NVIDIA Quad SLI Disappoints 427
Vigile writes "While the death of PC gaming might be exaggerated, it's hard not to see the issues gamers have with the platform. A genre that used to dominate innovation in the field now requires a $1200 piece of graphics technology just to participate, and that's just plain bad for the consumer. NVIDIA's SLI technology was supposed to get a boost today by going from two GPUs to four GPUs with the introduction of Quad SLI but both PC Perspective and HardOCP seem to think that NVIDIA drastically missed the mark by pushing an incredibly expensive upgrade that really does nothing for real-world game play and performance. If PC gamers are left with these options to save them from consoles, do they even have a chance?"
Misleading article (Score:5, Informative)
9600 GTs went on sale for 130 bucks recently and they can play crysis at a modest detail level.
A decent gaming machine isn't expensive nowadays:
$100 processor
$100 mobo
$50 case
$150-200 videocard
$70 RAM
$50 PS
Bam you got yourself a gaming rig.
~600 bucks and that's not including the corners you can cut with upgrading.
Beaten by Radeon (Score:5, Informative)
"If you have a 30-inch monitor that supports 2560x1600 resolution, then your choice is clear: ATI 4-way CrossFireX
outperforms the similar solution from Nvidia or runs at comparable speed offering acceptable gaming performance
in such titles as Battlefield 2142, BioShock, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and ompany
of Heroes: Opposing Fronts.
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2 Quad SLI platform, however, leads in Call of Duty 4, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of
Chernobyl and Tomb Raider: Legend. In other games, both quad-GPU configurations either work incorrectly or
cannot provide acceptable performance in 2560x1600 resolution.
So, the total score would be 5:3 in favor of AMD/ATI that offer better compatibility, scalability and fewer technical
issues for the users."
___
So, beaten by Quad Radeon in some games.
However, anyone willing to bet on the Linux 3D performance on Radeon? I'm not...
Re:Fishy (Score:2, Informative)
I don't think that is really true of *current* console games. I don't have a PC game rig, but PS3 games look VERY nice on a 1080p projector.
Re:Fishy (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Fishy (Score:5, Informative)
I alternate between the three systems. I'm currently in a 360 kick, and honestly when I'm console gaming it's almost always 360, but I'm sure I'll swing back to the PC within a few weeks now that I have it set up to output to my 52" LCD. PC Gamers with high end systems will always have a graphical advantage over consoles and midrange systems will have the advantage through 3/4 of the console product cycle. The important difference to me isn't graphics; it's games. Mass Effect was the original game that started my recent console binge, and then I played a bunch of rather low quality but still fun games like Halo 3 and Gears of War and then a lot of Oblivion on each system, just to compare them. Good PC games tend to beat good console games for quality of writing and nuance of gameplay, but at least half the time I just want a popcorn blockbuster game where I sit back and watch 1-dimensional characters do something simple. I'd hate to give up either type of gaming permanently.
Re:Little Nit to pick (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Fishy (Score:5, Informative)
(* - this is the number Wikipedia quotes, and it mostly agrees with numbers I've seen elsewhere)
$1200? wtf, more like under $800 for a whole box (Score:4, Informative)
It's not an uber gaming rig, but it'll play most games fairly decently, and it's only $200 to $300 more expensive than an Xbox 360 or PS3 + accessories. You could drop the 8800GT card down to a 8600GT and save another $110 off the total price, bringing it down to $642.
By comparison, an Xbox 360 Halo 3 Edition [newegg.com] is $415 with shipping, or a PS3 40GB [newegg.com] is $413 with shipping.
It's an apples-to-oranges comparison, but $1200 is not the entry point for PC gaming, and you'd have to go back to the mid to late 1990s to find the last time that it was.
Re:Oh please (Score:4, Informative)
But just like consoles, yes you have to do a major upgrade of your PC every once in a while. You might have to spend $300-$500 on new parts, but when you figure that with my gaming PC (still AGP btw) is about 5-6 years old and can keep up with most games today I am getting a pretty good bang for my buck. With the X-box you probably bought one in in 2001 and didn't see a performance upgrade until 2005 and here we are in 2008 with the x-box slowly falling behind again in hardware.
However, you are correct, multi player requires multiple PCs but hell PC gamers have been doing multi player over the net since the early 90s. Multi player on console required you to share a room until recent years.
