Main Board question ? SLI or No SLI

[DelD]

Does it make sense to buy an SLI board now (example ASUS A8N32-SLI) or save the money and buy a non-SLI board (example ASUS A8N-E).

Video card to be used would be the 512 meg 7800GTX

Of course $$$ is the reason I am asking the question. Lets say it will be 1 year before you would consider upgrading to SLI. Could I get the A8N32-SLI for $100 bucks in one year? Probably: If you can still purchase the board in a year.

Will there be on super duper new video card out that I would upgrade to instead of SLI? Clueless about the video card, but it would probably need a new main board anyway.

What say you?

TIA

Del D

 

[Lonyo]

In a year you'd probably want a new card which would be slightly more than a second 7800GTX512 (if you could get once, since they're supposed to be limited), but perform faster.
Non-SLI is probably the way to go.

 

[eXx08]

If you have the money SLI is the way to go only because it has no performance LOSS than regular Nforce 4 Ultra.

 

[w00t]

non-SLi

SLi is waste of money all togather the two video cards the SLi board and a good psu to power those plus that is double the amount of heat and voltage to run those cards in SLi. It's better if you get a non-SLi board and one card because next gen of cards is going to be able to beat you 7800gtx 512mb's in SLi and you just ended up wasting a ton of money. It's like back when i told everyone SLi was a waste so guess what they got SLi boards with one 6800gt/ultra than they said they were going to get another one later than the 7800gt/gtx came out and beats two of there cards in SLi and they ended up wasting tons of money for really short time.

 

[DelD]

I used ASUS as an example, what is your opinion of the A8n-E main board or would you recommend another?

Will I see a performance loss with a non-sli board?

I am partial to ASUS mainly due to experience with their boards and OC their boards are usually very stable.

 

[dexvx]

My opinion about SLI:

It's a waste. You spend $$ to get 2x top of the line graphics cards. Less than a year later, a new high end product will come out and will beat BOTH cards in SLI mode. It's probably worth it if you're uber rich and can afford to upgrade 2x high end graphics cards every year, but other than thats, its pretty much a novelty.

 

[KoolDrew]

SLI is a complete waste of money.

 

[BriGy86]

here is a thread i made about suggested brands of hardware that may or may not help you

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=27&threadid=1736426

 

[DelD]

Thanks for the thread, but.....

I was looking for something along the lines of manufactures and board model numbers for recently purchased main boards and your comments on them.

Although I must add I usually purchase ASUS boards and the A8N-E is looking like it will suite my needs. It is missing a couple of things I would like to see, like Raid 5 and a better onboard sound, but I can live with out those.

 

[Lyfer]

Originally posted by: dexvx
My opinion about SLI:

It's a waste. You spend $$ to get 2x top of the line graphics cards. Less than a year later, a new high end product will come out and will beat BOTH cards in SLI mode. It's probably worth it if you're uber rich and can afford to upgrade 2x high end graphics cards every year, but other than thats, its pretty much a novelty.

Exactly, you guys see the 7800 GTX 512 benchmarks? Its performance is near dual 7800GT SLI'ed.

 

[DelD]

I read the review, was one of the reasons I started this thread. Mainly looking at ways to cut costs so I can get the 512MB 7800GTX. Have not gotten all the componets firgured out yet, but I am getting close.

 

[VERTIGGO]

these arguments don't seem to take everything into account. most SLI systems I've heard of have 2 7800GTs which are still cheaper than one GTX 512. It seems to me that the 2 GTs have a chance at better bandwidth, with 40 pipelines, although the memory buffer is still 256. Overall, though, if you get a GTX 512, you're still going to have the tech-refresh problems that those SLId 6800GT people had, so you're not really saving money.