Is SLI already dead?

[Efour]

Just looking about at new graphics cards and the dual GPU on one card type ones like the nvidia 7950 is that the way its already gone or is this a one off?

I know multi core type stuff has been around a while now, but is this the best soloution ? say 1 of these cards compared to 2x 7900GTXs ??

god i hate the graphics card market it moves so fast.

 

[GAMEfreak]

erm SLi aint dead. quad sli will become mainstream, then after that we will have dualcore cards i think ( in sli/quad sli), then maybe quad core and so on

 

[Gas Panic!]

e quad sli will become mainstream

It's comments like that which scare me.

 

[stoofa]

Still not at all convinced.
SLI is here as a stop-gap while we get ready for multi-GPU cards.
There is no logic to forcing people to buy multiple cards when the technology already exists to do the same thing with multiple GPU's mounted on a single card.

I refuse to go down either the SLI or Cross-Fire route.
It's throwing good money after bad.
Games houses also need to be made aware that people cannot afford to pay £500 - £600 (the cost of 2x graphics cards) and that they need to pitch for a lower system.

 

[Naffa]

quad sli will become mainstream

That I very much doubt. We're getting single cards that can run at any resolution offered today. I'd say most people game between 1280 and 1600 and something like an X1900XT (which isn't even the top ATI card out anymore) would cope with that perfectly with nice eye candy. As single card solutions get faster, I doubt monitors will get bigger, and as a result be able to keep up with the newer games being released.

Hmmm.. Reading that back it doesn't really make sense. Ah well, some of you clever lot will get it.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

sli and crossfire is a bit waste to me. the memory on both cards is not combined so you don;t end up with the combined memory of both cards available as testure storage or framebuffer. too much inefficiency with sli/crossfire means that its more sensible to buy 1 gpu which is more powerful.

 

[Arthalen]

sli and crossfire is a bit waste to me. the memory on both cards is not combined so you don;t end up with the combined memory of both cards available as testure storage or framebuffer. too much inefficiency with sli/crossfire means that its more sensible to buy 1 gpu which is more powerful.

I hear what your saying abount memory. Thanks to ATT OSD I've seen that FEAR eats all 256MB of my card's mem when it loads a level up

 

[mrthingyx]

Remember, people: what is posted on this forum does not - in any way - reflect the gaming experience of the VAST majority.

A few users on this forum own SLI/Crossfire systems because of their need to play games at high res, on big monitors with all the gubbins turned on. Coupled with the marketing hype churned out by Nvidia/ATi, it's easy to believe that the only way of getting decent frame rates is with a system that makes an average electricity meter spin like a top. Which certainly is not true.

I play HL2/X3 at 1280x768 and while I don't have any AA (8xAF depending) enabled, all the textures and detailing are at maximum. And that's on a 9800Pro with an Athlon XP2000 (at 166x10). The game is perfectly smooth and doesn't appear to suffer from any jitter. I'm sure it doesn't look as good as an 'up to date' system, but considering most of the components are around three years old (at least), it pretty good.

Where am I going with this? Well, I would hazard a guess that most users have systems like I do: fast enough for what we use them for. This would put gubbins like SLI, Crossfire, 32" monitors out of the equation anyway. For those seeking higher frame rates, the mid-range single solutions from Nvidia and ATi will do the business without any problems whatsoever. For a small minority of users, that still isn't enough so they buy a secondary card. All this time, the uptake proportion is decreasing.

Think of it this way. Many, many moons ago, Quake 3 came out and everybody had problems running it because it was so crazily detailed and 'realistic': Carmack's new engine was good for a very long time because it hand longevity. Nowadays, a lot of the users on this site are mortified if their dual-core'd SLI'd rig can't push 100fps on the latest game engine. See the difference? SLI/Crossfire are merely there to remind us users who has the fastest technology: those lucky enough to own such rigs can experience the performance of tomorrow today. The rest of us just get on with it.

Hmmm... that's a bit OTT for this forum. Oh, well.

 

[Massive Attack]

I don't have any AA

that probably explains why your rig will run most games then doesnt it