Rollo's 6600GT SLI benches

[user1234]

Previous poster is correct. Rollo's SLI setup is just an expensive mediocare performer, due to his childish enthusiasm with SLI. Only redeeming feature is its potential to run two really high end 6800U sometime in the future. I, btw, also have the a8n-sli with a single 6600GT because this card on its own represents the best price/performance in the midrange. I know I overpayed $100 for the mobo, but saved $50 on the video card compared to agp, plus I gained a future the upgradability path.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Anthony The Daddy

First thing I dont know what analogies you are using but I am no young punk I am a 33 yr old man that has building and overclocking computers since the Pentium2 and 8mb videocard days.

Hmm. You'd think you would be more knowledgeable then. Go figure.

It is simply not possible what you are saying and you are just mad that I said dual 6600Gt's are mediocre at best. Sorry but they simply are mediocre at best.

LOL- I'm not saying anything, I'm posting links to this site where they show how poorly P4s perform compared to A64s. Of course, most gamers who haven't been on a deserted island or in prison know this already.
I'm not mad at all, but it sure looks like you are!

I have the hardware to back it up.

Really? You have one nice computer that I've seen you mention, I have two.

When I run benchmarks I overclock to 3.95 stable on the Northwood 3.4 P4 only reaching the temp of 60 at load and 460/1200 on the 6800U only reaching the temp of around 80. I am more than sure this would completely blow away a 3000+ even overclocked.

LOL- A. you can't compare OCd to not b. natives in Borneo know the P4 gets owned by the A64 in gaming c. I could OC my A64?

The X800XTPE is a terrible overclocker with the stock cooling solution and in no way can hang with a 6800U overclock or flashed to extreme speed. That is why ATI released the 850 because they were embarrassed. I think everybody knows that excpept people that hide under rocks.

You mean like people who don't know P4s suck? But fear not- my five year old has a Silencer on his X800 XT PE! LOL You don't need to OC a XT PE, it's the fastest benchmarking card there is (except the X850XT PE) and most people know this. Don't get me wrong- both cards are great and the 6800U has a better feature set- but the 6800U "loses" more than it wins to the X800 XT PE. I say "loses" because only guys like you think one card getting 100fps and the other getting 108 fps is a big deal.

And for your info MR Fake 1337 computer tough guy My Machine is faster than last years Maximum PC Dream Machine especially when I overclock for bragging benchmarks. So you really do not know what you are talking about.

LOL- oooh Maximum PC!

Now I will talk cases.

Thank God. That is just what my thread about SLI functionality was needing. :roll:

Lian-Li is just over priced? Now you are really showing your noob nature. Every true modder and power computer enthusiast knows that Lian-Li is top notch if not the best. Very few cases are of this quality.

LOL- I think Lian Lis are great cases and a good buy Big Chief. I'm just pointing out that everything you have isn't a good "bang for buck" item, so you're not one to tell me about "wasting money"

I am not a 20 yr old punk. I am a 33 yr old hardcore modder and computer enthusiast. You really do not know who you are talking to.

Nor do you apparently Big Chief. I am 41 years old, been through college twice, worked in IT/IS for many years, and have been a computer gamer since 1987. Still think I'm a "noob", Anthony? :roll:

Wasted money??? your just ticked again that you spent all this money and have a mediocre setup. Enough of your crying blabbermouth putdowns and shenanigans and links.

Like I said, I'm really having fun reading your rants and pinting out the problems with them. Please, amuse me more.

Payed how much for a motherboard??? I bought this motherboard wholesale through my computer buisiness I just started a few months ago for only 120.00 dollars. So again you really are showing that you do not know me or know what you are talking about.

Wowee! A computer business! You must be l33t!

In the words of Spike from Buffy The Vampire Slayer "OH BULLOCKS IM OUT OF HERE".

In the words of someone old enough/smart enough to know better, "What kind of 33 year old man quotes characters from "Buffy The Vampire Slayer""?!?!?!

Enjoy that mediocre SLI setup you have jerk. Sell the majority of the junk you bought and get some real videocards for your SLI setup and then talk trash.

LOL- who knows? Cards last about 3-6 months in my main box before the boy gets them, so I may well.

I'd rather not "talk trash" though- only a very, very small person would get satisfaction out of saying something like "Yippee! I beat the Max PC Dream Machine! As Willow on Buffy would say "You're all licked"!

