botom line about sli

[convergecult]

ok so ive been itching to upgrade my mb for a long time. but ive been only looking at sli boards but i can save a lot of money by not getting a sli one. i game but i could really care less about frame rates ect.....im more into just technology in general. id get sli just to say i have it yea know. so bottom line is it really worth it if im not a hardcore gamer?

 

[Ð88]

I have never seen any real point in getting SLI. There always seems to be one video card out there that can easily run current games on full settings and a lot times the benefits of one card is usually better than buying two cheaper cards. In my opinion, it's mostly been a sales gimmick. I have no future plans of ever using it.

Of course, you will probably get people who swear by it and entirely promote it for the sake of getting a few extra FPS on their games. If you ask me, the return on using SLI is never worth the cost.

 

[Kage]

Yeah, I feel the same way D88, I don't really see the point in SLI.

I got a P35 board which was a great overclocker, and thats all that mattered to me. It only supports Crossfire, and thats with a 4x slot on one of the cards, making it worthless for this.

My inclanation has always been to just get one powerful card, because since you have to buy 2 of the same model, you are basically spending double for a card that may perform at best 1 1/2 times better than just one.

 

[TRDCorolla1]

Then you definitely don't need SLI then. You're paying that much money just to get a small boost in performance. If you even notice it at all. Get a really nice video card to start out with and you're set in the long run.

 

[Äߧý∩†H♠H䎀]

SLI is for people the run 1680X1050 or above and expect playable frame rates on new titles with max settings.

That is were SLI shines. Once you start getting below 1680X1050 the gains of SLI over a single card solution become less obvious.

If the game Crysis is a preview of the next wave of games to hit then SLI will pay off. Currently the only people playing very high with 40 FPS are people using SLI GTX's. This is were SLI benifits the most if you have the top of the line model but can't get quite enough at your higher resolutions then you can get a second card to help out.

In which case if your using anything less then the top few cards then your better off to just get one high end card rather then 2 midrange cards. I wouldn't consider SLI'ing anything less then a 8800GTS. Because anything under that mark your going to have more money into 2 cards then the GTS delivers as one card.

 

[TRDCorolla1]

Heh, I've always had the concept that it was to have insanely high fps and high benchmarks . Which holds true if you think about what SLI'ing does at higher resolutions. I usually play at 1280x1024 though. I like to think SLI'ing will still make a difference at that resolution.

 

[convergecult]

cool thank you guys..what do you think is a good board that does not have sli enabled? i don't need bells and whistles im just going to be using the parts in my sig on the new mb plus adding another gig of ram and eventually a new graphics card cause it is very outdated lol

 

[Äߧý∩†H♠H䎀]

Heh, I've always had the concept that it was to have insanely high fps and high benchmarks . Which holds true if you think about what SLI'ing does at higher resolutions. I usually play at 1280x1024 though. I like to think SLI'ing will still make a difference at that resolution.

Well it will still make a difference at any resolution but the impact is greater. Just look at how your FPS drops if you jump resolutions. Take this as a example. Just pulled the number out of the top of my head here but the theory is the same.

1280X1024 Single Card 75FPS 1280X1024 SLI 85 FPS
1680X1050 Single Card 45FPS 1680X1050 SLI 70FPS

Again thats just a example but it helps keep the FPS higher at bigger resolutions. At any rate you'll get a FPS jump but possibly not as high at lower resolutions.

cool thank you guys..what do you think is a good board that does not have sli enabled? i don't need bells and whistles im just going to be using the parts in my sig on the new mb plus adding another gig of ram and eventually a new graphics card cause it is very outdated lol

Is that DDR or DDR2 memory?

 

[convergecult]

it's ddr2

 

[freestyler105]

The Abit IB9 would be a good value board for you.