NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 SLI Performance Analysis

"Alas, the quad-processor platform made out of two GeForce GTX 295 cards is a complete disappointment. And this is not the first time that Nvidia’s Quad SLI solution is such a failure. The two earlier generations of this technology, based on GeForce 7900/7950 GX2 and GeForce 9800 GX2 cards respectively, were not quite successful, either. Notwithstanding the fourth GPU, the Quad SLI platform was inferior to its triple-GPU counterpart based on GeForce GTX 285 in quite a lot of games.

The average performance growth of the Quad SLI platform relative to the single GeForce GTX 295 is a mere 18.5%. It is only in three tests (S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, Devil May Cry 4 and Prince of Persia) that the performance boost was higher than 60%. The Quad SLI tandem could only outperform the GeForce GTX 285 3-way SLI in five tests, its advantage being less than 15% in two of them. Nvidia’s solution is overall better than the Radeon HD 4870 4-way CrossFireX, but the latter enjoys a considerable advantage in three tests."