Calm down Anthony- your OCing prowess won't get you a date with Buffy. :roll:

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: user1234
Previous poster is correct. Rollo's SLI setup is just an expensive mediocare performer, due to his childish enthusiasm with SLI. Only redeeming feature is its potential to run two really high end 6800U sometime in the future. I, btw, also have the a8n-sli with a single 6600GT because this card on its own represents the best price/performance in the midrange. I know I overpayed $100 for the mobo, but saved $50 on the video card compared to agp, plus I gained a future the upgradability path.

This makes a lot of sense, you have the same stuff but I'm somehow worse off because I'll have two cards to sell instead of one if we upgrade.

Jinkies! I might lose $50 instead of $25, and all I got for it was a ton more performance in the interim!
:roll:

 

[user1234]

But I'm not trying to fool myself into thinking I have a high end rig, which you don't. As I said, in most games, you will trail a non-overclocked 6800gt by 50%, and in some games by only 10-15%. Only in very few games will you be able to match a 6800gt (non-overclocked). If you add overclocking, you're behind by 20-25% on average, so it's NOT HIGH END, kapish ?

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: user1234
But I'm not trying to fool myself into thinking I have a high end rig, which you don't. As I said, in most games, you will trail a non-overclocked 6800gt by 50%, and in some games by only 10-15%. Only in very few games will you be able to match a 6800gt (non-overclocked). If you add overclocking, you're behind by 20-25% on average, so it's NOT HIGH END, kapish ?

Why dont you just be quiet. Good god. Rollo went and performed all these benchmarks and all you are doing is flaming him. Go away troll, because you have absolutely nothing to contribute to this thread.

-Kevin

 

[fbrdphreak]

Rollo, don't mind the threadcrapper "Anthony," the big bad boy who is 33 w/a wife & family yet he joins a respected community like this to show us how cool his overpriced Lian-Li case & underperforming P4 are :roll:
You should see how much of an "idiot punk" I am. If you look here, apparently the way to get a wife & kids is by

Buy your girl something nice, not some crap Antec case, like a silver Lian-Li Pc65 and throw a couple of CCFLS of her favorite color in it and a really cool looking fan controller in the front of it.

I guaruntee that she would be much more impressed by a Lian-Li Pc65 than some crap Antec.

I "guaruntee" that my girl would appreciate me spending money in more practical ways on her, rather than wasting my money on an overpriced paint job for a computer :disgust:

I wish I had my troll stick handy, goddamn motherfvckers are everywhere :evil:

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
Rollo, don't mind the threadcrapper "Anthony," the big bad boy who is 33 w/a wife & family yet he joins a respected community like this to show us how cool his overpriced Lian-Li case & underperforming P4 are :roll:
You should see how much of an "idiot punk" I am. If you look here, apparently the way to get a wife & kids is by

Buy your girl something nice, not some crap Antec case, like a silver Lian-Li Pc65 and throw a couple of CCFLS of her favorite color in it and a really cool looking fan controller in the front of it.

I guaruntee that she would be much more impressed by a Lian-Li Pc65 than some crap Antec.

I "guaruntee" that my girl would appreciate me spending money in more practical ways on her, rather than wasting my money on an overpriced paint job for a computer :disgust:

I wish I had my troll stick handy, goddamn motherfvckers are everywhere :evil:

OMFG
There is a grown man who not only quotes Buffy the Vampire Slayer as if it's "cool", but thinks women care about what brand their case is?!

I am truly amazed.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: user1234
But I'm not trying to fool myself into thinking I have a high end rig, which you don't. As I said, in most games, you will trail a non-overclocked 6800gt by 50%, and in some games by only 10-15%. Only in very few games will you be able to match a 6800gt (non-overclocked). If you add overclocking, you're behind by 20-25% on average, so it's NOT HIGH END, kapish ?

Hmmm. I don't think I'm "fooling myself" at all user1234, why don't you provide links to back up what you say like I did.

I think a 6600 GT SLI falls somewhere between a 6800NU and a 6800GT at most AA/AF situations and is ahead of either without AA/AF.

Yup. That about sums it up.

