2X SLI Video Cards

[Tyler1989]

Whats so great about having two video cards. Like say two GeForce 7800 GTX 256 Meg cards.

Sure you get duel this and duel that but does the computer detect the it as 512 Megs then and do you get any real performance boosts?

 

[Powerslave]

this question has been asked so many times. It gives you performace boosts, but they should be working on mking a single good card instead of having to buy 2. In my opinion SLI is a waste of money. Not sure about the memory thing, I've never worked with an SLI set up.

 

[gaara]

Refer to my title

SLI only offers a 30-40% performance gain over a single card which is not worth it IMO considering you are paying double the cost of buying a single card...furthermore SLI dumps more heat into your system and drains more power...in addition, drivers have to written specifically for SLI to work with games therefore SLI doesn't even fully support everything

SLI itself is not even optimized well, considering it divides the screen in half and dedicates half the screen to each GPU...this can pose a problem if there is something difficult to render in one half as that GPU will be put under more stress than the other one therefore it really isn't dividing the load equally

 

[Tyler1989]

hence the "Boycott SLI" correct?

 

[chad standing]

The problem with the SLI's are that they have limited interface speed with the tracking system. Once the SLI is logged on, the gigabytes have trouble jumping into the slots, and hence the modem becomes faulty. I think you would be best suited to the onboard(original) card.

 

[DoomUK]

does the computer detect the it as 512 Megs

Dual 256MB frame buffers are not to be compared with a single 512MB solution (that is, 512MB's of VRAM dedicated to a single GPU), likewise dual 512MB buffers are not to be assumed as if they were the same as having a single '1024MB video card'. What SLI (and Crossfire) does do is essentially half the workload for each buffer & GPU, that is when using the default rendering mode of AFR (Alternate Frame Rendering): each alternative frame is preloaded into each buffer one after the other, thus rendered by each GPU one after the other.

Other (nVidia) multi-GPU modes exist other than AFR, typically SFR (Split Frame Rendering). Each GPU is responsible for displaying exactly one half of the given screen resolution simultaniously. Unfortunately, most (SLI-enabled, note) apps show decreased performance when using this mode.

 

[chad standing]

I dont think DoomUK knows what hes talking about. I have been in this computer tech world for quite some time...
Stick with the best

 

[beedubaya]

I hear that Unreal Engine 3 is being built with SLI in mind, and we will really see the advantage of it when UE3 games hit. However, right now SLI is mostly for just getting a high 3dMark05 score. Yes, it improves performance in games, but not near enoguh to justify the cost.

 

[DoomUK]

I dont think DoomUK knows what hes talking about. I have been in this computer tech world for quite some time...
Stick with the best

If you care to elaborate on what you mean, I'll take you with some seriousness. You know I've learned a lot from the folk on these forums in the past and also had some good 2-way discussions regarding the world of computers/games in general, and overall I must say I do enjoy posting here. But it's frankly the amount of dumbass posts like this that make me shy away from these forums as of late.

More on-topic, I was answering Tyler1989's query on the VRAM usage, and roughly speaking how the most common SLI rendering modes operate. I was not intending to give a "Yay" or "Nay" to whether SLI is worth it or not in general, because this has been already discussed over and over and over all over the Internet.

 

[Harper]

this question has been asked so many times. It gives you performace boosts, but they should be working on mking a single good card instead of having to buy 2. In my opinion SLI is a waste of money. Not sure about the memory thing, I've never worked with an SLI set up.

Ditto. It one of the reasons why I am waiting until 2007 for my next big upgrade.
And hopefully by then they got Phys-X intergrated to the cards too.

Refer to my title

SLI only offers a 30-40% performance gain over a single card which is not worth it IMO considering you are paying double the cost of buying a single card...

That is rather interesting , and that is making me think about what exactly I am going to be doing with my next big upgrade come 2007.

However......

If that is the case, then why are people (apart from E-Penis Size Factor and stupidity) purchasing SLI Systems? Why are people paying double on their video card (and another 25% more again to get the supported motherboard board) only the get 40% improvement?

And why (apart from greed and stupidity) are the motherboard manufacturers going in on this too?

And why (apart from greed and stupidity) are the game devs coding with SLI in mind?

And to we have the same problems with ATI Cross Fire?

I hear that Unreal Engine 3 is being built with SLI in mind, and we will really see the advantage of it when UE3 games hit. However, right now SLI is mostly for just getting a high 3dMark05 score. Yes, it improves performance in games, but not near enoguh to justify the cost.

In otherwords..... until the next gen games come out, SLI is all about the size of one's E-PENIS!!!!

BTW, people here have my permission to use that quote for their sigs.