Nvidia brings SLI back to life. Coming in September.

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Rollo

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: ChkSix
I'm sure that if ATi doesn't respond quickly, this is going to hurt them. Anyone who buys a high end card from either company is an extreme gamer, and that effects a nice portion of the market. Even the mainstream 6800GT has SLI capabilities. That, is a killer in itself.

that's ridiculous.. how many of you ordered from alienware? i haven't heard of anyone; i know i sure didn't.

while this is certainly an interesting development, people are not going to run out en masse and purchase this setup. the # of people who will spend 6-1000 dollars on this setup (not to mention the cost of upgrading the rest of the system) will be very limited.

I don't know Cainam. Every year for Christmas I get a new motherboard from my wife. Do I care if it has 2 PCIE slots or 1? No. Do I care if I only have 1 free pci slot? No. Would I spend $600-$700 on two PCIe GTs to run on it? Maybe. I usually spend that much a year on video cards, if I bought that, I might be good to go for two years and stomping most everything else online for the first year.

This is definitely great news.

i mean, you didn't change cards to gain performance (you acutally somewhat downgraded performance), rather just to have something "different".

you would get bored with it far in advance of 2 years


but seriously, the people who spend that much are a very small % of the overall market, which was rather my point. great news? sure, but my other point was it's hardly gonna make a huge impact on overall marketshare, and even assuming it may sometime down the road, there will be alot of new hardware/options by then.

we'll just have to wait and see if/when that kind of power will make sense, and what options in cost/performance we will have available to us at that time. the pc hardware market is simply too volatile to predict that far ahead with any accuracy. it simply changes too fast, and alot can happen between then and now.

 

[nRollo]

you would get bored with it far in advance of 2 years

(crickets chirping)

Err, you got me there....

 

[Marsumane]

This will make more sales for NV then be a practical option for its customers. Also, 2 vanilla 6800's would be quite tempting sense they probably will be ~$250ish sometime soon.

Also, think of it this way. Say u have $200. You already have a 6800nu and 6800nu cards are now $180. You really dont care what u spent on the first 6800 because that purchase was 2 yrs ago. You really dont have enough money to get the top $500 card sesne you only have $200. Therefore, a good option is to buy another 6800nu and increase performance much higher then any other purchasing decison. It isnt about getting both at the same time.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: Marsumane
This will make more sales for NV then be a practical option for its customers. Also, 2 vanilla 6800's would be quite tempting sense they probably will be ~$250ish sometime soon.

Also, think of it this way. Say u have $200. You already have a 6800nu and 6800nu cards are now $180. You really dont care what u spent on the first 6800 because that purchase was 2 yrs ago. You really dont have enough money to get the top $500 card sesne you only have $200. Therefore, a good option is to buy another 6800nu and increase performance much higher then any other purchasing decison. It isnt about getting both at the same time.

So, you're talking about 2006 then... You will probably want a DirectXNext compliant card by then. Two years ago I purchased a GeForce Ti 4200, which I have since given away to a friend of mine and replaced with an FX 5900. I certainly would not even think of pitting two Ti 4200's in SLI up against a 6800 Ultra, not to mention the fact that the Ti 4200 doesn't support DirectX 9.

 

[T9D]

SLI quite an awesome thing.

Lets apply this to the past. Lets say we both go out and buy a brand new geforce 3 ti 500 for $400. We keep our cards and are happy. A year or whatever later the geforce 4's come out. Now you sell your old ti 500 (I don't know lets say $100) and buy the new geforce 4600 for $400. I instead by another ti 500 (heck I could by now even get a used one for less) but they are now only $150 and put them in SLI. My duel ti 500 cards are now going to kick the pants off your single 4600 card and I spent less.


Your cost = $700 (assuming prices haven't gone up, which actually they have been)
My cost = $550 (and my SLI set up woops your single card).

I don't see how we can lose with this. And before you say anything remember it's VERY rare that we ever get a speed jump like this last time with the new cards. Even then It could at least be equal but perhaps even a little faster and still be cheaper. (take for example if it was two 9800 xt's compared to one 6800 ultra).

Even if you play around with those numbers and prices I still see SLI as a winner.

 

[reever]

My cost = $550 (and my SLI set up woops your single card).

How much more did you spend for a motherboard and other peripheral parts? Or do you actually think Nvidia or anybody else is going to be including this capability on any low-margin/low-price equipment, so that they are actually getting less money from you?

 

[INGlewood78]

Originally posted by: tk109
SLI quite an awesome thing.

