Need Info On Sli

[kidcool321]

Hi guys,
I am wondering what is the difference between sli and regular and i noticed that sli mother bords say nforece 4 series what does that mean? because the motherboard i want taht can support pci express because i heard that is hte best slot right now, and i was wonder what is north bride? becuase it has ati and lots of other ones, and if i were to get a card with nforce series can i still use a ati can in it? thx

 

[PurdueRy]

Sli is a system to use two identical Nvidia video cards together for about 190% the performance of a single card.

Sli motherboards have two PCI express x16 slots for the video cards.

Northbridge handles communication between the CPU and memory/AGP. AMD systems only have a Northbridge and southbridge but the memory controller which has been built into AMD CPUs.

Yes you can use ATi cards in Nforce boards

 

[DasFox]

kidcool321, read up here -----> SLIZone --- http://www.slizone.com/page/home.html

SLI is really about running bigger monitors at higher resolutions and still being able to play games probably on MAX settings, of course this all depends on what cards you have.

For instance I have a SLI box with two 7900GT superclocks from evga, I was testing them out on a 23" Apple Cinema Display last month, and F.E.A.R. played awesome on 1920x1200 with the game on all MAX settings.

That's the beauty of SLI.

ALOHA

 

[Tig Ol Bitties]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
Sli is a system to use two identical Nvidia video cards together for about 190% the performance of a single card.

Sli motherboards have two PCI express x16 slots for the video cards.

Northbridge handles communication between the CPU and memory/AGP. AMD systems only have a Northbridge and southbridge but the memory controller which has been built into AMD CPUs.

Yes you can use ATi cards in Nforce boards

LOL, its more like 125-150% of a single card

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: Tig Ol Bitties

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
Sli is a system to use two identical Nvidia video cards together for about 190% the performance of a single card.

Sli motherboards have two PCI express x16 slots for the video cards.

Northbridge handles communication between the CPU and memory/AGP. AMD systems only have a Northbridge and southbridge but the memory controller which has been built into AMD CPUs.

Yes you can use ATi cards in Nforce boards

LOL, its more like 125-150% of a single card

Call it 175%. It depends on the game and the resolution you run at. High end single cards can generally run any game today at 1024x1024 at its max FPS but the difference becomes noticeable with daft (IMO) resolutions like 2048x2048 and greater, the single card would slow down considerably, whereas the sli setup would be able to somewhat keep the fps level high.

Nforce 4 is the chipset that the motherboard uses (a northbridge is one of those chips), there was an nforce 3 and 2 before it. Nforce 4 mobos are generally pretty good, theyre the chipset of choice for socket 939 athlon 64's. As for SLI even if you dont plan to use SLI having an SLI mobo can be useful later on, as the second PCI-E slot can be used for somthing else in the future. Add-in cards are beginning to use the PCI-E standard rather than the old PCI bus for their products, so its always good to have somwhere to put these new cards. This is one of the reasons why mobos only come with 1-2 PCI slots today. Also its not just SLI mobos that use the Nforce 4 chipset, non-SLI mobos use it too, but as i said SLI can useful in the long run.

Yes you can use ATI with Nforce 4 mobos, im using one right now.

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: Tig Ol Bitties

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
Sli is a system to use two identical Nvidia video cards together for about 190% the performance of a single card.

Sli motherboards have two PCI express x16 slots for the video cards.

Northbridge handles communication between the CPU and memory/AGP. AMD systems only have a Northbridge and southbridge but the memory controller which has been built into AMD CPUs.

Yes you can use ATi cards in Nforce boards

LOL, its more like 125-150% of a single card

Please, show me the overwhelming number of benchmarks that show only a 125% increase.

I just threw that number out there originally to show not quite a doubling in performance. Soviet is right its usually 175% or so but 186% has been seen in some games.

 

[DasFox]

WOW 186%, sheesh I never knew it was that extreme.

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: DasFox
WOW 186%, sheesh I never knew it was that extreme.

except that's for two cards, meaning 200% of the price. but hey, that's not too bad.

 

[DasFox]

Well I'm loving my SLI box, that's all I can say, WoOt.

Now if I can find a KILLER LCD, I'm using a Viewsonic VX2025WM at the moment, and that is going back to OfficeMax in the next few days, then back to Costco to buy the Samsung 215TW, that I've been using in the past. I can't find anything here in Maui where I live to buy locally, I don't want to buy a LCD online just yet, and end up with a RMA. I guess I'll just end up keeping this Samsung for my "WorKRig", since it could use a better monitor, until I find a mean enough LCD machine worthy of my GameRig.

I heard Samsung is going to be coming out with a 26" LCD later, I can't wait to see this.


ALOHA

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: DasFox
WOW 186%, sheesh I never knew it was that extreme.