ATI tries to downplay SLI

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
Drayvn,

I see your perspective, but here's another angle for you to consider. Let's pretend that all the hardware needed to run SLi shows up tomorrow. I buy the board, CPU, and 2 6800GTs and SLi them. It will ost likely be over a year minimum before new cards show up that can match or exceed thre performance. So for that whole year I have next gen performance right now. It's a better investment than an EE or FX system for about the same cost. Certainly I paid to play, but I got a better performance boost than other ludicrously expensive hardware solutions like an FX or EE. No matter when the next gen hits, if SLi is anoption and I pony up for it when the new gen hits, I get next gen or close to it, performance a year or more before that generation of card is even available. That's attractive to some of us, that's all

Well and consider - you've already had that performance for a year, and when the next gen comes out, you'll still be top of the line. Sure, SLI nextgen can beat you, but if you choose not to upgrade, it shouldn't be a problem. Devs will be developing for single GPUs, meaning your SLI setup should thrash all games that come out for the next 12 months after nextgen rolls around.

In other words, you can look at an SLI setup as a 24 month investment if you SLI two topend cards.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

FarCry is tougher on my GT than D3 Of course the example I provided was hypothetical, it was meant to show a senario where SLi could provide performance that it'll take a full generation to catch up to.. Of this moment CAD/CAM/3D devs would doubtless get more from it than I would, and I'll be stepping up to a serious BIG LCD before SLi, but I like the option being there, ya know?

BTW, your tone *if you will* strikes me as both admonishing and patronizing, I hope I'm just misinterpreting what you wrote.

 

[sandorski]

Haven't paid much attention to this issue, but is SLI the future? Meh, maybe. The problem with SLI, IMO, is that if someone comes out with a Single card solution with equal performance to a SLI setup, few will bother even considering the SLI, especially if the Manufacturer of the Single card solution decides to use their much cheaper Manufacturing costs to undercut the SLI setup. That is really the biggest risk for anyone(Manufacturers) depending on SLI. Even a Dual Chip single card solution would be preferable to SLI.

Another big problem is going to be the availabilty of Motherboards with the necessary PCI-E slots for SLI. There might be many Common Users who would like to Upgrade to SLI, but many of them will either give up or be unable to go SLI when they find out their Motherboard does not have the necessary slots or that their Dell, HP, or Whatever can't be Upgraded with an available Compatible Motherboard. Certainly that won't be much of an issue for most of us here, but that certainly is going to be an issue for the vast majority of the Market.

Advantages

Being on a very tight budget, SLI certainly is attractive to me, providing that it is incorporated into the Low/Mid/High end markets. If it is High End only, screw it, but if a Single SLI card can be bought for a Reasonable price($200-300CDN), then a second one bought later(for same or less $), and if the second SLI card bumps performance levels up a couple notches, count me in!




Opinion/Prediction: SLI will probably be a short-lived Fad. Someone will come out with a Single Chip or Multi-Chip 1 card solution that makes SLI look silly.

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: sandorski
Another big problem is going to be the availabilty of Motherboards with the necessary PCI-E slots for SLI. There might be many Common Users who would like to Upgrade to SLI, but many of them will either give up or be unable to go SLI when they find out their Motherboard does not have the necessary slots or that their Dell, HP, or Whatever can't be Upgraded with an available Compatible Motherboard. Certainly that won't be much of an issue for most of us here, but that certainly is going to be an issue for the vast majority of the Market.

People who buy from OEMs are not going to be interested in SLI. Folks interested in SLI know better than to pay any attention to Dell, HP, etc.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Drayvn

Originally posted by: SickBeast
To me there are two important issues here:

1. SLI is a feature which nVidia has and ATi does not have ATM.

2. SLI is not a very important feature for a vast majority of users.

I don't know who in their right mind would spend $1000 on graphics cards, then another $100+ on a massive PSU, especially considering how the current high end cards perform in games like Doom 3. All the heat generated by these cards would be enormous, coupled with huge power requirements. I would honestly be uncomfortable having my system draw that much power.

The argument that SLI allows you to have next-gen performance right now is valid, however I fail to see the point. If your monitor's maximum resolution is 1600x1200 @ 75hz, then what is the point of sustaining more than 75FPS at that resolution? Bragging rights?

I suppose someone could buy a mid-end card, then add another in SLI which would allow them to match a 6800U, but again, why not just buy a 6800U to begin with? Doubling your power requirements doesn't make sense to me. Even if I had a card which could enable SLI and wanted to upgrade, I would more than likely sell the current card and buy something faster. If you buy a graphics card today, I guarantee you there will be something considerably faster within 6 months of your purchase. Think about it.

