• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Honest SLI experiences please....

M

Mickelonis

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 8, 2005
Messages
203
I am seriously considering building an SLI system with two BFG 6800GT boards. I would like 'honest' feedback from other SLI users on how much better their gaming performaces really are. I am not concerned about how much it would cost, I just want to know how happy or unhappy you are with your SLI system.

Thanks,

-Pete
 
SLI is a positive experience for me, the increase in image quality at 16x12 is nothing to joke at.

example

P4 3.7
6800GT@ultra speeds
D3 16x12 high no AA 63 FPS

AMD 3800+ stock
6800GT SLI stock
D3 16x12 ultra 4xAA 62FPS

For the most part, I am able to crank up image quality and maintain my comfort level for FPS.

I haven't run a comparison for other games, but hl2, cs source, bia, fc have shown similar increases...

edit
FC HDR 12x10 looks pretty damn sweet... imagine what an "overclocked" system could do... heh
edit

heh got carried away with my post... aa doesn't work... but 12x10 is silky smooth playable with hdr, where a single gt can do 10x7 albeit with some hits once in awhile...
 
I love it. Definite performance gain at 1680x1050 or higher with AA/AF cranked up.
My only regret was getting the 3500 Winne. If I can go back, I'd get the FX-55.
Need that very fast CPU to keep up with SLI
 
Slade said:
FC HDR 12x10 2xaa looks pretty damn sweet... imagine what an "overclocked" system could do... heh
Click to expand...

I didn't know you could run FarCry's HDR with AA :confused:
 
I do not notice a difference on any games I play since I love my Monitor but it can only do 1280x1024. One Ultra can own everything at that res, so... SLI is meh for me. Until I get a new monitor, but thats not happening until this dies...
 
USMC2Hard4U said:
I do not notice a difference on any games I play since I love my Monitor but it can only do 1280x1024. One Ultra can own everything at that res, so... SLI is meh for me. Until I get a new monitor, but thats not happening until this dies...
Click to expand...

SLI setup shines at 1600x1200+ with all the eye candy...
 
robberbaron said:
Thats why he isnt going to do SLI until he gets a new monitor.
Click to expand...
Exactly. I have played on one thats about the extent of it. When I build my Dual Core setup. Weather it be Intel or AMD, I will make sure It will be SLI capable for sure. But I will only get one video card to start. Whatever the best is at the time. So that way, In a year or so, I can just throw in a nother card when its needed.
 
Even with my current SLI rig, I tend to think that i need to play games with AA and AF off when playing multiplayer. However, last night I upped my AA to 4x and my AF to 8x on BF:V PoE and It seemed even smoother than without. I know that make sno sense, but I swear 1600x1200 4xAA 8xAF is faster than my previous rig and I only ran at 1280 w/out any aa or af.

Although it took a while to get the machine where I wanted. If you plan on running dual 6800GT's and want to overclock them at all, make sure you have a beefy PSU (and try to stay away from multi-12vrail PSU's, unless you know which connectors are running off of which rail) I have tested 4 PSU's and they only one of the bunch that is SLI certified, actually maintains a stable overclock.

Other than that, all other problems seem to be minor, unless you are running dual 6800GT's and a Widescreen monitor or certain 4:3 LCDs. I have heard horror stories bout that combo.
 
I have a 6800GT SLI set, and a 6600GT SLI set. My experiences with both have been nothing but positive except for Riddick.

6800 GT/U is the only game in town if you care about 16X12 4X8X> gaming.
 
Rollo said:
I have a 6800GT SLI set, and a 6600GT SLI set. My experiences with both have been nothing but positive except for Riddick.

6800 GT/U is the only game in town if you care about 16X12 4X8X> gaming.
Click to expand...

6800GT/U SLI is the only game in town.

In single gaming, ATI competes very well with the X850XT/PEs etc.

