How many of you would SLI your current card if you could?

[GeneralGrievous]

For those of you with 9700, 9800, 5900s mostly.
Assume a 1.9x gain over the single card.

 

[reever]

Is this with or without the cost of a new motherboard, psu, etc.?

 

[Schadenfroh]

considering i can get another 4200 for $70 that is exactly like mine, YES, expecially if it would increase my performance 80%. the thing about people saying how expensive sli is must think down the road when the cards get cheaper. they can just buy another card, simple, effective upgrade by running the new card in sli with the old one. *refering to it being the same card of course, but cheaper in the future

 

[Cawchy87]

yes, my next system will have an SLI compatable mobo

 

[reever]

the thing about people saying how expensive sli is must think down the road when the cards get cheaper. they can just buy another card, simple, effective upgrade by running the new card in sli with the old one.

uhh what? Doesn't the 2nd part of your sentence have to do with SLI being cheaper not more expensive?

The only gripe I have is the people acting as if the only cost is buying another videocard, when there is no information on what chipsets and what motherboards that can handle SLI are. If you want SLI there is no way around it, you're going to have to buy a new motherboard, processor, or a PSU, and most likely top of the line *newer* hardware then what you have now(motherboard makers aren't going to bother on putting 2 pcie slots on anything less than top of the line), and you just might have to buy all 3 of those things in addition to your second videocard

 

[Insomniak]

I'm sure if we had the choice, none of us would run SLI, especially not if we could :roll:

 

[GeneralGrievous]

Is this with or without the cost of a new motherboard, psu, etc.?

I'd say without. I'm assuming that if anyone is going to buy a pci express motherboard they'd put in the extra money to get dual slots. Factoring in all that other stuff is a pain.

considering i can get another 4200 for $70 that is exactly like mine, YES, expecially if it would increase my performance 80%. the thing about people saying how expensive sli is must think down the road when the cards get cheaper. they can just buy another card, simple, effective upgrade by running the new card in sli with the old one. *refering to it being the same card of course, but cheaper in the future

But the question becomes: why not sell your 4200 for $70 and buy a 9700 Pro for $140 ($70 upgrade), which would yield more than 2x your 4200s performance?

 

[nitromullet]

The rub here is that I am a hardware enthusiast. I would want 2 of the next generation cards in SLI.

 

[GeneralGrievous]

^^^^^^^^^:beer:

 

[Cerb]

Way too much money, way too little gain, and in two years it will be beaten, SLI or no.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Cerb
Way too much money, way too little gain, and in two years it will be beaten, SLI or no.

1. "too much money" depends on how much you have
2. "too little gain" is subjective and unproven yet (V2 used to get 40%-50% in std benches)
3. "two years it will be beaten" who cares? Who buys vid cards to last more than two years?! If you buy one top end card for two years, you have a card thats as good as it gets for one year, maybe. If you buy a 2 6800Us, you get a card far better than the current best for a year, likely as good as the best for the next.

This isn't a hard concept, unless you for some reason think the next gen of cards will triple this gen's performance, which I haven't seen happen in 16 years of computer gaming.

 

[Keysplayr]

I think the General is fishing. Lovely day for it. Heres what I believe I would do. I currently have a GFFX 5900U AGP. Assuming my mobo had 2 AGP slots and the 5900's were capable of SLI, I might just buy another used 5900U for under 200 bucks which is feasable now. But the reality is this cant be done. So I will be going after dual 6800GT's with a PCI-e 2x16 slot mobo for gaming nirvana. Now dont take my word for this because I can change my mind at the last moment. But it is something I am interested in.

Keys

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: Rollo

Originally posted by: Cerb
Way too much money, way too little gain, and in two years it will be beaten, SLI or no.

1. "too much money" depends on how much you have

About $500

2. "too little gain" is subjective and unproven yet (V2 used to get 40%-50% in std benches)

In this case 80%. I didn't have 2 Voodoo2 cards, either.

3. "two years it will be beaten" who cares? Who buys vid cards to last more than two years?!

Um, that Voodooo2, which served me fine until the GF2 GTS came down to under $200.

If you buy one top end card for two years, you have a card thats as good as it gets for one year, maybe. If you buy a 2 6800Us, you get a card far better than the current best for a year, likely as good as the best for the next.

Don't underestimate engineers under pressure...they might have to raise transistor counts like mad, but they (ATI) will beat the competition, and the others (NV) will beat themselves and the competition.

This isn't a hard concept, unless you for some reason think the next gen of cards will triple this gen's performance, which I haven't seen happen in 16 years of computer gaming.

