Can I SLI ?

[memphisto]

currently got a BFG 8600Gt 256mb with GDDR3

thinking of a cheap upgrade and lookin on a few reviews i can double my performance by investing in antoher 8600Gt however my question is does it have to be a BFg one ?

will any do ?


and how do you go about sli' ing ?

 

[Pilky01]

I dont think it has to be a bfg one.

Providing you have a sli mobo just plug it in, install sli bridge, enable sli and you are ready to go

 

[reflux]

For SLi you need two cards of the same model (manufacturer doesn't matter), an SLi compatible motherboard and an SLi bridge.

Not sure I'd bother though....they are very underpowered cards.

 

[MeatLoaf]

I dont think it has to be a bfg one.

Providing you have a sli mobo just plug it in, install sli bridge, enable sli and you are ready to go

Yup thats right, and as said unless youre getting the other 8600 pretty cheap id be looking at getting a better single card, i had SLI 8600GT once ans swapped them for a single 8800GTS 320Mb and the GTS 320Mb was much quicker

 

[lunarwolf]

sli is not double the power - it does not scale very well at best you get +50% if you are lucky, crossfire scales better.

considering you have a 8600gt which is an average card (don't want to be rude just saying how it is) may want to get 4850 instead and that will more than double your current card or get a second hand 8800gt 512 depending on your wallet

 

[Baka^Ni]

sli is not double the power - it does not scale very well at best you get +50% if you are lucky, crossfire scales better.

Le sigh, having to correct people on sli who have never used it...

Sli scales fine thank you, as with everything, it depends on the game, I'm more than happy with my 85%~ scaling with crysis and positively ecstatic about having maxed out anti-aliasing on anything else that's cpu limited.

Enough with the RAR RAR sli scales worse than a halibut from morrisons, it just makes you look like an ati fanboy with an X2.

As for OP, unless you already have an sli motherboard and can get an 8600 for practically free, don't bother. Spend your money on a shiny new card.

 

[Rroff]

With lower end cards the gains are often closer to double the performance where the rest of the system is less likely to be the bottleneck - 8500GT in SLI for instances will effectively double performance in almost every application that uses AFR based modes.

 

[Rroff]

Le sigh, having to correct people on sli who have never used it...

Sli scales fine thank you, as with everything, it depends on the game, I'm more than happy with my 85%~ scaling with crysis and positively ecstatic about having maxed out anti-aliasing on anything else that's cpu limited.

Enough with the RAR RAR sli scales worse than a halibut from morrisons, it just makes you look like an ati fanboy with an X2.

As for OP, unless you already have an sli motherboard and can get an 8600 for practically free, don't bother. Spend your money on a shiny new card.

quoted for truth

 

[lunarwolf]

Le sigh, having to correct people on sli who have never used it...

Sli scales fine thank you, as with everything, it depends on the game, I'm more than happy with my 85%~ scaling with crysis and positively ecstatic about having maxed out anti-aliasing on anything else that's cpu limited.

Enough with the RAR RAR sli scales worse than a halibut from morrisons, it just makes you look like an ati fanboy with an X2.

As for OP, unless you already have an sli motherboard and can get an 8600 for practically free, don't bother. Spend your money on a shiny new card.

chill lumby, i had 8800 gtx sli on a evga 680sli board which i upgdraded to 4870x2 and been using nvidia since 5900 series so dont call me a ATi fan boy. SLI does not scale as well as xfire + many games dont work that well with dual cards (spare me crysis) and that's a fact jack.

 

[Rroff]

SLI scales just as well as crossfire in most cases. There are very few recent games that don't work well with SLI and most of the older ones that don't... well your probably getting 300fps with any single reasonably recent card.

 

[memphisto]

ok then guys well this 8600gt is the OC2 version which has a 620mhz core clock as opposed to the 540 of the standards so does that mean i have to get the same model as well ? I guess it will.


and yes i have been looking at the newer cards however for what i play they would be massive overkill, and looking on these fine boards a 8600gt can be had for sub £30 so for a sub £30 upgrade i thought this would be the best option to keep my system fairly ok to play new games and old.

unless theres a new card out there sub say £50 that will outperform what im suggesting ?

the rest of my system i dont think will bottleneck

E6600 @ 3.0ghz
4Gig Gskill ULL
Raptor 150GB
BFG 680Sli

 

[MeatLoaf]

You wont have to get the same one, a standard clocked one will be ok, i have a superclocked 8800GTX running with a standard 8800GTX and they run great together

I used to think the card in the top slot determined the speed so id advise running the slower card in the top slot, however ive checked my cards with CPU-Z and it seems both cards are running at theier respective soick speeds. My EVGA card is running faster than my POV card. This has only happened since the physx drivers were released by nvidia

But anyhow, any 8600GT will be fine with what you have

 

[braveheart]

i used 2x XFX GF9600GT XXX (into PCIE x16 slot) and enabled SLi - seem good speed and 3D gaming.. you need is 2 PCIE x16 and good PSU plus some mobo required PCIE_12v 4-pin molex to give more power that what ive plugged in my M59SLI-S5. It doesnt matter with or without SLi... if I use GF280 then I would use one card instead of 2 card....

 

[bledd]

don't bother, just sell the card and get an 8800gt, tons faster