I would wait for the R520s/G80s before getting anything to epnsive (like SLI) since the new cards are supposed to be rad
 
until i see a r520 in my hands not going to recommend the "vaporware"... (ati, stock when announced please, not many months later!!!)

if you build now, get now, if you build later, choose it then... the whole "wait till nextgen" is an endless argument that leaves you with hopes for the "next big thing" and nothing in hand...

and only you can justify to yourself what you should get, you base that on your current situation, finances, personal taste/preference and you're expected experience and finally what else will match.

So stick to the original topic and post if you've had experience with an SLI rig, good or bad...

I have a few negs on sli though...

Power hungry, temps and drivers that are only sli friendly to "tweakers" through coolbits.

This isn't your run of the mill friendly to the user config quite yet...
 
Hate_Bot said:
6800GT/U SLI is the only game in town.

In single gaming, ATI competes very well with the X850XT/PEs etc.

I would wait for the R520s/G80s before getting anything to epnsive (like SLI) since the new cards are supposed to be rad
Click to expand...

Wow Hatebot- I didn't know you had a SLI set! Oh wait... you don't.... you must not have noticed how this thread is a specific request for SLI user experiences....not Hate Bots opinion of whether SLI is a good deal? :rolleyes:
 
Temps suck, drivers are still iffy(but getting better with every release), but if your into tweaking... its still worth it.

I run default 1280x1024 4xFSAA and 8xAF with all my games... the games that can take advantage (most everything with custom profiles) of SLi really do shine.

I am running 2xBFG OC 6800GTs with Nv5 coolers on them.
 
Hate_Bot said:
6800GT/U SLI is the only game in town.

In single gaming, ATI competes very well with the X850XT/PEs etc.

I would wait for the R520s/G80s before getting anything to epnsive (like SLI) since the new cards are supposed to be rad
Click to expand...

You can wait, just make sure you don't get too old waiting for it. Like Rollo said if you wanna troll go somewhere else. Some of us will SLI with current generation of cards and will do it with the next as well and so on.
 
J-Mag said:
Even with my current SLI rig, I tend to think that i need to play games with AA and AF off when playing multiplayer. However, last night I upped my AA to 4x and my AF to 8x on BF:V PoE and It seemed even smoother than without. I know that make sno sense, but I swear 1600x1200 4xAA 8xAF is faster than my previous rig and I only ran at 1280 w/out any aa or af.

Although it took a while to get the machine where I wanted. If you plan on running dual 6800GT's and want to overclock them at all, make sure you have a beefy PSU (and try to stay away from multi-12vrail PSU's, unless you know which connectors are running off of which rail) I have tested 4 PSU's and they only one of the bunch that is SLI certified, actually maintains a stable overclock.

Other than that, all other problems seem to be minor, unless you are running dual 6800GT's and a Widescreen monitor or certain 4:3 LCDs. I have heard horror stories bout that combo.
Click to expand...

It is nothing wrong, although I think it doesn't make sense, but you can see that as advantage of SLI or imperfection of SLI.

For advantage of SLI, I have do quite alot of search about SLI performance VS non SLI, the funny thing is that SLI ONLY gives dramatically performance boost when you are playing 1400 or 1600 high resolution with all the graphic setting turn to high. Performance boosts is about 48-53% !!!!

For imperfection of SLI, I would say it doesn't do anything when you play it at decent resolution such as 800 or 1020, it doesn't do so good in 1200 or 1280 either. Under 800 or 1020, you practically get no performance boost from SLI (about 5-7%), which a single 6800GT can perform much better than SLI under this resolution !

Conclusion:
If you want a SLI set up and you expect really good performance, turn all the setting to high and make ur resolution at least 1400 or above. A SLI set up is like a horse, the more u wipe it, the faster it runs.

Hope this help.
 
holycpu said:
Under 800 or 1020, you practically get no performance boost from SLI (about 5-7%), which a single 6800GT can perform much better than SLI under this resolution!
Click to expand...

This doesn't make sense. How do you figure single card outperforms a dual setup? I have a single 6800GT in one box and 2x6800GT in another and I can show you the opposite. Sure, at lower res. you couldn't tell them apart without benching as a single 6800GT is fast enough for any game out there but that will change. How...? Upcoming games are only getting more complex and will tax the hardware even more as time goes on. Besides it's always nice to have some spare power rather than not enough of it.
 
