to SLI or not to SLI that is the question

[Thirst0mega]

I am planning on buying a new CPU/Mobo and ram soon,
after all the great things I have heard about the new Core2 i had decided to opt for Intel CPU this time ,
problem is I want a SLI set up and cant find many SLI mboards for Intel

Question is if I want SLI am I better opting for an AM2 setup as there seems to be better support
Do I really need SLI ? I dont have 2 GPU's now and I only want SLI because of the talk about Physics cards and using a 2nd GPU for Physics work,
How far off is this , and will Nvidia (basically) be forcing people to buy SLI if they want (good) physics or will they be making cards capable of physics on single card setups (dual core GPUs) , if I didnt get SLI then I have many boards to choose from and may save some cash
also I would probably upgrade again in about 2 years

so do I really need SLI? , do get Intel or AMD SLI?

:?:

 

[Heyyou27]

By the time SLI physics are supported, the G80 will be available. Perhaps you could tell us the size of your monitor and then we can better recommend a GPU setup for you.

 

[biohazard420420]

Well from what I have read on this and other site in regards to SLI it really is only worth the extra $ if you have a big monitor and game at high resolution. On some sites I have seen where you can get benefits at lower resolution but the lower the res the more cpu bound it is at least from some of the stuff I have read. If you have a lcd monitor find out what its native resolution i sand find a card or cards that will give you good performance at that res if you use a crt figure out what res you like running and again find card or cards that work there.

As far as the future with physics bieng handled with a gpu I think you are much more likely to see a 7950 GX2 kind of set up a dual gpu "single" card solution. Yes i know the GX2 is 2 cards but since it is sold as a single product I consider it s dual gpu single card. With a dual gpu card like that it would be easier to put physics processing on the other gpu and running 2 single gpu cards. Since I would think you would have one card designed for graphics and a second designed for physics. I am sure there are things both gpu manu's could do to improve physics processing that simply running the calculations on a "stock" graphics card. There are optimitizations i am sure for running physics processing over just graphics and having a dual gpu single card IMO would work better than selling to different models although selling 2 different cards would bring in more money I would think. In the future I think we will be seeing alot more dual gpu card setups for that exact reason with 2 cards in one package you could probally run a faster "internatl" bus communicating 2 cards in one package than running over the PCIe bus.

 

[angry_ducky]

Forget SLI; get a single GF7600GT, and upgrade to DX10 when it comes out. No point in dropping a lot of cash on two GPUs that will be old technology in ~6 months.

 

[sirheck]

well you could get an sli mobo and use just one card.
but no you dont neeed sli as one good/med,high end card will do
and it will or should do fine even after dx10 comes out.

i mean even a single dx10 card <when available> will work fine

 

[sirheck]

hey mad duck im getting closer to the pic posting thing
not there yet lol.

oh and i dont mean to tie up the post sorry

 

[0zzy]

There's absolutely no need for sli, may be if u have two 21' wide LCDs. Get a cheap card now and when dx10 hits, get the best card then. If u cant wait get 7950.

 

[Thirst0mega]

My monitor is 20" Widescreen LCD not so sure about native resolution might be 1600x1050 , Is that considered a large monitor set up ? I know it used to be :?
Given that, I play all games (and desktop) in 1600x1050 and I have yet to see any slow down , exept on oblivion when AA is on full (card is GF7900gt)
My plan was to get SLI then in say 6-7 months get another 7900gt on cheap
but if DirectX10 is around the corner it may be best to forget about SLI
and just get single card Motherboard for Core2 ,

thanks for the replies
,,the directX10 angle had not even occured to me

 

[biohazard420420]

I think DX10 is not something you should worry about unless you need bleeding edge tech or just NEED vista. Yes there are some new graphical eye candy things coming with DX10 but unless you just NEED to have it dont worry about it until games start coming out the no longer support DX9 (wont happen for a very long time) or the graphics card"s" you have wont cut it at the res and detail settings you want. But IMO i wouldn't go drop a big chunk of change on a next gen card right after DX10 coems out anyway unless you have the money to spend, since current gen cards at least the higher end ones will still run games after DX10 and will be quite a bit cheaper when next gen cards comes out. It boils down to do you want to spend another 200 to 500 or more dollars to get a next gen card that is capable of running at your monitors res just to see the new eye candy or get a pair of current gen cards that will last for quite some time I would guess.