 

[user1234]

In Dawn of war, which is a game where SLI works best, (more than doubling performance in the highest settings) at 1600x1200 pure speed, 2x6600GT is 52.7 avg fps/20 min fps, and single 6800U agp (-overclocked 6800gt) is 59.8 / 24. Same res w/4xAA/8xAF it's 28.1/10 for the 2x6600gt, comapred to 39.9/17 for a single ultra. Doom3: 16x12 pue speed 57.9 for sli, 64.6 for 6800u. w/4xAA/8xAF it's 28.9 compared to 38.7.

now go on now, buy a 6800gt agp for $350 (at most) with a good nforce3/939 mobo and you saved yours at least $100 and gots much better performance. [pwned]

and yeah, go on now continue to read that POS site soft-OCP with their idiotic testing methodolgies and erronesous results, managed by the biggest morons of all hardware sites....it makes sense that you rely on that site for your info . Those incomptenets recently declared the msi sli board to be 10% faster than a8n-sli while all other sites give opposite results, only to admit of floundering the tests. The facts are the msi sli board is slower (by a couple points) than both the gigabyte and the asus (gigabyte is the fastest by a hair - less then half a point).

[pwned^n]

 

[Gamingphreek]

You cannot compare on X-Bit labs review as the regular board is an Intel based, the AGP is Nforce 3 based, and the SLI is Nforce 4-SLI based. Not an even comparison.

and yeah, go on now continue to read that POS site soft-OCP with their idiotic testing methodolgies and erronesous results, managed by the biggest morons of all hardware sites....it makes sense that you rely on that site for your info . Those incomptenets recently declared the msi sli board to be 10% faster than a8n-sli while all other sites give opposite results, only to admit of floundering the tests. The facts are the msi sli board is slower (by a couple points) than both the gigabyte and the asus (gigabyte is the fastest by a hair - less then half a point).

Why dont you give us some examples or links? We cant argue if you don't show us.

Also why in the world are you [owning^?] yourself. What is with that?

-Kevin

 

[nRollo]

User1234- the fact of the matter is the 6600 GT SLI can play any game at 12X10 4x8x, or 12X10 2X8X at worst.

If you don't think that's worth the money, good for you.

 

[user1234]

OMG ! that's a little thick..... that's exactly my point: agp platform is much better value.

x-bit labs used the same cpu (A64 4000), same memory and same hardisk for both the AGP platform and the PCI-e platform. The only difference are the mobo and graphics cards. For AGP they used the abit kv8-pro mobo (nf3), which is not as fast as the the best nf3 boards (e.g. msi k8n neo2). For the PCI-e they used asus a8n-sli which is top of the line (almost) for nforce4.

So do your math (if you can): a8n-sli ($200) + 2x6600GT pci-e ($380) = $580, compare (and save) with kv8-pro ($80) + 6800gt agp ($350) = $430. Ain't you now saving $150 !!!! plus your gettting wayyyy better performance with AGP platform, even when sli works well, which is a minority of all games.

And here's a link for you to the mega-idiot site - "hard"-P. Even after admitting the mistakes, they did not retract the article like any worthy information source should.

 

[user1234]

Originally posted by: Rollo
User1234- the fact of the matter is the 6600 GT SLI can play any game at 12X10 4x8x, or 12X10 2X8X at worst.

If you don't think that's worth the money, good for you.

yeah, the good old "it's good enough" argument.....fact is that for less money you could get more performance... so good luck finding consumers which would buy worse price/performance only becauase it's "good enough". you should know that in this industry "good enough" doesn't last long, the name of the game is to make it last the longest by making smart buying decisions.

 

[Anthony The Daddy]

Originally posted by: Rollo

Originally posted by: Anthony The Daddy

First thing I dont know what analogies you are using but I am no young punk I am a 33 yr old man that has building and overclocking computers since the Pentium2 and 8mb videocard days.

Hmm. You'd think you would be more knowledgeable then. Go figure.

It is simply not possible what you are saying and you are just mad that I said dual 6600Gt's are mediocre at best. Sorry but they simply are mediocre at best.

LOL- I'm not saying anything, I'm posting links to this site where they show how poorly P4s perform compared to A64s. Of course, most gamers who haven't been on a deserted island or in prison know this already.
I'm not mad at all, but it sure looks like you are!

I have the hardware to back it up.

Really? You have one nice computer that I've seen you mention, I have two.

When I run benchmarks I overclock to 3.95 stable on the Northwood 3.4 P4 only reaching the temp of 60 at load and 460/1200 on the 6800U only reaching the temp of around 80. I am more than sure this would completely blow away a 3000+ even overclocked.

LOL- A. you can't compare OCd to not b. natives in Borneo know the P4 gets owned by the A64 in gaming c. I could OC my A64?

The X800XTPE is a terrible overclocker with the stock cooling solution and in no way can hang with a 6800U overclock or flashed to extreme speed. That is why ATI released the 850 because they were embarrassed. I think everybody knows that excpept people that hide under rocks.

