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SLI Newbie

S

Silent Assasin

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 1, 2004
Messages
1,120
Ok, so a friend asked me to build him a computer and said that he really wants SLI. But then he only gives me a bugget of $1100 and very maximum up to $1400. My biggest question about SLI is power consuption. I've read in several places that SLI would need a VERY MINIMUM of 500W. He already bought his case that has a 450W. So far what I have picked out for him is the DFI Lanparty UT nF4 it's socket 939, so I matched him with an Athlon 64 3500+ (Newegg was asking another $90 for another .2 Ghz). I've also got 2 gigs of OCZ Memory. Now I'm starting to hit the budget. He knows a little bit about video cards but not a whole lot. So now he's asking for 2 7800GTX's....... I don't think it's worth the extra 100 bucks per card so I decided to get an eVGA 7800GT. And I think I talked him into only getting one video card for the time being. Otherwise he'd be up to about $1500 with these parts. The curent total after shipping is $1,188.80. I've also got a Light-on DVD burner and cheapo $5 floppy drive..

Now the question is, is SLI really worth it at this point? And even if he does and when he does get the second video card, how exactly do you go about setting it up so that it takes advantage of SLI and both cards. I've read quite a bit on the subject, but nothing about setting it up. Part of which I read really suggested the DFI Lanparty boards and they had great reviews wherever I went..... And then power consumption, will a 450W even cut it for a single 7800GT? His PSU only has 20 pins mobo with a 20-24 pin adapter which I've heard can be bad. I told him to start looking around for some 550W and higher and gave him some specs to look out for, but he's really trying to save some money.
 
Silent Assasin said:
Ok, so a friend asked me to build him a computer and said that he really wants SLI. But then he only gives me a bugget of $1100 and very maximum up to $1400. My biggest question about SLI is power consuption. I've read in several places that SLI would need a VERY MINIMUM of 500W. He already bought his case that has a 450W. So far what I have picked out for him is the DFI Lanparty UT nF4 it's socket 939, so I matched him with an Athlon 64 3500+ (Newegg was asking another $90 for another .2 Ghz). I've also got 2 gigs of OCZ Memory. Now I'm starting to hit the budget. He knows a little bit about video cards but not a whole lot. So now he's asking for 2 7800GTX's....... I don't think it's worth the extra 100 bucks per card so I decided to get an eVGA 7800GT. And I think I talked him into only getting one video card for the time being. Otherwise he'd be up to about $1500 with these parts. The curent total after shipping is $1,188.80. I've also got a Light-on DVD burner and cheapo $5 floppy drive..

Now the question is, is SLI really worth it at this point? And even if he does and when he does get the second video card, how exactly do you go about setting it up so that it takes advantage of SLI and both cards. I've read quite a bit on the subject, but nothing about setting it up. Part of which I read really suggested the DFI Lanparty boards and they had great reviews wherever I went..... And then power consumption, will a 450W even cut it for a single 7800GT? His PSU only has 20 pins mobo with a 20-24 pin adapter which I've heard can be bad. I told him to start looking around for some 550W and higher and gave him some specs to look out for, but he's really trying to save some money.
Click to expand...

As far as the power supply, the amount of amps the 12v rail is pushing is a little more important than the amount of watts the power supply can dish out. If you added up all the watts of the components of an SLI setup, youd be looking at ~400-450 watts. For the video card, an SLI setup is overkill if you arent running the high end resolutions to take advantage of the extra power. If your running 1280x1024 or anything lower, a single 7800gt/gtx would be awesome, enough to last you a long time, but when games get more advanced and need extra power, throw in the extra card to get better frame rates at your current resolutions with the settings turned up. Tell your friend to save his money and go with a single card setup for now and add a second when the frame rates are to low at the resoltuions and settings your want in the current games.
 
Well as of this morning, I thought I did change his mind into only getting one card due to stability issues with SLI. But I just talked to him about 10 minutes ago and he's changed his mind again..... He just knows the good of computers. He has no idea what can happen from the other side of the spectrum. He wants to overclock. But then he has no idea as to what that can do to the computer. I mean it's somewhat safe to an extent, but I just can't get the point through to him that it could potentially destroy his computer.

I need to talk with him some more before I finalize on parts. But I would still appreciate some more info on SLI...
 
Silent Assasin said:
Well as of this morning, I thought I did change his mind into only getting one card due to stability issues with SLI. But I just talked to him about 10 minutes ago and he's changed his mind again..... He just knows the good of computers. He has no idea what can happen from the other side of the spectrum. He wants to overclock. But then he has no idea as to what that can do to the computer. I mean it's somewhat safe to an extent, but I just can't get the point through to him that it could potentially destroy his computer.

I need to talk with him some more before I finalize on parts. But I would still appreciate some more info on SLI...
Click to expand...
Sounds as if your friend has too much money and not enough intelligence.
 
Sounds like he needs to learn the hard way. SLI isn't worth it unless you're running the absolute fastest video cards on the market. Why would you buy 2 $400 cards when 1 $500 card would be almost as fast? It's a scam. It's not worth it unless you're running VERY high resolutions, i.e. 2048x1536 or something like that. I'd like to see him try and get tech support from dfi with a cheapo 450w 20 pin PSU, they won't even talk to him unless his psu is on the recommended list. If he just has to have SLI he'd better drop $150+ for a well-known 600w PSU.

You'd better go to www.dfi-street.com and read the stickies before you buy anything. Make your friend read them too.
 
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