SLI: your views?

Zardon

You know the drill, vote and discuss

mkk

Unimpressed by the current situation but wouldn't be surprised if it would prove to have a good future a couple of generations ahead. Market adaptation should also improve the value over time, if both nVidia and ATI have their minds set to see this through.

Blackboost

I think it looks great and sounds pormising, but right now I'm not that impressed with the results so far, plus the investment can be tough for the wallet.

Spookyy

No use really.

Some say, buy 1 now and add another to get better performance when the newer game demands it.

Thats just stupid because after 1 or 2 generations the new games will use features that those old SLI cards dont have, so you got to invest in 2 new cards everytime.

Waste of cash. 1 slot is the way to go.

Danhill

Im unimpressed, I doubt ill buy it:

It's expensive, even more heat, problems with games and the list goes on.

Callandor

There's alot of room for improvement, so yes, SLI is good, and is here to stay.

Logla

not for me thanks. The cost is just too high now. I remember when I had VoodooII SLi - that setup cost me less than my x800Pro did.

CDsDontBurn

i'll think about it, but i wouldn't want to spend money on two 6600GTs in SLI when i can get one 6800GT for better performance at around the same price as two 6600GTs. It'll probably come into mind once i see a need for it, but for now, one card will do just fine.

bug77

I doubt that if my video card gets old, I'll buy another old card to get my system back up on par...

On another note, I'm really confused how the current mobos support SLI (that is two PCIe x16 ports) since current chipsets only support up to 32 PCIe lanes. Keep in mind that mobos have some lanes dedicated to PCIe x1 as well for other devices...
I might be wrong with this one, feel free to correct me.

Update: Actually, the limit is 20 lanes for NF4 (Intel does not share this info on their site...)

craig5320

Well I've got an SLi board, but I have no intentions of ever using the SLI function, Single All the way baby.

My board is the A8n-SLi Deluxe i bought it for use with my X800XT, the other features are great, 4 SATA2 connectors, firewire 10usb ports, dual gigabit lan etc. Features that weren't available on non SLI boards.

I think SLI was proved a non-starter back in the VooDoo days, with the rate of new graphics cards hitting the market buying two really isn't an option. If they made it so you could use two different cards like a lower and higher spec the outcome would be different.

e.g.:

1: GPU 1 (fast)
added later on - 2: GPU 2 (faster)

then

1: GPU 2 (faster)
2: GPU 3 (a lot faster)

So when you upgrade you replace your older card,

bah does anyone know what i'm blubbering about, i lost my train of thought....

Sandok

It's cool tech but sooooo software dependant. Needs more games so sooo far, i've voted rubbish

Necrosis

Should add the option to vote for too expensive. I'd rather pay for 2 cpu's instead.

Shadow Lady

its too expensive, has many bugs, and is not always faster than single

Vikingod

I think it is a great idea, but has to have the bugs worked out of it before I spend the money.

!NC!Blade

Given time with alot of bug fixes, maybe yes. But as of right now, nope, not worth it.

UZ7

Yeah, hardware/software technology needs to mature a little more and when/if the prices go down then i may reconsider... that is unless ATI has something up their sleeves

pr0digal jenius

I think it's a poorly implemented good idea


I also think that dual core GPUs are a far better idea then plain old dual GPUs

Judas

Depends on what form of SLI it is.... frankly it has protential.... very good potential..... it just so happens Nvidia doesn't seem to know how to make it work just yet...

mike2h

waste of $$ now. technology is to immature but love the potential. & the upgrade path it gives you buy one card now & when it starts to get slow buy the 2nd & you are right back in bussiness.
like i said above, just not cost effective right now. there are to many single card solutions that can play every game out there with ease & not have all the problems. wait 'till 2nd or 3rd generation.

GeneralClaymore

i was expecting it to be like double the speed. but i was wrong, it aint worth the extra money you gonna spend, your better off overclocking a single card then getting sli.

2x 6600gts aint worth it so u better off with a 6800GT/X800pro. i just see Sli as a marketing Scam by nvidia,and is over hyped. you will never need 2 video cards, one is enough.

BWX

rubbish

CDsDontBurn

hell....even PCI-E isn't all that great. Systems aren't even taking full advantage of 66Mhz 8x AGP specs, let alone a single 133Mhz PCI-E bus.

No_Style

"Two heads are better than one."

Computer Technology is really going the way of the dual:

Dual Channel memory.
Two HDDs making RAID 0.
Dual Processors (Or even pseudo dual processors via Hyper Threading).
Dual video cards just makes sense to me... or even Dual GPU cores.

The hardware is there, it's just that the software isn't there to take advantage of it all.

MadPt

Great idea, however, one top of the line card is so expensive, twice that cost is a huge investment... until, who knows, a better, single card comes out and makes you wonder about the money you have just spent...i'm not sure if it's worth it, but it's tempting.

2 cheaper cards won't be as fast as a good card, so i'm not in a hurry.
I do find the 2GPUs in one card, like the 3D1 a better, cheaper choice. However you don't have a sinle card with two 6800GT/Ultra or a ATi SLI choice. I'll wait a bit more.

technonerd

It's a waste of money to buy two video card if you can get a better performance of one card.

crapman777

Whilst i agree buying two top end cards is very very expensive, i have seen in a magazine here in Australia (ATOMIC) two 6600GT cards tested under HL2 and they perform equal to an x800. One card is pushed under maximum load and the second card runs at about 80% of full load, and buying two of these cards is still cheaper than buying an x800 XT or 6800GT, SLI isn't perfect yet but considering it is new, its main target for now would be those wanting to do video editing and such, its been done before by the VOODOO guys many many years ago. This time though SLI has great potential, once its perfected me thinks.

toddsmack2k

It certainy is interesting andhas some potential but the cost kills it. I like anybody will splurge on the occasional, need like another hole in the head purchase but not that much!