Sli

[Wayniac]

Sorry if this sounds stupid, but I know nothing about it. I have worked my way to where I am now, and am VERY comfortable when overclocking the CPU and RAM and whatnot. However, I'm still a little bit curious with graphics cards. What exactly is SLI. What does it do?

 

[idiotec]

SLI is running two video cards together as "one." In theory you would get double the performance, but in reality this isn't the case. You will see giant scores in benchmarks with SLI, but if you look at actuall game performance it doesn't do as well. However, if it becomes more popular and game makers start coding for it, and drivers get better, it will start performing better.

Currently nVidia is the only one using SLI. ATI has just come out with their own version called cross fire.

 

[Wayniac]

So if your motherboard has only one AGP slot... I guess that means you aren't going to do any SLI, doesn't it?

 

[idiotec]

Correct, and actually SLI doesn't support AGP at all, it is PCI-e only. And even then, you need an SLI mobo with 2 PCI-e slots.

 

[Wayniac]

Well then... looks like I'll be upgrading my motherboard sooner than I thought I would.

 

[Nubius]

You'll be doing a motherboard upgrade, two card purchases, plus a new PSU.......be prepared to shell out a ridiculous amount of cash for not even that great of gain in terms of price/performance ratio

 

[idiotec]

Yeah, man, you have a 6800GT, you should be good to go for a while.

 

[Nubius]

Idiotec - DFI has released their nf3 socket 939 AGP board.......assuming I got a good venice batch.........I'M COMIN FOR YOUR BLOOD!!! Of course meaning 3dmark03, 05, and Aquamark muahahahaha

I only know of one website that is currently carrying the board (which I'm not gonna say, so you guys can suffer and you wont make the board go out of stock by ordering it muahahaha) but I'd much rather newegg to have it which they dont yet.

 

[idiotec]

Idiotec - DFI has released their nf3 socket 939 AGP board.......assuming I got a good venice batch.........I'M COMIN FOR YOUR BLOOD!!! Of course meaning 3dmark03, 05, and Aquamark muahahahaha
QUOTE]
Looks like I am going to have to get a 7800GT afterall

 

[Wayniac]

You'll be doing a motherboard upgrade, two card purchases, plus a new PSU.......be prepared to shell out a ridiculous amount of cash for not even that great of gain in terms of price/performance ratio

Good point... by the time I want to upgrade, I'll be done with college making enough money to afford a huge upgrade like that in just one week... and still have spending money.

I guess I just got worried about the whole sli and other threads saying that AGP cards are going out of date... and I forgot that I'm set for a while.