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Why SLI isn't worth the $$$

The benefit of SLI is essentially proportional to display size. For small displays, you're going to be CPU limited before you're GPU limited, so at 1024 x 768, no it isn't worth it. Notice in those numbers that the greatest benefit was seen at 1600 x 1200. For a system like mine (2560 x 1600) SLI would kick @ss and would be very worth the cost.
 
wow a x850 beat 2 6800gt's lol however im aware of the conspiracy that valve coded the game on the 16 something feild where nvidia only does 24 and 32 or something like that....

anyway people are dumb and buy undeeded shit...like me i spent 4 grand in the past 2 months for this...i WANNA get some high end ram and a $700 best crt money can buy with my tax return but might now ....i wanna save for something else...

anyway just saying u might not wanna buy sli but some people might ( me- waiting for more perifs to go to pci-e x1 slots or watever like soundcards, now i have to many pci addon card to switch to pci-e and to expensive currently


to much rambling
 
Exactly, is there really any point in saying, feature X is worthless to everyone! ?
 
SLI looks good to me. I've said that 6600GT SLI isn't that interesting, but NV41 256MB and better looks awesome.
 
Framerate said:
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041222/index.html

Just look at the scores. Not nearly marginal enough for me to spend about $1000 on graphics cards.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that post, those 1600x1200 scores just helped me reaffirm my $800 purchase of two BFG GT PCI-E's to run games at my monitors native 1920x1200 resolution. Hmm, checking prices, looks like my graphics cards weren't actually that much more than what people are charging for an X800XT PCI-E that they don't actually have in stock. :rolleyes:
 
The entire point of this post wasn't only to bash SLI. Believe me I think that Nvidia could do something with this, but not now IMO. The other thing is the fact that everyone that is looking into buying a new video card can see all of the benchmarks side-by-side to make their decisions accordingly.
 
powerade said:
wow a x850 beat 2 6800gt's
Click to expand...

Are you talking about the 1 FPS "victory" at the cpu limited resolutions? :rolleyes:
Go back and look again at 1600x1200 4xAA 8xAF, where the graphics cards are no longer CPU limited. The SLI solution is either far ahead or slightly ahead in every case. I wish they would show benchmarks for higher resolutions. You would see a much more pronounced difference.
 
Framerate said:
The entire point of this post wasn't only to bash SLI. Believe me I think that Nvidia could do something with this, but not now IMO. The other thing is the fact that everyone that is looking into buying a new video card can see all of the benchmarks side-by-side to make their decisions accordingly.
Click to expand...
Hahaha, they ARE doing something with it...on the ultra-high margin DCC side of things.

It's all about the Quadros. And yes, I've used 'em in SLI, I work for a workstation company. And yes, they rock.
 
Yes... unless you need to humiliate the competition in 3DMark05 or you need to play Doom 3 or Far Cry smoother than anyone else on the planet, you do not need SLI currently.
 
The best CRTs are 1700 dollars not 700. And Belthrow how are you running any application at 2560 x 1600 right now anyway?
 
Or you want to play them at several times the resolution most everyone else is....
 
Blethrow said:
Noodle: Like so Apple 30" Cinema Display on a PC
Click to expand...

You need a dual link card. AFAIK, none of the consumer cards offer that except specifically designed for that - i.e. the 6800ultra sold by Apple, but that one does not seem to be SLI'able.

As for usability of SLI - the beauty of it is that you can buy one card now and second one a few months down the line when new games come out and up the graphic requirements.
 
There is one consumer card that supposedly lacks dual-link that supposedly will drive the monitor; the Asus V9999 'Gamer Edition' 6800. Several people have reported success (full res, 60Hz), but IMO the jury is still out. It's probably actually dual-link.

The Quadros support SLI, and mine will get a twin to keep it company next year if there are no dual-link PC Bios Ultras released by then.
 
I seriously doubt u can make a card go from singl link DVI to dual link with a BIOS update. Most likely it's a hardware thing and it costs to much to implement on consumer videocards (hence only professional grade ones get it)

As for SLI'ing Quadros, all the more power to you - but prices on even regular pci-e 6800s are cranked up too much, quadro prices are not for consumers either. I don't think u can budged 2 latest gen quadros in 1k, it's prolly cost more than that Apple 30" LCD
 
I'm not sure what you mean about a BIOS update; that's not what I meant in any case. And yes it is a hardware issue; you have to have the right transmitter. That Asus V9999 probably does, and they didn't advertise it for some reason. The Ultra nVidia makes for Apple has it also. Now they just need to release a PC version.

Two 3400's would be a little less than the 30" ACD, but not much. I don't expect I'll have to go that route; with the trend toward higher resolutions dual-link cards will become a lot more common. The motivation isn't really for gaming though. I use it for things that put me outside of the consumer category. The gaming's just a sweet bonus.
 
I'll stick with my old fashioned 19 in Aperture Grille Sony reference monitor for now. 1600x1200 works alright for my photoshop but more is always better. What kind of framerates do you get at 2056???
 
HL2 performs pretty well considering. At 2560 x 1600 with all settings maxed, I get 15-40 fps. Doom3 gives about 2/3 of that, and FarCry is unplayable at full res.