Lets apply this to the past. Lets say we both go out and buy a brand new geforce 3 ti 500 for $400. We keep our cards and are happy. A year or whatever later the geforce 4's come out. Now you sell your old ti 500 (I don't know lets say $100) and buy the new geforce 4600 for $400. I instead by another ti 500 (heck I could by now even get a used one for less) but they are now only $150 and put them in SLI. My duel ti 500 cards are now going to kick the pants off your single 4600 card and I spent less.


Your cost = $700 (assuming prices haven't gone up, which actually they have been)
My cost = $550 (and my SLI set up woops your single card).

I don't see how we can lose with this. And before you say anything remember it's VERY rare that we ever get a speed jump like this last time with the new cards. Even then It could at least be equal but perhaps even a little faster and still be cheaper. (take for example if it was two 9800 xt's compared to one 6800 ultra).

Even if you play around with those numbers and prices I still see SLI as a winner.

I dont know...if this is the case...its really bad business practice. If I was building ground up...i'd just buy 2 ti500s for $300...and if it supposely was much faster than a 4600...who would ever buy the a new 4600 for $400?? So..therefore..who would ever buy a high end video card. Just buy 2 low or med cards and get better performance. If this is true..nvidia is shooting itself in the foot...

 

[webmal]

Originally posted by: INGlewood78

Even if you play around with those numbers and prices I still see SLI as a winner.

I dont know...if this is the case...its really bad business practice. If I was building ground up...i'd just buy 2 ti500s for $300...and if it supposely was much faster than a 4600...who would ever buy the a new 4600 for $400?? So..therefore..who would ever buy a high end video card. Just buy 2 low or med cards and get better performance. If this is true..nvidia is shooting itself in the foot...[/quote]

No, not everybody will want a dual card solution. SFF owners would prefer a powerful single slot solution. FYI SFF is the fastest growing PC segment now. Therefore, there is a market for everything.

 

[BFG10K]

The amount of people who will want such a setup is miniscule.

 

[ZobarStyl]

The amount of people who will want such a setup is miniscule

The amount of people who can afford this and who will actually want to spend that much cash on one portion of their rig is small, yes. But the amount of people who would want such a setup if they could get one is another thing...it may be expensive but people are drooling nonetheless...

 

[Andes]

I would expect plastic goo to come oozing out of my comp with 2 gf6800 ultras sitting within a centimeter of one another.

 

[Yanagi]

Well, I do also think there's more behind the scenes. Looking at it this way.

You hear about 2 car brands, one of the brands has the worlds fastest car, the other dont. Which one are you going to hear the most of? Most likely the brand which produces the fastest car in the world. It will benefit nVIDIA to have the fastest because people will talk about it more and more people will hear nVIDIA instead of ATi. Now if I as customer hear more about nVIDIA than ATi I would probably "trust" nVIDIA more. Looking at the averga Joe here of course, whih doesnt know much about computers. What are your thoughts?

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
The amount of people who will want such a setup is miniscule.

I'd think you would be one of them.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Rollo

Originally posted by: BFG10K
The amount of people who will want such a setup is miniscule.

I'd think you would be one of them.

For anyone to say that they wouldn't want such a setup is ridiculous. Whether or not they actually get it, depends on the wallet.

 

[barbary]

I can't believe how many people are saying that the number of people who want this config are small.

Back in 98 when the voodoo 2 12Mb cards came out you were looking at around 700 quid for the dual soloution. Remember that you needed a good 2d card as well.

Bought both my cards from a shop in Hounslow who were doing a deal for three cards bought together and when I went to buy mine it was the second to last set they had. They had shipped over a hundred units that week.

I think plenty of people will want a soloution like this. Me for example and I'm not that wierd. Well not yet anyway.

Talking of which does anyone know of a UK online store doing PCI-Ex 6800 Ultra's. I need to buy two.

 

[ChkSix]

I don't think it will be small at all, considering any Nivida card from 6800 to the 6800Ultra can be used in this configuration.

The only reason for such an answer is to downplay SLI's significance. And that isn't logical at all, but a lot of us already realize that.

 

[gururu]

So are the mobos gonna have appropriately spaced pci-express slots to fit two 6800ultras?
3DFX legacy lives on!! About time this feature was brought back to life!

 

[TStep]

Although I have my reservations as to whether or not I will eventually get a psuedo SLI setup, the two card solution is no different than a dual cpu solution or the up-and-coming dual core solution. For some it will become a necessity, some will get it just to have it, and some will scoff at the idea.

From an economic standpoint down the road, if two lesser cards at $200 each have greater performance than one at $400, what would you do? I do know that I would like to have the option. Plus, I do know that competition between card makers is a good thing.

