2 - Setup and Generic info

Hilbert my man - Quad SLI ?

As most of you know both ATI and NVIDIA have solutions on the market called Crossfire and SLI. Basically this will allow you to play your games with the help of multiple graphics processors (GPUs). Within the confines of compatible mainboards you can increase the overall rendering performance of your games and thus increase your graphical gaming experience in several ways. Simply stated, you can run two or more "graphics cards" on selected mainboards, or one (or more) graphics card(s) with multiple graphics cores on it.

By utilizing more of them whether that is two or more GPU's on a videocard or two graphics cards in one system is what we call Multi-GPU processing of games. And that was our focus, to simply look at the most competitive multi-GPU solution available on today's market and to see how it  performs and functions. Quad SLI obviously simply means that there are four graphics chips being utilized for your gaming experience.

Power Consumption

It's virtually impossible for me to not talk about power consumption. It's good & bad. The new G92 GPU's implemented on the 9800 GX2 graphics cards are based on a newer 65nm fabrication build. As a result power consumption went down. But it's still drama to see one PC suck up as much power as what we were able to notice.

But hey, here's a little perspective, if you take four 8800 GTX cards, you'd consume 4x200 Watts. That's 800 Watts alone. Mind you that I'm talking about peak wattage, not average consumption (it's the peaks you should be worried about PSU wise).

One G92 graphic core is nearly as powerful as one 8800 GTX, GPU yet peaks to 110-120 Watt. 4x120=480 Watts. Perfectly in line with the measurement we took. We noticed the PC utilizing roughly 630 Watts while peaking (leaving PSU efficiency out of the equazion for the moment).

That's an incredible amount of used current ... no doubt about that. This was the 790i platform with 2 GB DDR3, Quad Core CPU at 3.2 GHz, one Raptor HDD, Water-cooling and thus two 9800 GX2 cards = 630 Watt.

Keep that in mind when you consider Quad SLI okay ?

It's not 'just' about the VGA cards

We are talking about uber-uber gaming here today. There might be an audience of like 0.001% out there actually buying this as your system has to be right in many ways and I'm not talking about the stack load of money you actually need to make all this happen. Let me give you the more important pointers.

Here's what you also need to think about when building a Quad SLI rig component's wise and also why.

	Graphics cards Simple ... you need two 599 USD GeForce 9800 GX2 videocards 1198 USD. Monitor Don't even think about Quad SLI gaming unless you can do a resolution above 1920x1200. The Dell & Apple 30"monitors are highly recommended here. Price ~1400 USD Mainboard You need a high-end SLI ready mainboard with two PCI-Express graphics connectors, 16x PCI-E lanes per graphics card! In short, go should really go for a NVIDIA nForce 680/780/790 mainboard at 200-350 USD. Processor You need the best as your CPU is a symbiosis with your graphics solution. You need a dual-core or quad CPU starting at AMD Phenom 9600 or better and Core 2 Duo/Quad starting at 2.67 Ghz, Intel Core 2 Duo processors are recommended here. You do not want your four graphics cores to be held back by your CPU; 200-350 USD Memory Good gaming requires good memory. Whatever you choose, get yourself low-latency memory DDR2/DDR3 memory, minimal 1 GB in dual-channel. With the future in mind, now might be a good time to move to 2 GB; 100-200 USD. Power Supply Especially for this review we did another article. Quad SLI gaming, dual-core technology, this all requires a hefty toll on power consumption. You need a PSU with multiple 12 volts rails and decent Ampage.  In total over all 12 volts rails you should have 50-60 AMPs available on your PSU. Your SPU starts at 800-850 Watt; 200-350 USD. Chassis Four GPU's each reach 80-90 Degrees C, that is a lot heat. Buy yourself a chassis with lots of ventilation; 150-250 USD.

Keep the recommendations in mind. Sum it up for a second, say it out loud ... I'm broke yet I'm proud ! Mind you that you'll also need Windows Vista to get Quad SLI supported..

That's right, you need a huge budget. All these components are high-end and thus performing at top-level. Especially four GPU's in one system will be an issue when it comes to heat. The videocards will dump huge amounts of heat into your PC. So PLEASE get yourself a high-end casing in the likings of Lian-Li, Coolermaster Cosmos S, Thermaltake Armor+ , just make damn sure it's well ventilated.