SLI would almost double all of these, which is why I want it so much ;)
 
:eek: LOL those are pretty craptacular frame rates, but on Ultra @ 1600x1200 max 2xAA my system bogs down to 20fps from its normal 60 on Doom 3. My 9800 pro can't do ultra at playable framerates on 1280x1024 however. I wonder if next gen cards are going to still have AGP versions. Stupid PCI-E fad.
 
Blethrow said:
I'm not sure what you mean about a BIOS update..
Click to expand...

I was referring to this one bit:

Blethrow said:
...dual-link PC Bios Ultras... ..
Click to expand...

You said bios, so I assumed u meant BIOS update.

As for dual quadros - man, quit braggin! :D The thread is about why SLI aint worth $$$ and in this case, it really isn't - quadro route is taking it to a REAL extreme. Most ppl want to upgrade their videocards periodically when new games come with higher demands to video-processing power. SLI diminishes the necessity to sell your old card - u just buy another one to almost double the performance at the fraction of the price of a single new-gen videocard. Quadro route negates any gains in that sense. ;)

Oh, and the next gen prolly will all PCI-E only, if ATI's approach any indication.
 
Just got the new Jan. MaximumPC today in the mail...there is an article on P.14 that sums it up pretty well. The performance leap over one 6800 ultra will be nothing but overkill on todays games...esp cuz as of right now there are little cards that support SLI...and even at that finding SLI 6800 ultras to make it worth more than just running two 6600GTs (whats the point of running SLI if all you can get is midrange?) in SLI is near impossibe.

By the time games come out that could benefit from SLI, a new generation of cards will be out, and the price of a new card will make buying that 2nd SLI card then a waste (look at the 100% leap in the last gen of cards). Dual cards are nice...but unless you just want bragging rights, unreal benchmarks (pun intended), or have money to burn...its overkill and a waste of time. The NV50 and R500s are slated for late 2005 or early 2006...by the time games that could use dual 6800 ultras in SLI arrive...so will the next gen cards.

Oh, I forgot, I suppose SLI would be needed now if you insisted on running all your settings at the max on a 22" monitor or something...and even at that...good luck finding SLI ultras...let alone PCI ones. I bet that by the time SLI ultras become available enough to make it worth it...the 7900s will be out.
 
I agree that SLI or PCI-E is a waste of money for the time being. They should have put all the money they spent changing over to the completely unneceessary PCI-E format into better cores instead of using the hype machine to make people think a PCI-E X300 or 6200 will outperform an AGP ANYTHING card, simply because its available bandwidth is about 4x overkill thats not being used at all.
 
undertheradar said:
...
By the time games come out that could benefit from SLI, a new generation of cards will be out, and the price of a new card will make buying that 2nd SLI card then a waste (look at the 100% leap in the last gen of cards). ...
Click to expand...

Do you really think we'll have another leap like that next year? IMHO, it's highly unlikely. Look at how long it took them to go from 9700 to x800 - 9800 was only an incremental improvement. As for prices - as availability increases, prices will go down, but new gen, even with marginal gains, will be priced much higher. So instead of selling ur card at dirt-cheap price and shelling out top dollar for new gen, u can simply buy a relatively cheap 'old gen' videocard to double performance - and by that time, all new games will suport SLI, nvidia will make sure of that, while single card, like u said, is sufficient for anything before it. Pretty solid business move on part of nvidia - cut research price, ease upgrade race for manufacturers and consumers.
 
To me it sure looks like SLI is worth it. At super high resolutions it pulls away in every game. Not sure why this thread was started besides the fact that it seems the starter didn't bother to look at the information. The examples where an X850XT PE is beating an SLI set a low res and is CPU limited. You can't fault SLI for CPU limitation.
 
What I found most interesting about that article was how the performance difference between an XT PE and 6800 U in doom 3 is very little now:

1024x768 4xAA/8xAF:
----------------------------------
6800U: 80.1 FPS
X800XT PE :74.3 FPS

1600x1200 4xAA/8xAF:
---------------------------------
6800U: 42.8 FPS
X800XT PE: 37.2 FPS


Not much of a victory there by the 6800 U it seems like it once was. Looks like ATi did a good job of closing in on nVidia in that game and annihilating it in HL 2 at 1600x1200.
 
BossNoodleKaboodle said:
Their 2D and text quality is. None of their cards can do true Trilinear filtering thanks to their crappy drivers.
Click to expand...

Lets not even go there...
 
BossNoodleKaboodle said:
Why not? Because its true or what? No ATI card is allowed to do Trilinear filtering thanks to the craptimizations.
Click to expand...

No because you don't know what you're talking about.
 
You know how to enable true trilinear in the catalyst drivers? Please tell us how. Last I heard and saw it was only bilinear for most of the image that you can get in actuality. You said they had better IQ so whats your basis for that?
 
I can see value in it, but not for everyone. Future games on current engines will be more demanding, and with both AMD and Intel going dual-core cpu's in 2005. The dual core cpu's will be slower initially for both companies, and app,v.card driver, and OS will need some work for dual cores. If games are cpu limited with SLI now, dual core set-ups will be worse. I think the FX55 (+) in SLI will probably be the fastest solution for a year or 2. Since PCI-E is new as well, it's not like the architecture will change for a few years or more. I still think PSU's could pose a prob. though, if you have alot of HD's and opticals. I'm sure there will be some 600-700 watt psu's coming as well.
 
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