I for one am most interested in any detrimental effects to IQ in actual gameplay. If there are any, count me out. If none, this feature will become a strong consideration at the end of the year.

 

[biostud]

Maybe, they want to increase the length of the production cycle. *Example* : Every 3-4 year a new DX version hits the streets and with that a new chip. But at the same time you will still be able to double video performance every 2 year with SLI. So they can get better yields on their chips making nVidia happy, and since implementing new technology usually takes a year or two, most gamers *should* be happy since they still can have top performance and not missing any new features.

When the 9700pro was launched no DX9.0 games were out, and so the DX9.0 was just "for the future", but when DX9.0 intensive games appeared it was not "that" fast. So if you could just put in a second 9700pro, you would be able to run DX9.0 titles just fine. It could be this way nVidia want to explore. Just speculations

 

[GeneralGrievous]

It's a pretty cool idea.

Say I bought a 9700 Pro for $400 in 2002. It ran any game you threw at it in 2002, and for the most part 2003 as well. Now come 2004 and games like Farcry are really starting to wear on it. So essentailly the card does great for 1.5 years before these games come along. Now I can either:

A. Buy another 9700 Pro ($150) in 2004. That brings the cost of the rig to $550. Now 2x 9700 Pros (really we should be counting 1.9x or so), gives us around 6800 GT/x800 Pro performance. Which, judging from the past, will be good for around 1.5-2 years before it chokes as well. Then what? You have to see your outdated 9700 Pros for maybe $50 each and buy a new $400 card.

Total Cost: $850

B: Sell 9700 Pro in 2004 for $150. Buy 6800 GT. 6800 GT works until 2006 or so, where we sell that for $150 and buy a new $400 card.

Total Cost: $900

Now I've just confused myself majorly. But I guess buying a new card is reliant on a 2 year product generation and whether the product does double the previous generation or not. In this case it does.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: GeneralGrievous
It's a pretty cool idea.

Say I bought a 9700 Pro for $400 in 2002. It ran any game you threw at it in 2002, and for the most part 2003 as well. Now come 2004 and games like Farcry are really starting to wear on it. So essentailly the card does great for 1.5 years before these games come along. Now I can either:

A. Buy another 9700 Pro ($150) in 2004. That brings the cost of the rig to $550. Now 2x 9700 Pros (really we should be counting 1.9x or so), gives us around 6800 GT/x800 Pro performance. Which, judging from the past, will be good for around 1.5-2 years before it chokes as well. Then what? You have to see your outdated 9700 Pros for maybe $50 each and buy a new $400 card.

Total Cost: $850

B: Sell 9700 Pro in 2004 for $150. Buy 6800 GT. 6800 GT works until 2006 or so, where we sell that for $150 and buy a new $400 card.

Total Cost: $900

Now I've just confused myself majorly. But I guess buying a new card is reliant on a 2 year product generation and whether the product does double the previous generation or not. In this case it does.

It all depends on nVidia slowing introduction of new chips. I think it'll be more profitable, but what do I know?

 

[Keysplayr]

I have added a few more article links in the original post folks.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Toms Article on Nvidia SLI potential.

Anand's Article on NV SLI

Firing Squads NV SLI article

B3D NV SLI Article

HardOCP NV SLI Article

NV News SLI Road Show

So thats what the little connector near the top front of the card is for. Hmmmm.
Sounds very tasty!!

If this is a repost, so what.

Actually, I'll just quote it. There are articles springing up all over the place about this. NV is getting Mongo publicity from this. I heard that nvidia plans to give away free drool cups at their roadshow boothes.

 

[nRollo]

I might have been wrong about my guess that possible SM3 gains were the main reason we were seeing the firesale $75 below MSRP on limited availability at launch X800XTs.

I wonder if ATI heard about the closed door demos of this or got some other intelligence, and said,"Crap. We're screwed. We need to get these in high end guys hands NOW, or they'll be waiting a few months and buying PCIE 6800s".

I liked the X-Files, can you tell?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: Rollo
I might have been wrong about my guess that possible SM3 gains were the main reason we were seeing the firesale $75 below MSRP on limited availability at launch X800XTs.

I wonder if ATI heard about the closed door demos of this or got some other intelligence, and said,"Crap. We're screwed. We need to get these in high end guys hands NOW, or they'll be waiting a few months and buying PCIE 6800s".

I liked the X-Files, can you tell?

LOL I can say you can expect to see game developers using SM3 quite a bit if the fact that ATi's GPU for X-BOX 2 is any indication. It's suppossed to be a SM3 capable chip and I'm certain no one is designing SM3 games for it that won't have identical features for the PC port. *Johnny Storm* "Flame on!" :sun: