Arguing against SLI

[Edward Lee]

1) Not practical to have 2 seperate graphics cards. 1 dual processor would be better
2) CPU Bottleneck means you'll never be able to take full advantage of the power
3) Expensive to build and maintain and will never become mainstream.
4) Better graphics cards and the lack of mainstream support will make SLI obsolete again.
5) A proven failed technology of the past.
6) Once you build an SLI machine be prepared to keep it for a long time.
No one will buy it from you. The upkeep will be too much for most people to afford.

 

[FrustratedUser]

What do you mean by 'Upkeep' and 'maintenance'? I install everything in my rig and then it sits there.

Better to be bottlenecked by the CPU than video card. Just max out all AA and AF.

 

[Regs]

Yes, SLI is expensive. The motherboard for it cost a pretty penny extra to support two 6600GT's just to match one single 6800GT. Getting two 6800GT's in SLI is well...absolutely pointless. You might as well take a 100 dollar bill and burn it right in front of your accountant. You just spent literally thousands of dollars for performance that not even your CRT monitor can handle while residing on a shaky upgrade path.

Lets assume this fanciful little theory of mine comes true in a year. Lets say they made a video card in a year with the performance of two 6800GT's in SLI for 400-500 dollars. Which is about 600 dollars less than what you paid for two 6800GT's in SLI now. Considering you might not even need a 500-550 watt PSU to run it, it might be even cheaper. Since people who buy into SLI are only in it to out perform others who have only one video card, they will be forced into be buying yet another 400-500 dollar video card, consquently laying waste to one of the 6800GT's they bought a year ago. It turns into a vicious cycle of waste money for performance that is not needed.

The reason why I say people only buy into SLI to "one-up" the others with single video card solutions is as as follows: I will be happy enough to be playing HL2 and D3 at 60-80 FPS 1600x1200 Max Details with some AA and AF while they go spend an extra 500+ dollars for extra FPS that cannot even be drawn on a CRT monitor.

 

[figfiddle]

Originally posted by: Edward Lee
1) Not practical to have 2 seperate graphics cards. 1 dual processor would be better
2) CPU Bottleneck means you'll never be able to take full advantage of the power
3) Expensive to build and maintain and will never become mainstream.
4) Better graphics cards and the lack of mainstream support will make SLI obsolete again.
5) A proven failed technology of the past.
6) Once you build an SLI machine be prepared to keep it for a long time.
No one will buy it from you. The upkeep will be too much for most peopel to handle.

You know something I will gladly pay $70-$80 more I (which I already did) for my mb and have the dual gpu capability. My new system cost me exactly that much more to build. Initially I am only going with 1 video card and u know what a year from now if I can add a second for half the price of the first u bet I'm going to do it.

If I had gone with a wannabe mb like an MSI Neo 2 Platinum or whatever it would have still cost about $140. I paid $213 for my Asus a8n. $73.00 more. Big deal! The rest of my system would have been identical including my OCZ Powerstream 520W ps. So where people are coming up with these hundreds of dollars more is beyond me. If I never add another GPU then so what. In the end I paid $73.00 more.

 

[LifeStealer]

You don't "have to" put the second card in on the SLI board. You can buy the SLI board and run a single card system for a while. When dual core CPUs come out and assuming it will be as easy to upgrade as mobo makers are saying (Bios flash) then you can put the second card in. Spending a few extra bucks for something that may offer a nice upgrade option later is a good investment in my opinion.

 

[EvilRage]

Originally posted by: Edward Lee
1) Not practical to have 2 seperate graphics cards. 1 dual processor would be better
2) CPU Bottleneck means you'll never be able to take full advantage of the power
3) Expensive to build and maintain and will never become mainstream.
4) Better graphics cards and the lack of mainstream support will make SLI obsolete again.
5) A proven failed technology of the past.
6) Once you build an SLI machine be prepared to keep it for a long time.
No one will buy it from you. The upkeep will be too much for most peopel to handle.

1) Maybe not practical, but the results don't lie. 20,000+ marks on 3DMark 03 with dual 6800 Ultras, vs 12,000+ marks with a single card solution. Measurable performance.
2) See 1. In addition, with dual-core processors on the horizon, the CPU bottleneck may be removed, or at least alleviated slightly.
3) SLI seems popular with gamers/technophiles, who's to say that it won't be included in the mainstream (ie, prebuilt systems) platforms? And what maintenence?
4) 2x "better graphics cards" > 1x better graphics card. Lack of mainstream support? Nvidia's not mainstream?
5) SLI in the past was replaced by the AGP video bus, which will soon be replaced by PCI-e and SLI. It always gets better with computers. (well, mostly.)
6) Great! That means I can buy better dual-card video card solutions instead of using that money to build a new system as often. =D

Upkeep? What upkeep?

 

[Regs]

EvilRage

4) 2x "better graphics cards" > 1x better graphics card. Lack of mainstream support? Nvidia's not mainstream?

Technically, NVIDIA is a main stream company. However, what products we buy from them may not be considered "Main Stream". I guess it depends on what stream you happen to be in. Theoretically, anything above Intel Extreme Graphics is not main stream since more than 3/4ths globally don't even use AGP graphics.

 

[JSt0rm]

heres a question. If the sli motherboards have 2 8x pci-e slots vs 1 16x slot then when the dualcore videocards hit will the 8x slot be the bottle neck on the sli board?

 

[Penth]

I like the idea of running 3 monitors all from PCIe video cards. One more point for SLI

 

[ts3433]

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01
heres a question. If the sli motherboards have 2 8x pci-e slots vs 1 16x slot then when the dualcore videocards hit will the 8x slot be the bottle neck on the sli board?