On a side note, you don't purchase a SLI rig to play at 640x480...

So anything less than 12x10 is simply a waste...
 
solofly said:
This doesn't make sense. How do you figure single card outperforms a dual setup? I have a single 6800GT in one box and 2x6800GT in another and I can show you the opposite. Sure, at lower res. you couldn't tell them apart without benching as a single 6800GT is fast enough for any game there out but that will change. How...? Upcoming games are only getting more complex and will tax the hardware even more as time goes on. Besides it's always nice to have some spare power rather than not enough of it.
Click to expand...

lol, you don't compare this way man. As we all know, 2 x 6600GT SLI = about 1 x 6800GT.
That's when one single card, which is 6800GT, outperforms a SLI set up of 6600GT under decent resolution. However, under really high resolution, SLI set up 6600GT will outperform single card 6800GT by abit or on par.

If you want further proof *, check out the review at AnandTech.com. :)

Some may just buy a 6600GT for now then get another one for upgrade later, cux the advantage of SLI can give the performance boost on par or even better than 6800GT in high resolution.

2 types of people that use SLI I can think of are either those who want extreme gaming now or those who don't want to buy expensive card but also able to get current expensive card performance by spending lil $ on future upgrade.

Therefore, there are some people who are deciding whether they get the SLI 6600GT or 6800GT.

Also, it can be 6800GT SLI vs 512MB 6800GT single
 
Slade said:
On a side note, you don't purchase a SLI rig to play at 640x480...

So anything less than 12x10 is simply a waste...
Click to expand...

Its kind of embarrassing to say but I thought of purchasing SLI for my new comp. (My current comp is P3 600Mhz with a 32mb TNT2, I think probably I am the only one still using P3 to play games....) and I only plan to use SLI to play 1024*860 resolution lol..........

probably not anymore if i get a bigger screen.
 
holycpu said:
Its kind of embarrassing to say but I thought of purchasing SLI for my new comp. (My current comp is P3 600Mhz with a 32mb TNT2, I think probably I am the only one still using P3 to play games....) and I only plan to use SLI to play 1024*860 resolution lol..........

probably not anymore if i get a bigger screen.
Click to expand...

Dont even bother with that computer.

LI is a waste on that one.

Ditto for mine.,
 
Hate_Bot said:
Dont even bother with that computer.

LI is a waste on that one.

Ditto for mine.,
Click to expand...

oh no, my SLI will be for my new comp, which is AMD64 3800+ :)
 
What I don't like:

1. Issues with widescreen resolutions.
2. Have to restart if you use multiple monitors (this, frankly, is idiotic).

What I do like:

1. The speed!
 
I had a SLI set up, the best i could build. Here was my SLI set-up:

AMD FX-55 @ 2.75 w/XP-120
2X512 OCZ Platinum Rev.2 @ 490 1T
A8N-SLI Deluxe @ 245fsb
2X 6800GT flashed to Ultras
ect....ect......

All i can say was i hated it, not because it didnt work or anything, but because most games saw either no improvement or actually decreased it from a regular 6800ultra. Yes, Doom3 played pretty good, but thats about where it ends. I finally said the hell with it and sold my A8N-SLI and both my 6800GTs and bought myself the DFI ULtra-D and a ATI X850 XT and i havent looked back! I got my FX-55 upto 3.0 on air with the XP-120 and my memory up to 550 at 1T command rate bhut the best was the improvement in most games i saw with the X850 XT that i clocked to past PE levels with. In most games i get better frame rates than the 2 GTS and believe it or not the minimum frame rate went up as well too. Ill never go back untill some SERIOUS work is done. And i know all about the "new" drivers out, they dont solve too much. Dont believe me?? Dont care, good luck and choose wisely. Id wait another month or two and get a ATI 520 card with 24 pipe lines or more....outta really put a hurtin on SLI. Ill see ya there!!
 
