A quick question about SLI

[Pez D Spencer]

I am considering going SLI in my new system with two 7800GT 256MB cards. Two 7800GTX 256MB cards are just too expensive for me although I know this would be better.

I was going to just get a 7800GTX 512, but other people on these boards have told me to go with the 7800GT 256MB SLI setup instead.

My question is this: If I am running two 256MB cards in an SLI setup am I considered to have 512MB of video memory? What I mean is, for games like DOOM 3 that reccomend 512MB of video memory for ultra mode, will an SLI setup like mine be considered to have 512MB of video memory or still only 256? Im assuming that applications will see a 256MB SLI setup as 512MB of video memory but I'm not 100 percent sure.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Elfear]

Two 256MB cards in SLI are still effectively only 256MB of ram total. For 90% of the games you play the extra 256MB of the 512MB 7800GTX will not matter at all. For the other 10% the SLI'd GTs will still keep up with the 7800GTX. There are very very few instances where a 7800GTX will clobber two 7800GTs. Plus the GT's are cheaper.

 

[Pez D Spencer]

Thanks for the reply. So I guess that DOOM 3 on ultra wont happen on a 7800GT 256MB SLI setup then? Or will it?

 

[tuteja1986]

doom 3 on ultra high could work on x850xt pe/6800U :! the game didn't really need SLI or G70 or R520. Anyways I don't even care about SLI or crossfire. One card does me fine and i rather not waste the money for a 2nd card but something better that coming next year like a G71 or R580 or even wait till G80/R600. I have a 7800GTX and it does runs fine with all my games.

 

[Elfear]

You can run Doom3 and Quake 4 at Ultra Quality with 256MB cards. Like I said before, there are a very few games that benefit from the extra 256MB of ram that the 7800GTX and X1800XT offer and even those games will run great with SLI'd 7800GTs.