You mean like people who don't know P4s suck? But fear not- my five year old has a Silencer on his X800 XT PE! LOL You don't need to OC a XT PE, it's the fastest benchmarking card there is (except the X850XT PE) and most people know this. Don't get me wrong- both cards are great and the 6800U has a better feature set- but the 6800U "loses" more than it wins to the X800 XT PE. I say "loses" because only guys like you think one card getting 100fps and the other getting 108 fps is a big deal.

And for your info MR Fake 1337 computer tough guy My Machine is faster than last years Maximum PC Dream Machine especially when I overclock for bragging benchmarks. So you really do not know what you are talking about.

LOL- oooh Maximum PC!

Now I will talk cases.

Thank God. That is just what my thread about SLI functionality was needing. :roll:

Lian-Li is just over priced? Now you are really showing your noob nature. Every true modder and power computer enthusiast knows that Lian-Li is top notch if not the best. Very few cases are of this quality.

LOL- I think Lian Lis are great cases and a good buy Big Chief. I'm just pointing out that everything you have isn't a good "bang for buck" item, so you're not one to tell me about "wasting money"

I am not a 20 yr old punk. I am a 33 yr old hardcore modder and computer enthusiast. You really do not know who you are talking to.

Nor do you apparently Big Chief. I am 41 years old, been through college twice, worked in IT/IS for many years, and have been a computer gamer since 1987. Still think I'm a "noob", Anthony? :roll:

Wasted money??? your just ticked again that you spent all this money and have a mediocre setup. Enough of your crying blabbermouth putdowns and shenanigans and links.

Like I said, I'm really having fun reading your rants and pinting out the problems with them. Please, amuse me more.

Payed how much for a motherboard??? I bought this motherboard wholesale through my computer buisiness I just started a few months ago for only 120.00 dollars. So again you really are showing that you do not know me or know what you are talking about.

Wowee! A computer business! You must be l33t!

In the words of Spike from Buffy The Vampire Slayer "OH BULLOCKS IM OUT OF HERE".

In the words of someone old enough/smart enough to know better, "What kind of 33 year old man quotes characters from "Buffy The Vampire Slayer""?!?!?!

Enjoy that mediocre SLI setup you have jerk. Sell the majority of the junk you bought and get some real videocards for your SLI setup and then talk trash.

LOL- who knows? Cards last about 3-6 months in my main box before the boy gets them, so I may well.

I'd rather not "talk trash" though- only a very, very small person would get satisfaction out of saying something like "Yippee! I beat the Max PC Dream Machine! As Willow on Buffy would say "You're all licked"!

Calm down Anthony- your OCing prowess won't get you a date with Buffy. :roll:

Thanks for spending 85 years making this post. Hilarious. I was not angry once and actually for all of you and your fanboys here, you insulted me first when I was insulting a case and not you. Then you jump all over me getting all defensive. You could use the Psychiatrist, I bet you beat your kid too.

I could still take a 3000+ even with it overclocked and I said that before.

I cant be a Buffy fan? you are a facist.

 

[nRollo]

Must stop...

 

[nRollo]

feeding trolls......

 

[user1234]

you are the biggest trollo

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: HardWarrior

Originally posted by: WT
Call me comfortably numb for using my current graphics settings, but I get very acquainted with seeing the screen a certain way and I don't change it ... ever ...
So, on a 19" monitor with plenty of vid card, would I gain ANY advantage in running a game (Enemy Territory mainly) at 16x12 ? Considering I'm at 1024x768 now, what will I see that makes me accept it as my new standard ? Pardon me if this is a dumb question.

I just made the transition from 1024x768 to 1280x1024 in all of the games I currently have installed, so I have an idea what you mean when you say comfortable. The difference? Finer onscreen detail. This equates directly to a sense of immersion, at least for me. Immersion and suspension of disbelief go hand-in-hand with allowing you to feel more entwined with the environment around you.

What will "make" you accept a new standard? Nothing, that I know of. You have to make that decision for yourself, based on your available resources, how committed you are to gaming, what games you want to play and how you want to play them. I can tell you what drives me though, and that's seeing what's coming up next. Currently I'm most interested in BF2 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I want to be able to play them at the detail level I've seen in the AVI's and screens. If I have to upgrade I will, even if that means SLI. I guess this is hardcore gaming in a nutshell.