Exactly what i was thinking, if u have SLI, u buy a card which is mid ranged, then u think hmm later ill buy another mid ranged, and so uve spent about $500 on both cards, when u could have sold the first one and could have bought a real uber GPU and saved half the cost!

But as u said, u can wait to upgrade by putting another card in, then in fact ur getting a more up to date card which is doing more work than ur older card, and how about new technology also?

Half ur screen is using DX9 while the other half is doing DX10, that would be a bit crappy wouldnt it? ud have to change ur WHOLE set up to keep up to date, while on the other hand u can just buy one uber powerful card.

Also, with SLI, it give a percentage to each card to do however much of the screen, its not strictly 50.50, so again if u buy both ur cards 6 months apart, then ur older GPU would be doing less work and ur newer more powerful card for which it is the same price than 6 months ago for ur other GPU. It would be taking the brunt of the performance hit, so in fact ur performance would drop dramatically wouldnt it?

(I hope u guys understand what i just said above...)

it doesn't matter if we do . . . SLI works ONLY with IDENTICAL cards.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
FarCry is tougher on my GT than D3 Of course the example I provided was hypothetical, it was meant to show a senario where SLi could provide performance that it'll take a full generation to catch up to.. Of this moment CAD/CAM/3D devs would doubtless get more from it than I would, and I'll be stepping up to a serious BIG LCD before SLi, but I like the option being there, ya know?

BTW, your tone *if you will* strikes me as both admonishing and patronizing, I hope I'm just misinterpreting what you wrote.

You're misinterpreting; it was not my intent to patronize you. The internet seems to have a way of contorting emotion. I apologize if you found it offensive.

I do CAD professionally and this sort of thing *would* benefit me greatly. It would require a massive investment though, and I don't do extremely large projects that would require that kind of power very often.

The option is there, but as I said most people will never use it. It's not fair to downplay it, but it's equally unfair to make it seem as though it's a killer feature, which IMO it is not.

Again, no offence was meant with my post. :beer:

I stand behind my comments that videocards are not a very good investment and become useless beyond a certain point. I also think anything greater than a 6800GT is not necessary ATM. I suppose my post could have been worded differently, but I honestly didn't think that you would care (and I wouldn't have taken offence had it been said to me).

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Insomniak

Originally posted by: sandorski
Another big problem is going to be the availabilty of Motherboards with the necessary PCI-E slots for SLI. There might be many Common Users who would like to Upgrade to SLI, but many of them will either give up or be unable to go SLI when they find out their Motherboard does not have the necessary slots or that their Dell, HP, or Whatever can't be Upgraded with an available Compatible Motherboard. Certainly that won't be much of an issue for most of us here, but that certainly is going to be an issue for the vast majority of the Market.

People who buy from OEMs are not going to be interested in SLI. Folks interested in SLI know better than to pay any attention to Dell, HP, etc.

I'd disagree, certainly they are not the most informed, but there are many who have some knowledge(just enough to be dangerous! ) of Hardware Issues/Trends that they'll be excited about SLI.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Rollo
The performance remains to be seen Sickbeast, but 2 6800GTS should far outclass a single 6800U or X800Xt PE. If the claims of 70-90% improvement are true, two GTS would own everything but two Us.

Even 2 NUs might outclass a U with 24 pipes and half the workload on the RAM?

true, but sli isn't avail right now, and when it is, will the xt pe or ultra be the cards by which all others are measured? we've seen claims, and we've seen pr/hype. what we haven't seen is a product (or products, as a new mb/chipset is also a requirement).

we haven't seen cooling requirements, power requirements, motherboards/chipsets, or a running system to show us this works and without flaws. we also have very little solid information on the next high end cards which sli will be an alternative to.

it's cool to speculate, but for all we know it could be a big bust that never even makes it to market. afaik when it's finally avail. it will only initially be made avail to builders/oems, not the general public. everyone is talking like we can run down to crapusa, buy a card and throw it in and have an uber sli setup right now and have performance better than nv40u and xtpe. we're nowhere near that point yet....

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: sandorski
I'd disagree, certainly they are not the most informed, but there are many who have some knowledge(just enough to be dangerous! ) of Hardware Issues/Trends that they'll be excited about SLI.

