreme gamer with cash to spare an SLI setup is definately sweet. Image quality is simply outstanding. I noticed no glitches or stability issues while testing the cards individually or as a team. eVGA has done an excellent job with the 6800GT PCI-E but I would have liked to see a game or two bundled with the package considering the price tag. We also notice that with features like AA and AF enabled the NVIDIA based 6800GT running single falls slightly short compared to the ATI X800 Pro in UT2004 and FarCry. I'm sure that would not have been the case if the 2 cards were teamed up but that could not have offered a fair comparison. I strongly recommend this video card to any serious gamer as long as you're not looking for any bundled games or software. This small shortcoming knocked off 1 full point off a perfect 10."
NVIDIA SLI "As an aside, and I'm loathe to mention it, my general feeling from testing in the last few weeks, I have to convey that SLI as a platform doesn't actually feel finished quite yet, using pre-release hardware. The driver interface isn't great, crashes and performance issues in certain titles still persevere and two Ultra's in a loaded system get hot. Despite performance, which is undoubtedly very impressive, there's still a lot more than just framerate to consider as you ponder going down the SLI route. A lot of that is undoubtedly down to the silicon revision of the bridge used on the ASUS mainboard and there's also the ribbon connector to factor into things. The change to PCB connectors across the board is to ensure correct signal integrity. I'm confident that shipping SLI hardware released to mass-market retail will have the vast majority of the issues ironed out."
DFI nF4 SLI-DR "DFI has a great product in theDFI nF4 SLI-DR, but it is not without a few very small shortcomings. Those minor issues however will not impact most users that will walk away happy knowing they just purchased a solid SLI motherboard with the most hardware perks and prizes you are likely to find in one box."
Hardware-Mag: Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe "Asus paired the first-class NVIDIA-developments with rich accessories and high quality of development. The board convinces with excellent performance and plentiful features e.g. Serial-ATA, Dual Gigabit Ethernet and the integrated firewall. Who is looking for a overall convincing motherboard should buy the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe - each editor would like to have it."
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe "The ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe easily makes our list of great motherboards. While the price may be sitting in the rather steep $200 range, we don't hesitate to recommend this motherboard for your next SLI rig. If you're on the path to getting two GeForce 6800 Ultras, adding the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe to your shopping cart will be a step in the right direction."
Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-SLI "The GA-K8NXP-SLI oozes of being an enthusiast's motherboard, and it shows throughout, from the thoughtful packaging which doubles as a test bed for the board through to the comprehensive set of overclocking features available in the BIOS. Performance is also generally on a par with other nForce4 boards we've seen, and the whole system was rock-solid stable throughout. All in all, the GA-K8NXP-SLI proves all but impossible to fault. The biggest issue Gigabyte may face is the proliferation of cheaper, non-NVIDIA certified SLI solutins on the horizon, which may cut into the market for boards such as these. But even then, this particular offering could stand on its own two feet on feature-set alone."
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum/SLI "Overall, the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum/SLI is the best SLI motherboard on the market that we have had the pleasure of working with, not to mention that it is an overclocking giant. 2005 is looking to be a great year for MSI in the motherboard arena and we are happy to welcome them back to building true enthusiast products."
nForce4 Sans SLI : Gigabyte's GA-K8NF-9 nVidia nForce4-4X "The board performs on par (and better in most cases) compared to the more expensive Asus A8N-SLI nForce4 motherboard. Of course, when one takes advantage of the SLI functionality of the Asus platform, you have the potential for much greater performance compared to the Gigabyte platform, but that also requires a pair of expensive graphics cards. If SLI isn't your cup of tea; and you only need a single PCI Express graphics slot to use with your new Athlon64 processor, the Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 is certainly a board worth looking into."
Hands on With NVIDIA's SLI "Like with the rest of the GeForce 6 family, NVIDIA has done an impressive job with SLI and is just riding more than just hype - they have the goods to back it up and literally bring next generation performance to the desktop today. In the span of roughly 8 months NVIDIA has managed to more than quadruple processing power in their GPU lineup. It almost puts the damper on next generation parts, but hey, they can be SLIed too. It is going to be a good year on the hardware side."