Except that we're very close to that right now with dual 6800s, if it can be believed. If they really wanted to spend the money, they could design a 32-pipe, 512-bit RAM version and get similar performance. Just that it would cost at least as much as the SLI.

 

[GeneralGrievous]

I think the General is fishing. Lovely day for it.

Haha, its just a simple poll.

This isn't a hard concept, unless you for some reason think the next gen of cards will triple this gen's performance, which I haven't seen happen in 16 years of computer gaming.

The 9700 Pro tripled the previous generation under AA and AF.

 

[biostud]

Since my system is CPU limited 2100+@2083Mhz + 9800pro, I think I would go for next generation CPU + GPU.

 

[THUGSROOK]

yea, if there was a dual agp i875 board id go for it.

 

[Concillian]

I would. I have a 5900XT and a 9700 np. two of either at 1.5-1.8x performance would be a reasonable price/performance ratio.

It gives a lot more flexibility in upgrade path, unless you end up with a card that few others ever bought and tehre is little to no used market for them (Permedia, GF 5800, GF 4800SE)

 

[JBT]

I have a 9500 Pro I bought a 6800 GT which should give me roughly 3 to 4x to power. Add another 9500 Pro for 100 or ? Maybe but I will still be basically getting a 9800 XT or something around its performance. I would go for the newer technology instead and likely cooler running single card than 2 hot old tech cards.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Given the conditions stipulated? Absolutely. If I could pick up another 9800pro for 2bean and have almost double the performance I'd be all over it.

 

[Brian48]

SLI as a concept and design is not without it's problems. Texture memory is never combined. The same textures need to be loaded twice onto each card (or more if you have multiple cards SLI'd like some arcade machines). A card with 64mb, 128mb or 256mb still only loads in 64mb/128mb/256mb worth of textures. Only the frame buffer is doubled. SLI, by it's nature, also tends to degrade image quality. Maybe nVidia has something worked out?

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: Brian48
SLI as a concept and design is not without it's problems. Texture memory is never combined. The same textures need to be loaded twice onto each card (or more if you have multiple cards SLI'd like some arcade machines). A card with 64mb, 128mb or 256mb still only loads in 64mb/128mb/256mb worth of textures. Only the frame buffer is doubled. SLI, by it's nature, also tends to degrade image quality. Maybe nVidia has something worked out?

No, they don't have "something worked out."
They just wanted to catch our ears with "SLI." It's not the good old scan-line interleave, but scalable link interface (a multiprocessor design for 3D work). It's like what they were kinda starting to do way back when, combining cards, but instead of alternating lines or pixels, each card is given a space, divided up based on complexity, and each draws that portion.
Unfortunately, the texture duplication is going to have to stay the same, as not doing so would likely add as much latency as just going back to RAM, or close enough to it to not be worthwhile, I imagine.

...OTOH, 512MB cards should be out by the end of this year or early '05, and currently 128MB is fine, so a 256MB solution about ~80% faster than the single version should still have some pretty good numbers.

 

[T9D]

I have a 9700 pro.

And YES I'd do it in a second. It would only cost me about $160 for a new one to about double my speed. Sounds like a winner to me.

 

[Robor]

With so much video power wouldn't the systems be totally CPU bound? I mean we've already got single video cards that are CPU bound at lower resolutions.

 

[Brian48]

Originally posted by: tk109
I have a 9700 pro.

And YES I'd do it in a second. It would only cost me about $160 for a new one to about double my speed. Sounds like a winner to me.

Not if the texture duplication issue is still present as Cerb mentioned. Doubling the processing power while hobbling it at the same time is not my idea of a great deal since the trend with newer games is bigger and bigger textures.

Hate to use the V2 as comparison because it's so old and the technology has changed, but it serves as a good example for the time being. Under numerous conditions, two 8mb V2 running in SLI mode still loses out to a single 12mb V2 when the textures are cranked up.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: GeneralGrievous

Is this with or without the cost of a new motherboard, psu, etc.?

But the question becomes: why not sell your 4200 for $70 and buy a 9700 Pro for $140 ($70 upgrade), which would yield more than 2x your 4200s performance?

because my parents refuse to let me sell ANYTHING, to friends or on ebay because they fear it will come back to bit in the ass if it breaks. 2nd, i doubt a 9700 would perform as good as 1.8X the performance of my 4200, considering i dont use AF or FSAA because it makes text blurry in battlefield and i game at 1024x768 because of my small monitor (19")