AGP 8x is not maxed out yet, so I don't forecast PCIe x8 being filled up anytime soon. However, by the time those cards are out (assuming SLI makes it this far), chipsets will probably provide enough PCIe lanes to accomodate that much stuff.

 

[JSt0rm]

i think the video is turned off on the second card. Could be wrong but I remember reading that.

 

[Penth]

I think it's just when it's in SLI Mode it is turned off. As of now, I think you have to reboot the computer to switch between SLI and just using two video cards.

 

[JSt0rm]

AGP 8x is not maxed out yet, so I don't forecast PCIe x8 being filled up anytime soon. However, by the time those cards are out (assuming SLI makes it this far), chipsets will probably provide enough PCIe lanes to accomodate that much stuff.

What I'm saying is because a dualcore videocard would use double the bandwidth that it could come close to the limit on a 8x pci-e slot. Those cards are like sli on one card and they should be here in a few months.

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: Penth
I like the idea of running 3 monitors all from PCIe video cards. One more point for SLI

Useful if you do CAD related work. That I at least agree. Can't imagine the use of having it for games though.

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01

AGP 8x is not maxed out yet, so I don't forecast PCIe x8 being filled up anytime soon. However, by the time those cards are out (assuming SLI makes it this far), chipsets will probably provide enough PCIe lanes to accomodate that much stuff.

What I'm saying is because a dualcore videocard would use double the bandwidth that it could come close to the limit on a 8x pci-e slot. Those cards are like sli on one card and they should be here in a few months.

They tried making them in the past, but had problems getting drivers out that would actually make the 2nd core useful.

 

[EvilRage]

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01

AGP 8x is not maxed out yet, so I don't forecast PCIe x8 being filled up anytime soon. However, by the time those cards are out (assuming SLI makes it this far), chipsets will probably provide enough PCIe lanes to accomodate that much stuff.

What I'm saying is because a dualcore videocard would use double the bandwidth that it could come close to the limit on a 8x pci-e slot. Those cards are like sli on one card and they should be here in a few months.

A few months? Show me an article or reference of some kind.

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: Regs

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01

AGP 8x is not maxed out yet, so I don't forecast PCIe x8 being filled up anytime soon. However, by the time those cards are out (assuming SLI makes it this far), chipsets will probably provide enough PCIe lanes to accomodate that much stuff.

What I'm saying is because a dualcore videocard would use double the bandwidth that it could come close to the limit on a 8x pci-e slot. Those cards are like sli on one card and they should be here in a few months.

They tried making them in the past, but had problems getting drivers out that would actually make the 2nd core useful.

The Quantum 3D Obsidian had no problems getting the 2nd core to work. SLI on a single board doesn't require magic to work properly.

 

[Penth]

I think he might be referencing this: Linky However, I don't think he realized that you would not be using with two of those cards because the nVidia SLI bridge is already being used on the card, so there would be no point in running it on PCIe 8x.

 

[JSt0rm]

Originally posted by: EvilRage


A few months? Show me an article or reference of some kind.

http://www.tomshardware.com/ha...s/20041216_115811.html

says luxery item by end fn january so give it afew more months to drop down.

 

[JSt0rm]

Originally posted by: Penth
I think he might be referencing this: Linky However, I don't think he realized that you would not be using with two of those cards because the nVidia SLI bridge is already being used on the card, so there would be no point in running it on PCIe 8x.

Thats my point (and my question). Current sli boards couldnt run the card because of the 8x pci-e slots

 

[LTC8K6]

Current boards all have at least one X16 PCI-E slot. The slots are throttled down to x8 when dual cards are used, they are not x8 slots.

 

[ts3433]

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01
Thats my point (and my question). Current sli boards couldnt run the card because of the 8x pci-e slots

On SLI boards, I believe one graphics slot is full-blown 16x, and the other is a physical 16x slot, but with 8x bandwidth [[edit: I might be mistaken here, but the lost bandwidth still has no effect]]--the chipset can't provide that many lanes. If you're thinking of a bandwidth issue, that'd be nonexistent--part of why there's no immediate benefit to PCIe in itself is because we still have not completely saturated AGP 8x, and there is far more bandwidth available in a PCIe x8 slot (maybe even x4) than AGP 8x.

 

[JSt0rm]

ahh thanks ltc8k6 thats what I was looking for. Actually now I remember there is a little card you must flip to enable sli and that probably changes the slot speed.

 

[Regs]

The Quantum 3D Obsidian had no problems getting the 2nd core to work. SLI on a single board doesn't require magic to work properly.

Yes, when they finally came out with it, no one actually took interest in it. Ran to damn hot and actually performed crappy in Direct 3D. This was back in 98 when everybody played Quake and Open GL games. Times have changed.

And I'm not arguing SLI, he mentioned dual core video cards which is a different ball game.

 

[Pariah]

Yes, when they finally came out with it, no one actually took interest in it.

Yea, the near $700 price tag probably had something to do with that.

Ran to damn hot and actually performed crappy in Direct 3D.

Looks like they were doing OK in Direct3D here. The problem with Direct3D performance had nothing to do with the SLI implementation. The problem was that the card was based on 3dfx chips which themselves were direct3D impaired.

And I'm not arguing SLI, he mentioned dual core video cards which is a different ball game.

Uhh, hello? The dual core boards like the Gigabyte board linked above are SLI on a board graphics cards, just like the Quantum 3D products from years ago. The SLI implementation isn't the same, but the concept is.