Let me rephrase then - anyone without the needed knowledge who buys from an OEM and then realizes they can't upgrade to an SLI config because of it deserves what they get. A good consumer researches a purchase beforehand.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

true, but sli isn't avail right now, and when it is, will the xt pe or ultra be the cards by which all others are measured? we've seen claims, and we've seen pr/hype. what we haven't seen is a product (or products, as a new mb/chipset is also a requirement).

we haven't seen cooling requirements, power requirements, motherboards/chipsets, or a running system to show us this works and without flaws. we also have very little solid information on the next high end cards which sli will be an alternative to.

it's cool to speculate, but for all we know it could be a big bust that never even makes it to market. afaik when it's finally avail. it will only initially be made avail to builders/oems, not the general public. everyone is talking like we can run down to crapusa, buy a card and throw it in and have an uber sli setup right now and have performance better than nv40u and xtpe. we're nowhere near that point yet....

you are right about two things:

We don't know. .. don't know . . . don't know . . . enough . . . yet

and

it IS fun to speculate.



even with insufficient info, it's "looking good" from MY POV.

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: Rollo
The performance remains to be seen Sickbeast, but 2 6800GTS should far outclass a single 6800U or X800Xt PE. If the claims of 70-90% improvement are true, two GTS would own everything but two Us.

Even 2 NUs might outclass a U with 24 pipes and half the workload on the RAM?

true, but sli isn't avail right now, and when it is, will the xt pe or ultra be the cards by which all others are measured? we've seen claims, and we've seen pr/hype. what we haven't seen is a product (or products, as a new mb/chipset is also a requirement).

we haven't seen cooling requirements, power requirements, motherboards/chipsets, or a running system to show us this works and without flaws. we also have very little solid information on the next high end cards which sli will be an alternative to.

it's cool to speculate, but for all we know it could be a big bust that never even makes it to market. afaik when it's finally avail. it will only initially be made avail to builders/oems, not the general public. everyone is talking like we can run down to crapusa, buy a card and throw it in and have an uber sli setup right now and have performance better than nv40u and xtpe. we're nowhere near that point yet....

I don't really think it's fair to say "nowhere near". By the end of the year, SLI should be perfectly feasible, especially for Pentium based systems.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
FarCry is tougher on my GT than D3 Of course the example I provided was hypothetical, it was meant to show a senario where SLi could provide performance that it'll take a full generation to catch up to.. Of this moment CAD/CAM/3D devs would doubtless get more from it than I would, and I'll be stepping up to a serious BIG LCD before SLi, but I like the option being there, ya know?

BTW, your tone *if you will* strikes me as both admonishing and patronizing, I hope I'm just misinterpreting what you wrote.

You're misinterpreting; it was not my intent to patronize you. The internet seems to have a way of contorting emotion. I apologize if you found it offensive.

I do CAD professionally and this sort of thing *would* benefit me greatly. It would require a massive investment though, and I don't do extremely large projects that would require that kind of power very often.

The option is there, but as I said most people will never use it. It's not fair to downplay it, but it's equally unfair to make it seem as though it's a killer feature, which IMO it is not.

Again, no offence was meant with my post. :beer:

I stand behind my comments that videocards are not a very good investment and become useless beyond a certain point. I also think anything greater than a 6800GT is not necessary ATM. I suppose my post could have been worded differently, but I honestly didn't think that you would care (and I wouldn't have taken offence had it been said to me).

well, if it's any consolation, i agree with your posts

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I wasn't offended, I was shocked you would use such an agressive posting style! Glad it's just that "lost in translation" type of effect I thought you might be having problems at home or somethin' and was going to PM you to see if I could help in any way :beer:

Anywho, I don't really view from the perspective of killer feature or footnote, so much as the logical alternative in the near future for the manufacturing difficulties these companies face. Unless everyone here is smarter than Intel/AMD/nVidia then parallel computing is going to be the stop gap until they work out the issues they are all readily admitting to encountering. Still love ya, you damned dirty Ape! :lips:

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
I don't really think it's fair to say "nowhere near". By the end of the year, SLI should be perfectly feasible, especially for Pentium based systems.

and duke nukem forever is the next big fps we'll be playing! ok, that's not fair, but well, i thought iwas funny

anyway, the end of the year is only 3 short months away, and we haven't even seen a working sli setup; not even anyone announcing an actual motherboard for it afaik... sure, there's been chipset announcements, but again, we have no clue how long they've been working on those, or how long before they're ready to tape out. frankly i'd be more suprised if it was avail than if it wasn't.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
Still love ya, you damned dirty Ape! :lips:

Now now, easy on the hot lips. I think you're the dirty beast here for using such innuendo.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: Insomniak
I don't really think it's fair to say "nowhere near". By the end of the year, SLI should be perfectly feasible, especially for Pentium based systems.

and duke nukem forever is the next big fps we'll be playing! ok, that's not fair, but well, i thought iwas funny

anyway, the end of the year is only 3 short months away, and we haven't even seen a working sli setup; not even anyone announcing an actual motherboard for it afaik... sure, there's been chipset announcements, but again, we have no clue how long they've been working on those, or how long before they're ready to tape out. frankly i'd be more suprised if it was avail than if it wasn't.

nV has been demonstarting SLi all over the North America, where have you been?

