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Is SLI worth it?

Shaolin Chicken

Shaolin Chicken

Shaolin Chicken

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Hi forum members,

What do you reckon
is sli worth the extra expense? Or just bragging rights.
What kind of gains are we talking about?
I'm specifically talking about the GTX 260, worth adding an extra card on a 24inch wide screen monitor?
I've found performance on the whole good, apart from cryostasis, but i've only played 3 games up to now on my gtx 260; cod4, cryostasis and fallout 3.
I've got an x58 motherboard that supports sli, so there is no problem with dodgy nvidia chipsets.

Anybody with gtx 260 sli like to contribute anything?
 
Depends a lot on the games you play and the resolution/settings you play at.

If your playing at any res under 1920x its not really worth it except maybe for bragging rights, at 2048x that I play at its indespenable.

Its also a decent setup for SLI as it gives you a decent performance boost at a good price and you can't really get a superior single card for the same money.
 
Thanks Rroff,
my res is 1900x1200 so i am borderline I reckon.
Neither brilliant performance nor crap.
What i like to do in my games is set everything to high cod 4 runs great, cryostasis so-so and fallout 3 fine. What kind of percentage increase would i get going from 1 card to 2?
 
if you were plannjing on getting on getting a gtx 295 you could save a few quid and get better performance by getting two gtx 275 cards and putting them in sli, however this would leave you without an upgrade path but it would be significantly faster than the 295 as the gpu and mem clocks are higher, so sli can help you get higher performance for less money in certain circumstances
 
Rroff said:
If your playing at any res under 1920x its not really worth it except maybe for bragging rights, at 2048x that I play at its indespenable.
Click to expand...

I play at 1680 x 1050 and there is an improvement, benchmarks will tell you that of games not just synthetic ones.

I dont brag about it, but there is definately a nice difference.. why people say you need a huge monitor like 26" or 30" for SLI i will never understand because it will still run like crap if you ran it full res on one of those, on newer games at least.
 
Hey Shaolin Chicken,

It's an expensive option with the cost of two cards and then the running costs (electric bill £££) but Its worth it to some people! :D

Ideally what would be great in these situations was if you were able to *trial* the two cards, test some games with just a single card and then plop in your second GPU and do some further testing. This way you would be able to decide for yourself if the added expense was worth it.

In the meantime you have to canvas opinions from a bunch of crazies or read website reviews :p

What card are you running now?

In your boots I would get two cards, not eat for a week and do loads of testing. I'm sure you may draw the conclusion that one card is enough and sell the other one on! :cool:
 
Thanks guys,
some very good comments here
(Big Wayne, I tip my hat too you sir)
The trouble is at the moment I have a dodgy XFX GTX 260, that I will be RMAing this week, the card randomly develops a fault where it will be unable to cool itself even when the fan is running full speed and very occassionally artifacts appear in furmark and cod 4.
So the XFX GTX 260 will be going back and i will be left with a 2400 pci card (ouch!) that struggles to play anything, all on my lovely core i7 rig :-)
Do I get another GTX 260 and go sli eventually when faulty card is returned?
Buy a GTX 275 and sell faulty returned card?
or bite my lip and stick with my 2400 pci card until the GTX 260 is returned leaving me with a single GTX 260?

Thanks for reading guys.
 
Perfect_Chaos said:
I play at 1680 x 1050 and there is an improvement, benchmarks will tell you that of games not just synthetic ones.

I dont brag about it, but there is definately a nice difference.. why people say you need a huge monitor like 26" or 30" for SLI i will never understand because it will still run like crap if you ran it full res on one of those, on newer games at least.
Click to expand...

I am aware there are gains at 1680x res - even at 1280x 260 SLI shows 40 - 50% gains over a single card. But at that res a single card will run everything maxed out flawlessly.

2048x res is fine on 260 SLI, 2560x is another matter entirely.
 
Is SLI ( or for that matter crossfire) worth it?

Kinda depends

IF you are playing the latest and greatest BIG selling games then ..... maybe yes
The driver writers will try and make the driver work better with these types of games
and improve the performance. So your pretty much at the mercy of the driver writers
 
Shaolin Chicken said:
Thanks guys,
some very good comments here
(Big Wayne, I tip my hat too you sir)
The trouble is at the moment I have a dodgy XFX GTX 260, that I will be RMAing this week, the card randomly develops a fault where it will be unable to cool itself even when the fan is running full speed and very occassionally artifacts appear in furmark and cod 4.
So the XFX GTX 260 will be going back and i will be left with a 2400 pci card (ouch!) that struggles to play anything, all on my lovely core i7 rig :-)
Do I get another GTX 260 and go sli eventually when faulty card is returned?
Buy a GTX 275 and sell faulty returned card?
or bite my lip and stick with my 2400 pci card until the GTX 260 is returned leaving me with a single GTX 260?

Thanks for reading guys.
Click to expand...

Whats your budget? 260GTX SLI will massacre most things out there... but if your prepared to sell then 275 SLI has a slight edge and even the 285 have come down in price a lot recently - while still pretty pricey a couple of them would be murder.
 
I just thought i'd update everybody as to my current situation, I am now on my third GTX 260, the first two were faulty and have both been RMA'd.
The first two were factory overclocked and 55nm cards and my third one is at stock settings,65nm and not factory overclocked.
I will be getting a replacement for the first rma'd card so will eventually be giving SLI a shot, so will be able to answer my own original question :D

I will update this thread once I have received my replacement card.
 
at 1900 and above for a constant 60fps with max detail then 2x sli is a must...however 3x sli or more is not needed for what i have just said except for crysis...thats it;)
 
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