Introduction of the X79 vs X99 ASUS GTX 980 4GB Quad SLI
The other day we got the chance to take a look at the performance of one, two, three and four ASUS GTX 980 4GB cards in SLI. Performance for the most part was pretty interesting, and while the general thought process is that if you're going to build a multi-GPU video card setup that represents any real value, you should probably stop at two. We didn't see impressive scaling as we moved to three and four video card setups.
Still, as we tested the ASUS GTX 980 4GB 4-Way SLI setup, I found myself wondering, if you're going to jump on this setup, and you're currently on an X79 / DDR3 build, should you also be looking at throwing the extra money down that is required to move to a brand new X99 / DDR4 build?
Our X99 machine has been ignored the last few weeks since we received our Maxwell based GTX 900 series cards from NVIDIA and partners. These cards are extremely hot right now and for good reason. While I always do try to work off a system of first come, first serve, the simple fact is that when you've got something as attention grabbing as these new video cards, you have to give them priority, as they're what people want to see.
Still, today I pulled the X99 testbed back out and installed our four ASUS GTX 980 4GB video cards into it. If you're going to drop $2,200+ on a brand new video card, should you be also be looking to spend the $2,000 or there abouts that is associated with building a top of the line X99 system? With a pair of Extreme Edition CPUs on hand, the best X99 and X79 board we've tested from ASUS via the ROG series and four ASUS GTX 980 4GB video cards, we find out if it's time to spend some serious bank.




