NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 4-way SLI exemplifies law of diminishing returns

What's better than three monstrous GeForce GTX 480 graphics cards in a 3-way SLI configuration? How about four... is what we'd like to say, if Hardware.info hadn't just discovered that said setup is a huge waste of cash. With a full four GTX 480 cards buckled into an X58 Classified 4-Way SLI motherboard plus a Core i7-980X processor and a massive 1.5 kilowatt power supply to squeeze the juice, the €4,064 ($5,440) box still lost to a similarly configured 3-way rig in a wide variety of benchmarks. You could argue the system was CPU-limited, but Hardware.info used the fastest consumer chip available -- so it seems there's no place in today's market (keyword: today) for GTX 480 4-way SLI. Except, of course, for droolworthy snapshots like the above.

[savagemike Posted Apr 26th 2010 6:52AM]

Everything exemplifies the law of diminishing returns.
That is why it is a law, and not just a guideline.

[bairak Posted Apr 26th 2010 7:06AM]

three things arnt allowed in my building:
1:pets
2:weapons
3:gtx 480s
why you ask? they are more dangerous than weapons and louder than pets

[Don Corleone Posted Apr 26th 2010 7:19AM]

Is that thing nuclear powered?

[antistatic12 Posted Apr 26th 2010 7:39AM]

Still cant run Crysis........

[Slygathor Posted Apr 26th 2010 7:43AM]

Who the fuck is going to need more than dual SLI GPU's?!
Not to many people aside from DEDICATED GRAPHICS DESIGNERS. And even they could get away with 6 GB's of RAM a Quad Core CPU and Dual Crossfire/SLI GPU's.

[WGSXFrank Posted Apr 26th 2010 7:56AM]

@Slygathor I'm building a 3-way 480 rig right now actually.

However, I am a graphic designer who also does a lot of video editing and compositing as well as a lot of 3D work. >>;;

I also play a ton of games... but no average gamer would need that much power.

[SSD Posted Apr 26th 2010 9:27AM]

@WGSXFrank where did you find 3 480's? As far as I can tell they are sold out for at least 3 month or before the next reworked edition is going to be available.

[Failbait Posted Apr 26th 2010 9:32AM]

@WGSXFrank
What video software are you using that can accept a GTX480? Last I check only the gtx285 (strangly) was accepted outside if quadros...

[goopy Posted Apr 26th 2010 8:11AM]

Would this rig overload my local powerplant?that's the first question that poped into my mind when I saw it.

[GoodBytes Posted Apr 26th 2010 9:21AM]

If this is the experience you get from an SLI setup made with 3 GPU's.. I can't imagine 4 way SLI.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WSPqLKgnQs

[flawless Posted Apr 26th 2010 11:00AM]

I think there's a place for such configuration. Anyone knows the FASTRA project?

[pandaplus Posted Apr 26th 2010 11:31AM]

my TI-83 pwns this...

[recharged95 Posted Apr 26th 2010 11:34AM]

Wow,

Lockheed MILSPEC F35 flight simulator....

in a shoe BOX.

[xdeiri Posted Apr 26th 2010 12:25PM]

boring

[EliteOfficer Posted Apr 26th 2010 12:26PM]

Maybe I could use all of that raw processing power to figure out my wife.

[Legoboy Posted Apr 26th 2010 12:58PM]

I wonder what this would be like on a 12 core Xeon system with 32 gigs of ram.
Anyone know if there is a board out there that will do full 16x on three or four slots? That seems to be the bottleneck in my opinion.

[tybert7 Posted Apr 26th 2010 4:15PM]

Oh engadget, 4-way sli is not meant for substantive performance increases, it's meant to separate stupid people from their money. I approve as it is a case of them not deserving to hold it in the first place.

[Kaito Kid Posted Apr 26th 2010 6:15PM]

This rig alone just replaced my microwave, toaster, hell even my oven.

[LegoGuy23 Posted Apr 26th 2010 6:42PM]

"1.21 Jiga-Watts!"