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
CaiNaM,

The FX and EE are no different than SLI will be, fast, expensive, and sold in relatively small numbers.

The FX and EE are not 70% faster than their high performance counterparts...

The numbers flying around now are 50-80% faster depending on title.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
CaiNaM,

The FX and EE are no different than SLI will be, fast, expensive, and sold in relatively small numbers.

The FX and EE are not 70% faster than their high performance counterparts...

The numbers flying around now are 50-80% faster depending on title.

Yeah, I stated it later in this massive thread that is growing faster than the evil slime in D3

It's a better investment than an EE or FX system for about the same cost. Certainly I paid to play, but I got a better performance boost than other ludicrously expensive hardware solutions like an FX or EE.

Youz and me is agreeing and such

 

[unipidity]

Yes, but no-oe actually buys EEs or even Fxs, do they? Please dont say they do.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: unipidity
Yes, but no-oe actually buys EEs or even Fxs, do they? Please dont say they do.

Who? If you typo'd no-one then I'm afraid I have to tell you that they do indeed buy them In fact, the 3DMock kings all use an FX or EE, though how many had to actually pay for them I can't say. We do have a growing number of members here who use the FX too, though the EE is less visible.

 

[BenSkywalker]

The argument that SLI allows you to have next-gen performance right now is valid, however I fail to see the point. If your monitor's maximum resolution is 1600x1200 @ 75hz, then what is the point of sustaining more than 75FPS at that resolution? Bragging rights?

My monitor handles 2048x1536@85Hz, could you just point me to the board that can push DooM3 at that resolution with either 6x or 8x AA and 16x AF at Ultra quality and never drop below 85FPS so I can go buy it right now?

I suppose someone could buy a mid-end card, then add another in SLI which would allow them to match a 6800U, but again, why not just buy a 6800U to begin with?

Say you are like a lot of people running a R9700Pro or R9800Pro right now and you see the x800XT/6800U performing twice as fast as your board. Is it the smart thing to do to go spend $500 on one of those, or would you rather drop $200 and add a second board to your current setup to double your performance?

If there was a new platform out that allowed you to run dual CPUs and they would perform close to double the speed of a single CPU solution in all CPU bound applications is there anyone who wouldn't be running it?

If it is High End only, screw it, but if a Single SLI card can be bought for a Reasonable price($200-300CDN), then a second one bought later(for same or less $), and if the second SLI card bumps performance levels up a couple notches, count me in!

nVidia has been demonstrating 'SLI' mainly with 6600GTs, $199 MSRP.

 

[Acanthus]

At 2048x1536 you dont need anything more than 2xAA.

 

[BenSkywalker]

At 2048x1536 you dont need anything more than 2xAA.

Maybe you don't but I do. 2048x1536 on a 22" monitor is comparable to 1600x1200 on a 19", you can still clearly make out aliasing(although it is much better then lower resolutions on a big display of course).

 

[Klixxer]

90% is pure BS, first of all you will need to have a system that can saturate the bus up to where your SLI config can take care of it, secondly you need to use the same bus for the communication between the cards, in reality this means that a SLI configuration will offer around 15-30%'s increase in performance at best and none whatsoever at worst (which, not surprisingly, is about the same that you got with V2's SLI config).

I realize the good points about it, but i sincerely doubt that it will be a very effective solution.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Klixxer
90% is pure BS, first of all you will need to have a system that can saturate the bus up to where your SLI config can take care of it, secondly you need to use the same bus for the communication between the cards, in reality this means that a SLI configuration will offer around 15-30%'s increase in performance at best and none whatsoever at worst (which, not surprisingly, is about the same that you got with V2's SLI config).

I realize the good points about it, but i sincerely doubt that it will be a very effective solution.

i think you are understating it . . . even the Radeon MAXX had better than 15-30% improvement over a single GPU (in win98, of course) . . . of course where the CPU is the bottleneck, you aren't gonna get much improvement - i'd guess SLI would really benefit those running over 16x12 with max aa/af.