I don't understand 12x10 with your hard ware.. Should be 16x12 w/o slow down.




Virtual Larry: Re: price/performance & SLi

I know a little about price/performance and you're forgetting the initial qualifier in your analysis of SLi and that is: the minimum level of performance would satisfy thier requirements before applying any kind of price/performance matrix. w/o that starting point you should be using on-board video since it offeres supreme price/performance. No, you don't. Why? Because you had a rough idea what type of performance would satisfy your requirements, compared competing products, purchaesed the one with the best p/p ratio, and on-board video was'nt even in the picture. Similarly, for some, a single XTPE/Ultra is'nt either. Perhaps they want 20x15 4x8x, as thier starting point. SLi, not only offers a good value, it's the only game in town.

 

[user1234]

"the minimum level of performance would satisfy thier requirements" is a moving target. A few years ago, the picture quality of VHS was satisfactory for most people, but I guess it's not any more, since most people use DVD. Same thing in computer games, a few years ago 640x480 was satisfactory, and maybe now 1280x1024 w/o AA/AF is satisfactory, but in the not too distant future only 1920x1600 w/16xAA 16xAF and HDR will be considered satisfatory. That is why you always want to get the best performance which is also a good value, because it will remain satisfactory for longer.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: user1234
OMG ! that's a little thick..... that's exactly my point: agp platform is much better value.
Does it look like Rollo buys stuff that is the best value?? He didn't buy SLI for value. Yes, we ALL agree AGP is THE best value out there right now. Get over yourself for stating the obvious.


x-bit labs used the same cpu (A64 4000), same memory and same hardisk for both the AGP platform and the PCI-e platform. The only difference are the mobo and graphics cards. For AGP they used the abit kv8-pro mobo (nf3), which is not as fast as the the best nf3 boards (e.g. msi k8n neo2). For the PCI-e they used asus a8n-sli which is top of the line (almost) for nforce4.

So do your math (if you can): a8n-sli ($200) + 2x6600GT pci-e ($380) = $580, compare (and save) with kv8-pro ($80) + 6800gt agp ($350) = $430. Ain't you now saving $150 !!!! plus your gettting wayyyy better performance with AGP platform, even when sli works well, which is a minority of all games.
Its not way better performance, but tell yourself whatever you need to to sleep at night. Both perform very well and on levels that were not even relatively possible on last generation's hardware (i.e. Radeon 9800P & GF FX).

And here's a link for you to the mega-idiot site - "hard"-P. Even after admitting the mistakes, they did not retract the article like any worthy information source should.

 

[nRollo]

Sniff ...sob...I have been p3wned.....I may have wasted a few bucks.....no Christmas at my house this year.........


Foolish Rollo.....






LOL

 

[Gamingphreek]

Hey Mr. Pwning Genious (aka User1234)... the KV8-Pro is not Nforce 3 wise and all knowing one. It is K8T800Pro.

AGP is the best value out there. What in the world are you talking about. Looks to me like there is no difference in price or performance at this time. You are not getting WAYYYYY better performance with AGP and i dont know where you got that. There is absolutely no difference except in VIVO and Workstation apps when the bus is utilized both upstream and downstream.

Ok so you linked him to a sight which he goes to? Im sure everyone is really backing off now.

You really need to get your facts straight before going out here like that. If you didn't notice Rollo wasn't buying for bang for the buck. He was buying because he could, because he wanted to and because he want to post some benchmarks for all of us. Scoff all you want your reputation is mud here right now, especially with all the thread crapping you do in FS/FT.

-Kevin

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: Anthony The Daddy
Thanks for spending 85 years making this post. Hilarious. I was not angry once and actually for all of you and your fanboys here, you insulted me first when I was insulting a case and not you. Then you jump all over me getting all defensive. You could use the Psychiatrist, I bet you beat your kid too.

I could still take a 3000+ even with it overclocked and I said that before.

I cant be a Buffy fan? you are a facist.

Your P4 isn't going to win anything in games. An equally priced A64 will conquer your P4 in games by 10-25% most of the time, with few occurences where the P4 is close.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: user1234
"the minimum level of performance would satisfy thier requirements" is a moving target.

Evidently so is Rollo :thumbsdown:

A few years ago, the picture quality of VHS was satisfactory for most people, but I guess it's not any more, since most people use DVD..

