Conclusion

During the last few weeks of testing, our experience with the ESA software was a positive one. The Cooler Master, XFX and Nvidia components combined to create a problem free system with excellent monitoring tools at our disposal. The performance options available in the Nvidia control panel allow end users full control over all important aspects of a system from minor FSB/speed tweaks right through to BIOS updates and voltage changes. In addition to this, the level of information available in the system monitor tool rivals some of the better paid for applications which are available... the icing on the cake? the Nvidia version is free.

Equally positive was the cooling performance of the Cooler Master chassis and watercooling kit, both performed admirably through extensive stress testing. All of this was fed with a monster of the power supply, the Cooler Master 1250w never flinched, even with three 8800 ultras draining the 12v lines.

As always the Quad and 3-way SLI testing was very dependent on profiles being coded into the driver.  Already there are a number of impressive gains with AAA games, however we are sure these profiles will improve over the coming months, and titles which are not yet supported will see significant increases. There are also examples of performance which are not quite at the level we would expect, Oblivion for example does not scale too well, yet the other hand the results shown for Call of Duty 4 and Lost Planet give us an indication of just how good Quad and 3-way SLI can be. Exceptional.

We were also happy to note that other than Half-Life 2 with 16x anti-aliasing there were no image quality issues or performance problems when running multiple GPUs. Thankfully we did not see the ATI scenario of performance degradation if the game has not got a profile yet available, so Nvidia must be applauded for ensuring as few issues as possible, even at this early stage in development.

So how does 3x SLI compare to Quad SLI? Well, Quad SLI has the edge but it suffers from a couple of niggling issues, such as Gears Of War stuttering. These dips in minimum frame rate are a problem we had previously associated with the 3870 X2, however we are somewhat bemused to see it rearing its ugly head again in today's tests from time to time. Just before we went to publication we downloaded a hot fix for the 3870 X2 which seems to have helped cure this issue, so we are positive that Nvidia will do the same, soon.

At the end of the day, both solutions are incredibly powerful and useful to different high end markets; 3-way SLI is a great option for existing 8800 Ultra users to enhance the performance of their system and Quad SLI is ideal for people building an entirely new system from stratch with the newest technology.

As time goes on and the drivers mature, both Quad SLI and 3-way SLI will no doubt improve further but as things stand they are already very impressive hardware configurations and there is absolutely nothing out there which can compete with them in terms of speed. Downsides? Unless you have a craving for the highest resolutions with huge amounts of eye candy then a 8800 GTS Sli solution is a much more wallet friendly option, and it is still very fast.

3 Way SLI wins our Editor's Choice award as a viable future proof option for an end user already owning 2 ultras in standard SLI needing more horsepower. Quad SLI wins our Heavenly Hardware Gold Award as it is the fastest graphics card solution on the market right now.