Is SLI worth it?

[doomhammr]

I'm curious if SLI (using two exact same vid cards) gets you that much more performance than just buying one video card with double the memory. Can anyone point me to any benchmark tests? My current graphics card (NVidia 8800 GT 512MB) has dropped drastically in price and if it's worth it, I'd like to get another before they disappear from the market.

 

[dagger]

1Gb memory is meaningless.

This should give you a good idea of how single and dual 8800gt would perform against other cards.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=13
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=14
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=15
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=16
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=17
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=18
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=19

 

[mactronix]

Hi doomhammr,
Yes using two 8800GT cards seems to be a sweet spot at the moment i have read several reviews /reports now that show it to be a very good set up. Just remember that its all dependant on game support, most games these days should come with dual card support, there are exceptions though Crysis when it was first released had no dual GPU support at all.
Mactronix

 

[doomhammr]

Something I forgot to mention is that I'm still using Windows XP 32bit. Does a 64 bit OS get me more from an SLI setup or is the boost just the same? I really don't want to go to Vista and I've heard there's lots of problems with XP 64 bit.

 

[dagger]

Something I forgot to mention is that I'm still using Windows XP 32bit. Does a 64 bit OS get me more from an SLI setup or is the boost just the same? I really don't want to go to Vista and I've heard there's lots of problems with XP 64 bit.

There is no difference.