Slade said:
edit
FC HDR 12x10 looks pretty damn sweet... imagine what an "overclocked" system could do... heh
edit

heh got carried away with my post... aa doesn't work... but 12x10 is silky smooth playable with hdr, where a single gt can do 10x7 albeit with some hits once in awhile...
Click to expand...

SLI doesnt help HDR framerates at all.
 
Tripp17 said:
I had a SLI set up, the best i could build. Here was my SLI set-up:

AMD FX-55 @ 2.75 w/XP-120
2X512 OCZ Platinum Rev.2 @ 490 1T
A8N-SLI Deluxe @ 245fsb
2X 6800GT flashed to Ultras
ect....ect......

All i can say was i hated it, not because it didnt work or anything, but because most games saw either no improvement or actually decreased it from a regular 6800ultra. Yes, Doom3 played pretty good, but thats about where it ends. I finally said the hell with it and sold my A8N-SLI and both my 6800GTs and bought myself the DFI ULtra-D and a ATI X850 XT and i havent looked back! I got my FX-55 upto 3.0 on air with the XP-120 and my memory up to 550 at 1T command rate bhut the best was the improvement in most games i saw with the X850 XT that i clocked to past PE levels with. In most games i get better frame rates than the 2 GTS and believe it or not the minimum frame rate went up as well too. Ill never go back untill some SERIOUS work is done. And i know all about the "new" drivers out, they dont solve too much. Dont believe me?? Dont care, good luck and choose wisely. Id wait another month or two and get a ATI 520 card with 24 pipe lines or more....outta really put a hurtin on SLI. Ill see ya there!!
Click to expand...

read my post here x 9999 :cool:
 
SLI canot be justified in a financially sane way, especially with the R520 on the horizon promising to near double todays cards performance at a $500 price point. Can you live without 1600x1200 in a couple select games for a few months?
 
killerD said:
SLI canot be justified in a financially sane way, especially with the R520 on the horizon promising to near double todays cards performance at a $500 price point. Can you live without 1600x1200 in a couple select games for a few months?
Click to expand...

Why are you posting off topic in this thread? Remember the OP saying:
I am not concerned about how much it would cost, I just want to know how happy or unhappy you are with your SLI system.
Click to expand...
?

He obviously doesn't care what you think of the cost of SLI?

Moreover, you have no idea whatsoever when the R520 will be available for sale, or what it will cost when it is? What if they paper launch it in a couple months and the only place you can get one for four months after that is on Ebay for $800?

You're just trolling, the OP specifically said he didn't care about the cost of SLI, and he for sure didn't ask for baseless guesses about R520 availability? :rolleyes:

He's probably one of those crazy guys that wants to talk about stuff he can actually buy. :eek:
 
solofly said:
ATI Troll Alert!!!

I'm out of here.
Click to expand...

LOL- to ATI trolls, SLI is like honey is to bees.

They just can't resist showing up in in threads and posting "Waah it's a bad deal. ATIs new card in the future will beat it!" ;)
 
So you're saying SLI helps framerates in Farcry with HDR enabled? All I have seen shows that it doesnt. Which means I was not trolling, but pointing out an error by someone. It also means I didnt say it was a bad deal, but informing someone an error was made.
 
running flawlessly except i hang on shut down since i installed the latest bios. I cant wait to get my wide screen back so i can really strech her legs again.

If you have the money its a trip worth taking. If you have the money then you have the money so arguments about cost /performance ratio are meaningless. An sli rig GT or higher will take anything you toss at it and then some at full eye candy and as smooth as butter.
 
although I'm comparing platforms too, but it seemed SLI was making an improvement over the single 6800gt in my p4 in FC also, I'm using 76.10 which has a lot more support added. I wonder if the review your talking about was from last november where the driver support wasn't quite there yet...

oh well, whatever, I'm able to play 12x10 now at around the same playable experience as 10x7 from my 6800gt.

every other game was about maxed out already on an air overclock gt (430/1.14) with no aa or 2xaa. anyways, i'm going to play around some more, but I can say its fairly positive...

now if I could only take a break from life for a month or 2 and replay games for the last 2 years all maxed...

also hardocp's own check on sli as of recently...
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzQ3LDQ=
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top