IQ is only 1 factor in why people have switched to DVD, and for some it doesn't even top the list. Other reasons for adoption include-

1. Much smaller so library of same movies takes up much less space.

2. No more rewinding and fastforwarding forever to find a scene.

3. Rentals no longer require rewinding.

4. No more tapes being eaten by VCR.

5. DVD players came way down in price. Price is always among the leading factors in adoption of new technology. SLI is no different, pricing will decide wether it gains a big market share or not. I believe like any other new tech as the price goes down, the market will expand.

6. Jr can't shove his PB&J in the DVD player like he did the VCR

7. Easy to watch DVDs while traveling thanks to small size of media and players. Vehicles with multimedia packages make it even easier still.

8. Ability to watch on PC or TV.

It is silly to think that people switched just because of IQ enhancement IMO.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Zebo
Virtual Larry: Re: price/performance & SLi
I know a little about price/performance and you're forgetting the initial qualifier in your analysis of SLi and that is: the minimum level of performance would satisfy thier requirements before applying any kind of price/performance matrix. w/o that starting point you should be using on-board video since it offeres supreme price/performance.

Well, you're right, I'm using my own internal metric for the minimum performance baseline, basically the minimum (lowest-cost) gaming card, that is capable of playing current game software, at at least minimally-reasonable frame-rates and feature levels. Not necessarily the highest levels of eye-candy and resolution and frame-rates though. (Note that implicitly excludes "non-gaming" cards and integrated video solutions.)

And to Ben's credit, he kept talking about the high-end, and I was kind of ignoring that, but he does have a point in that, in cases in which there is no single-GPU/card consumer solution, then at least at the high-end, SLI is the only way to fly.

So to break it down, now that we have current-gen PCI-E based SLI tech in the market, it has caused a diversification, really, and added on another level of performance, above high-end (gaming) single-GPU/card solutions, lets call it ultra-high-end (UHE).
It just so happens that NV enabled SLI for mid-range (6600-series) cards too, so that creates a bifurication of the mid-range gaming hardware level too, splitting it and adding on an "ultra-mid-range" solution, which just happens to be similar in performance to current single-card high-end solutions, more or less.

Originally posted by: Zebo
No, you don't. Why? Because you had a rough idea what type of performance would satisfy your requirements, compared competing products, purchaesed the one with the best p/p ratio, and on-board video was'nt even in the picture. Similarly, for some, a single XTPE/Ultra is'nt either. Perhaps they want 20x15 4x8x, as thier starting point. SLi, not only offers a good value, it's the only game in town.

Yes, but in that case, price/performance doesn't even really figure into the picture in terms of hardware selection - the hardware was chosen on a performance basis alone, since there are no other consumer-level gaming card solutions at the UHE level. You can't really compare a P/P graph, if there is only one data-point, and it is located at the top of the chart. That's basically what I was saying to Ben. I think (correct me if I'm wrong), that his argument (involving a $10K budget), was to point out that there aren't any single-GPU/card solutions in the consumer UHE market space.

What I'm basically arguing against, here, is the possibility (due to pressure from NV, both on the mobo and software companies), that the former single-card mid-range market segment will fade away, supplanted by the ultra-mid-range instead, as the lowest-end hardware platform that modern games will support. This theory is seemingly supported by the lack of development and product diversity currently available in the mid-range gaming market segment, and is why I brought up with Ben the fact that, performance-wise at least, the prior-gen high-end cards were having to fill this market niche, because of the lack of new products in the pipeline for this segment.

I feel that will shortchange the consumer, really, because that means that NV has them "by the short hairs", to extract more money from them, and at the same time, allows them to spend less on R&D, to advance the tech for single-GPU/card solutions. (Is this NV's solution to remain profitable, and slow the incredible GPU "arms race" caused by one-upmanship between two major rivals, in the face of a six-month product-refresh cycle?) I know that it may be taking a toll on the companies' resources, but by the same token, up until now at least, customers have benefited from the intense competition. Well, if you ignore the fact that it also tends to create more "paper launches" than products, when said companies' can't deliver product on time, and still have to create the market illusion that they are competive in spite of that.

I do agree, the market will (eventually) sort this all out, perhaps consumers will vote with their wallet and not buy into SLI systems, at least not at the ultra-mid-range. At the ultra-high-end though, there really isn't anything else, so I can't really advocate against someone spending their money where they want to. If they want to pay extra for that sort of performance, feel free, but I don't want to be dragged along with the rest of the mid-range market segment, if ultra-mid-range supplants mid-range, and SLI becomes a de-facto requirement for gaming. Thus the mention of the "SLI tax".