NVIDIA SLI & ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Performance Showcase "And so once again, we'll tip our collective hats to the folks out in Santa Clara as they've truly stepped up big with the introduction of SLI, or the "Scalable Link Interface" for PCI Express graphics, if you will. We're hopeful that nearly doubling frame rate in Doom 3 is only the beginning and further adoption in the game developer community will provide more and more SLI ready and capable titles in the months ahead. Adoption is key for NVIDIA and the end user in this game called 3D graphics, early and frequent adoption of new innovative and enabling technologies such as SLI."
NVIDIA's SLI in action "SLI gives us a new way to expand the horizons of PC graphics power. By teaming a pair of cards, SLI delivers quite a bit more peak graphics performance than a single-card solution. There's nothing quite like taking a pair of the fastest graphics cards around and sticking them together on a motherboard. This is a very, very cool technology. Whether you're looking for the ultimate in performance or just wanting to upgrade your graphics on an installment plan, SLI makes it possible. One thing I'm still wondering is how well a pair of GeForce 6600 GT cards would perform in an SLI config. Hopefully we can have some answers for you on that front shortly."
nForce4: PCI Express and SLI for Athlon 64 "However, nForce4 is exciting mostly because of the incredible performance potential of SLI, which combines two top nVidia video cards into a monster video performance engine. It's not for everybody - SLI is undeniably expensive - but the prospect of a 40% to 85% leap in the performance of the most demanding games that you can run today will be too much for some enthusiasts to resist. No, you don't absolutely need SLI, but it sure is cool! Consider nForce 4 an evolution and refinement of the progress that nVidia realized with the nForce3 Ultra, and that's a very good thing indeed."
Hot Hardware: NVIDIA SLI & ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Performance Showcase "NVIDIA’s new SLI technology offered by the nForce 4 chipset and its PCI Express GeForce 6 series graphics cards is certainly an innovation that deserves high praise for the upside performance potential it brings to market."
Anandtech: NVIDIA's Scalable Link Interface: The New SLI "For those who upgrade every generation, there would be a way to get more power for "free", and those who wait 2 or more generations to upgrade might have a new reason to take the plunge." (Jun, 2004)
FiringSquad: NVIDIA's SLI Technology "...we’re anxiously awaiting the arrival of SLI. If NVIDIA is able to deliver as promised, NVIDIA SLI should give gamers a compelling reason to upgrade to PCI Express, and they’ll be sure that PCI Express card (or cards) is based on an NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series GPU!" (Jun, 2004)
Neoseeker: Nvidia - Ressurecting SLI "NVIDIA is upping the ante significantly with SLI. The performance crown in the current generation of products is muddy at best but with SLI there leaves little doubt as to who will hold the bragging rights of fastest video solution." (Jun, 2004)
Tech Report: NVIDIA's SLI resurrects GPU teaming "...it's very cool tech that should allow astounding graphics performance previously unthinkable; we're talking about 32 parallel pixel pipes cranking out gaming goodness in real time." (Jun, 2004)
GameSpot: Nvidia brings back SLI "NVIDIA claims its SLI implementation increases performance by up to 87 percent, according to a composite score composed of benchmark results from 3DMark03 Game Tests 2, 3, and 4 and the unreleased Epic Games Unreal Engine 3." (Jun, 2004)
HotHardware: NVIDIA's Multi-GPU Technology - SLI, it's baaack! "For the crew here at HotHardware, we've got a twinge of that special feeling we had back in the days of 3dfx, when 3D Graphics were still being pioneered and you felt like something totally innovative was on the horizon." (Jun, 2004)
Sudhian: NVIDIA Unveils SLI. "If you’re the kind of gamer that drools over the idea of playing Doom 3 in 1600x1200x32 with 8x FSAA and 16x Anisotropic Filtering while maintaining high frame rates, this may be the only solution capable of delivering." (Jun, 2004)