That all being said. I am all for this new era of extra powerful semi PC consoles. I can see consoles getting to the point where PCs are where they become modular and you just upgrade parts. The N64 started doing that with memory expansions, but the only console I have owned since then has been a Wii :)
Re:Fishy (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Oh please (Score:3, Informative)
The PC has THE biggest back catalogue of games in existance, to the extent that by far the largest portion of that catalogue is no longer in circulation. Then lets add to this emulation, where the PC is the only machine on which you can play most of the last generation and older console AND arcade releases. Oh and lets not forgot the absolutely MASSIVE number of flash games out there.
In short, the PC is probably approaching having a hundred THOUSAND games available to play, whereas many consoles wont even SEE a thousand games over its lifespan.
Or did you actually fail to think about what there being "more to gaming than good graphics" actually means?
Re:Consoles always been cheaper (Score:4, Informative)
Consoles are the ones that are aging. The prices keep going up while PC gaming prices keep going down. I play all my games at max graphics thusfar and still no problems, and my Monitor on my rig was the most expensive part at $300 (22inch widescreen).
Lets build a gaming rig to connect to your big living room TV for
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103776 [newegg.com]AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Brisbane 2.3GHz 2 x 512KB L2 - PRICE: $67.99
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161220 [newegg.com]Radeon HD 3650 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 - PRICE: $124.99
http://www.newegg.com/Shopping/ShoppingItem.aspx?ItemList=N82E16823126174&MainItemList=N82E16823126174 [newegg.com]Logitec wireless KB/Mouse Cordless Standard Desktop EX110 - PRICE: $29.99
Re:$1200? wtf, more like under $800 for a whole bo (Score:3, Informative)
NVIDIA has a neat graphics and PSU [nvidia.com] comparison Flash webpage where you can drag sliders to specify your PSU wattage, and it'll recommend video cards accordingly. At least according to them, a 400W PSU should be sufficient to power 8800GT class cards.
Re:Oh please (Score:1, Informative)
And, just to be pedantic, you don't want a PCI-X video card. You want a PCI Express video card, which is abbreviated "PCIe". The latest revision of the PCIe standard is 2.0, and doubles the total bandwidth.
And, it's generally far better bang for the buck to upgrade motherboard, CPU, RAM, and video card if it is a move from AGP to PCIe. It would be less than $300 total for the motherboard, CPU, and RAM, but it would allow you to purchase any modern video card and have it perform at full speed.
Re:Consoles always been cheaper (Score:2, Informative)
SLI Disappoints (Score:4, Informative)
Not Quite- Where Integrated Graphics Come In (Score:3, Informative)
The first two are right, but the last one is wrong. This in fact brings up the point that the "PC gaming is dying" crowd is making- the low end never catches up. This is due to integrated graphics. Sure the CPU power and RAM size might increase for the low end over the years, but the graphics ability has remained at a low level for some time.
Integrated graphics of a low end computer today (say the GMA 950) is actually worse that the graphics card in the original Xbox, never mind the 360. Integrated graphics don't make a jump from generation to generation. The most modern Intel integrated graphics (x3000) is only mildly better than the GMA 950 which is only mildly better than the GMA 915 which is mildly better than GMA8xx. And by mildly I mean "gaming benchmarks won't really run on any of them so we don't know." Heck, the GMA 950 might be the most popular GPU by volume in the world- the new baseline. And that baseline can barely play WOW (a Directx 7 game) let alone anything more modern.
Now I know that the reply might be "throw in a $60 graphics card and you are set," which is true. Problem is that starting last year when the majority of computer sold were laptops, now the bulk of the market is STUCK with integrated graphics.
THAT is what is killing PC Gaming- the fact that the low end (and the mid end in the case of laptops- you usually have to spend over 1k to get one with dedicated graphics) NEVER competes with consoles in their lifetime. Intel has failed Moore's law on graphics. Because most people don't care- GMA 950 does Vista's effects and that is all non gamers need. And actually if it wasn't for ole Aero Glass, the GMA950 wouldn't even be as strong as it is- Intel designed it to be JUST enough to run Vista premium.
So we have a situation were the low end has CPU/RAM/HARDISK power that is 50% of what the mid end has, but has 5% of the graphics power (if by midend you mean "has a low end dedicated graphics card" as I do). Hence Intel is killing PC gaming...
Re:Consoles always been cheaper (Score:3, Informative)
All I know is that my 68000 Amiga ran circles around the NES and Sega systems of the late 80s. They were still stuck using early 80s hardware (6502s) and primitive graphics/sound, while the Amiga was producing arcade-level clones of games.
That may be some of the confusion. You're thinking "IBM PC gaming", while I was thinking of "PC gaming" in the generic sense which included Atari STs and Commodore Amigas which were far more advanced than anything the consoles could do.