Crossfire setup vs geforce 8

[Nagasama]

the 680i is awesome unless you have an e6300. and maybe an e6400.
my amd is still kickin, lol.

 

[NosBoost300]

Well, if the total price of the two cheapos end up being similar to the expensive one, then why go SLI? It requires more power and you have now two componentes that can fail, instead of one. It also takes more space and generates more heat.



Not for Core 2, since the best chipsets are Intel, which don't support SLI.

because you may not be able to buy one big expensive card on one blow... maybe you bought a 7800gt... and don't wanna spend a massive amount on an upgrade to play your games... so you buy another 7800gt... saving yourself a crapload of money and becoming as good, if not better than a 7900gtx....

not everyone has the money to blow 600 dollars at one time...

and I for one.. will be going SLi weather it "is" or "is not" worth the money....

And for your information.. if you want to use 16x QAA with Transparent Anti-Aliasing, and Super Sampling Anisotropic Filtering... you will need SLi, because i myself lag when i try to even touch 16x QAA..... and for users with jumbo large 24 inch and up monitors... they can't play full quality with 1 card....

 

[The General]

Yeah, SLI isn't necessarily for better FPS. It's so you can crank up the image quality without losing FPS.

 

[Meithan]

because you may not be able to buy one big expensive card on one blow... maybe you bought a 7800gt... and don't wanna spend a massive amount on an upgrade to play your games... so you buy another 7800gt... saving yourself a crapload of money and becoming as good, if not better than a 7900gtx....

I must confess it's a good point. Actually, it depends on how much time passes between one buys the first and second cards. If this period is long enough, then you'd be better off just getting a completely new card (the new card will perform better than the SLI'd old cards). But if this period is short, then yes, what you say is valid.

And for your information.. if you want to use 16x QAA with Transparent Anti-Aliasing, and Super Sampling Anisotropic Filtering... you will need SLi, because i myself lag when i try to even touch 16x QAA..... and for users with jumbo large 24 inch and up monitors... they can't play full quality with 1 card....

That's the other reason to go SLI: if you don't care about money and need the absolute best performance. It won't be cost-effective, of course, but your system will kick ***.

So basically, here are the two reasons to consider SLI:

1) If you don't have much money right now but know you'll be getting more in a few months, buy a relatively cheap card, then buy a second whenever possible to SLI them. The validity of this strategy depends on how much time passes between purchases (and it'd be impossible to give a concrete estimate; it depends on too many factors).

2) If you want the absolute best performance regardless of cost, SLI is for you, naturally. You do have to do it with the very high-end cards, though. Otherwise just get a single high-end card.

In all other scenarios a single card is a much better choice.

Originally posted by nagasama
hey meithan, did you ever find an article about the ram latency with 4 dimms vs. 2?
i haven't had time to look.

I've been very busy too, so I haven't had chance to look it up, but I will. It's an interesting issue.