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SLI: Will I ever need it?
- Thread starter jac705
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The nOOb I got my cards from had nothing but problems with Sli so he claimed. He spent about £600 on the cards then sold to me for £70 and I have not had any problems with them.
As long as your system meets requiments for sli and its stable then it works fine.
Something wrong with my Google?
I only get Results 1 - 10 of about 603,000 when I try sli, problem?????
And there are only 66,000 references for people asking whether SLI is worth it????? I thought more people than that would have asked it over time.
Would be interesting to see a poll of the answers but I have a life
I only get Results 1 - 10 of about 603,000 when I try sli, problem?????
And there are only 66,000 references for people asking whether SLI is worth it????? I thought more people than that would have asked it over time.
Would be interesting to see a poll of the answers but I have a life
SLI is generally worth it IF your a fairly clued up user and ready to take the time to tweak things a little...
Don't get started on scaling... a pair of 8500GT in SLI will give almost twice the performance of one card in almost every situation - whereas with say 2x 8800Ultra in SLI you might only see 50-60% higher performance - generally due to other bottlenecks rather than SLI scaling...
- shouldn't really happen in this day and age except due to user error, tho does apparently happen with crossfireX using more than 2 cards or 2 cards of different specification.
Don't get started on scaling... a pair of 8500GT in SLI will give almost twice the performance of one card in almost every situation - whereas with say 2x 8800Ultra in SLI you might only see 50-60% higher performance - generally due to other bottlenecks rather than SLI scaling...
I find my XFX 780i board is excellent...very stable and overclocks very well....
I've had a asus 750i p5n-d for about a month now and no problems so far
on SLI, I've always not been keen, because of the thought of the heat and power and maybe chance of not very good support in games, long time ago I used to say how stupid it would be to spend so much money on 2 graphics cards like that.
I said before I would never get an 8800gtx, but I did after moving from AGP to PCI-E and making the gtx my first pci-e card.
I did get the asus board because of the sli support in case I ever need it, but another gtx will mean a psu upgrade.
currently on 19", thinking of moving to 24" ws.. again, a reason to think about going sli, but for nearly all games 1 8800gtx will do me fine.
Now I think about it more, I didn't really need to get an SLI board, and I prefer more expansion slots.
lol.. I've got some mobos to sell, I go through too many mobos.
Soldato
- Joined
- 28 May 2007
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- 10,225
I don't think slied gt's are the correct way to go at that res for extra aa but if you are happy using small amounts of aa then yes you will see a speed boost. For me i would get shot of the gt and use the money on one of the new cards coming next month instead of getting another gt.
I've got SLI'd 8800GT's and see a decent performance boost gaming at 1920x1200.
Performance can be worse at lower resolutions, due to SLI overhead, but if you're gaming at low resolutions then there's not much point in considering SLI. The real performance gains are seen at high res with lots of AA/AS.
Performance can be worse at lower resolutions, due to SLI overhead, but if you're gaming at low resolutions then there's not much point in considering SLI. The real performance gains are seen at high res with lots of AA/AS.
Boost yes but is it any better than buying the better single card for the price you paid for 2 x 8800GT?
Nope.
personally I can't justify it, I play games, but it's not what i spend most of the time doing
i usually buy a £65-70 motherboard (mid-high end with raid, and no sli) saves about £40 to not get an sli board (generalising a bit, but still)
buying a £130 gfx card does it for me (8800gt)
i usually buy a £65-70 motherboard (mid-high end with raid, and no sli) saves about £40 to not get an sli board (generalising a bit, but still)
buying a £130 gfx card does it for me (8800gt)
Just to qualify the Custom PC results a bit, they were only measuring the MINIMUM frame rates, not the maximum, which is why they were reporting minimal increases with 2, 3 and 4 cards or even drops in some cases.
Their view is that minimum frame rates are the ones you notice, especially when they drop below 25fps, so they concentrated on those.
To be fair to them, I noticed minimum frame rates dipped slightly in some games when I had SLI 8800GT's, although I still think some of the conclusion they drew were a bit flawed.
Maximum and average frame rates were rather better in almost all cases, as the minimums they recorded may only have been for split seconds.
Their view is that minimum frame rates are the ones you notice, especially when they drop below 25fps, so they concentrated on those.
To be fair to them, I noticed minimum frame rates dipped slightly in some games when I had SLI 8800GT's, although I still think some of the conclusion they drew were a bit flawed.
Maximum and average frame rates were rather better in almost all cases, as the minimums they recorded may only have been for split seconds.
Yes.
It cost less and gives better performance.
a 3870x2 costs £223, 2 x 8800GT costs £223
Throw in the extra costs of a SLI mobo (which aren't some of the better boards for overclocking and getting the fastest out of your cpu) and needing a more powerful psu to run 2 cards, extra aftermarket coolers/waterblocks x 2 if going down that route, more heat to get rid off if not so I am been more than fair in saying that they both cost the same when you could argue the single card 3870x2 is cheaper.
Easier to overclock a single gfx card and you will acheive a higher overclock than trying to overclock two cards in SLI.
Add the hassle of getting SLI to work in some games etc but that's just a side gripe and nothing to do with performance so I will move on.
The 3870x2 will outperform the 2 x 8800GT in games with all the added bonus of what I have said.
SLI does have it's place. If you already have a SLI board and you get offered a 2nd matching card to yours on the cheap then yes, worth doing it even with the downsides.
To actually go out and spec up a new system with an SLI board and 2 gfx cards is a waste of money IMO and a non SLI board, lesser psu and a single card will always be the cheaper and better choice.
a 3870x2 costs £223, 2 x 8800GT costs £223
Throw in the extra costs of a SLI mobo (which aren't some of the better boards for overclocking and getting the fastest out of your cpu) and needing a more powerful psu to run 2 cards, extra aftermarket coolers/waterblocks x 2 if going down that route, more heat to get rid off if not so I am been more than fair in saying that they both cost the same when you could argue the single card 3870x2 is cheaper.
Easier to overclock a single gfx card and you will acheive a higher overclock than trying to overclock two cards in SLI.
Add the hassle of getting SLI to work in some games etc but that's just a side gripe and nothing to do with performance so I will move on.
The 3870x2 will outperform the 2 x 8800GT in games with all the added bonus of what I have said.
SLI does have it's place. If you already have a SLI board and you get offered a 2nd matching card to yours on the cheap then yes, worth doing it even with the downsides.
To actually go out and spec up a new system with an SLI board and 2 gfx cards is a waste of money IMO and a non SLI board, lesser psu and a single card will always be the cheaper and better choice.
Look, I really don't want to argue and I'm not sure why you've picked on what I've said.
Two 8800GT's actually costs less - about £210. The difference was greater when I purchased - £280 for 3870X2 and £250 for 2 x 8800GT. I already had an SLI board and had no need to upgrade my PSU. So at the time, like I said, yes it was better than buying the best single card solution.
Plus 8800GT SLI actually performs better in games, so I have no idea where you're coming from..
Also, they were using the 169 drivers from December which are terrible for SLi performance... use the 175's etc and SLi performance will be ace
BREEBO - "The 3870x2 will outperform the 2 x 8800GT in games with all the added bonus of what I have said."
You have a link on that, because I've never seen a 3870 out perform one 8800GT... and I'd be amazed (although I'm not saying your wrong), if a 3860x2 could outperform 2x8800GT's???
Cheers
Pug