http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-480-3way-sli-review/1
 
I think this is the first review of GTX 480 Tri-SLI that we've seen done by professional reviewers with a variety of games, so I think a lot of people might find the results to be interesting. 
 
The review is basically split into two parts, the first part covers 1x480 > 2x480 > 3x480 scaling at different resolutions.  The overwhelming takeaway from these graphs are that 3xGTX 480 scaling right now is not good and simply not worthwhile unless you game at 2560x1600 or higher.  Whether this is due to CPU bottlenecks or early drivers is unclear, Guru3D cites CPU bottlenecks but unfortunately they only tested with a 3.75GHz i7 965.  It would be interesting if they followed up with a faster CPU to see what kind of results would come from a higher overclock.
 
The second part of the review compares 1x480 and 2x480 to 1x5870 and 2x5870.  The overwhelming result is that GTX 480 outperforms the 5870 in both single GPU and multi-GPU configs in almost every result.  Unfortunately they didn't test some more stressful resolutions and settings to further the gap, but its pretty clear Nvidia wins with single GPU and multi GPU.  Given how poorly the third GTX 480 scales, its probable ATI would win in 3 and 4-way configs.
 
The conclusion also emphasizes the power consumption and noise from 3-way SLI and as the results show, 3-way SLI clearly isn't worthwhile right now unless you are already running 2560x1600 or are planning to go with Nvidia Surround once it becomes available. 
 

Yeah I read the whole thing. There're very few review sites that I trust but if I had to pick Guru3D would be on the top of the list.

While Hagedoorn does make a VERY convincing argument for 480s in SLI (I'm probably going to set mine up soon, but still somewhat undecided), I felt as if the temperature dillemma on Page 28 was a bit ignored.

And what is this about the latest GTX 480 BIOS revision and its ability to lower temps? He states a 10 degrees difference. Is it just a fan speed alteration?

zurvv
wow.. a lot of fluff in there.. so many pages and very little data.

Really? Did you skip pages 6 thru 25?

I am utterly shocked that they ran the review testing tri-SLI 480s with an i7 ONLY overclocked to 3.75Ghz!  That does not do tri-SLI justice one single bit.  It is a huge bottleneck, and it is evident in the graphs BIG TIME.  Look at the differences between SLI and tri-SLI and 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 resolutions.  In more CPU dependent titles, tri-SLI does NOT do much better than SLI @ 1920x1200 resolutions but when the CPU is somewhat taken out of play with those same titles @ 2560x1600, tri-SLI does A LOT better than SLI.

They really should have had the rig running @ 4.2Ghz at least!  Also, I may be blind, but I can't see what the ATI setup was comprised of and what clock speeds it was at for the 5870 comparisons towards the end of the review.

I don't really trust Guru3D.  After this review, I'm inclined to say that I don't put much faith in their expertise either.  They should have known better than to CPU bottleneck the tri-SLI runs. 


Then, they have the audacity to say that other reviews run tri-SLI at bottlenecked CPU frequencies, but they aren't bottlenecking the 480s in their review

The review gives off the idea that tri-SLI simply isn't worth it for resolution under 2560x1600, but it would have faired much better indeed if that i7 was at at least 4.2Ghz.  I guarantee it!

Delfire

"The latest BIOS revisions however show lower temperatures and noise levels."
- http://www.guru3d.com/art...480-3way-sli-review/28

What revision is he talking about? A3? Would be nice if someone can clarify what this revision did...

I saw that as well, while the article was interesting, that bit I think may have been the most important part of it.