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Is SLI really worth it?

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  • PC gaming
  • SLI
  • Geforce
  • Video Games
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Anonymous
July 22, 2005 5:38:17 AM

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

I see NVidia is now pushing SLI even for the regular 6600 graphics cards,
the ones with only 500 MHz DDR, 9 gigabytes bandwith. What are they
thinking? Are 2 GeForce 6600 LE cards really going to deliver the
performance of even one GeForce 6600 GT card (which has about 16 GB/s
bandwith)?

More about : sli worth

Anonymous
July 22, 2005 5:38:18 AM

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

"Magnulus" <magnulus@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:YB%De.14076$do5.1745@bignews5.bellsouth.net...
> I see NVidia is now pushing SLI even for the regular 6600 graphics cards, the ones with only 500 MHz DDR, 9 gigabytes bandwith.
> What are they thinking? Are 2 GeForce 6600 LE cards really going to deliver the performance of even one GeForce 6600 GT card
> (which has about 16 GB/s bandwith)?


No.
Anonymous
July 22, 2005 4:20:51 PM

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

"Magnulus" <magnulus@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:YB%De.14076$do5.1745@bignews5.bellsouth.net...
> I see NVidia is now pushing SLI even for the regular 6600 graphics
> cards, the ones with only 500 MHz DDR, 9 gigabytes bandwith. What are
> they thinking? Are 2 GeForce 6600 LE cards really going to deliver the
> performance of even one GeForce 6600 GT card (which has about 16 GB/s
> bandwith)?

No
Related resources
July 22, 2005 6:31:47 PM

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

No.

rms
Anonymous
July 22, 2005 8:33:10 PM

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

"Magnulus" <magnulus@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:YB%De.14076$do5.1745@bignews5.bellsouth.net...
> I see NVidia is now pushing SLI even for the regular 6600 graphics
> cards, the ones with only 500 MHz DDR, 9 gigabytes bandwith. What are
> they thinking? Are 2 GeForce 6600 LE cards really going to deliver the
> performance of even one GeForce 6600 GT card (which has about 16 GB/s
> bandwith)?


I don't think SLI is worth it. You generally end up needing a better power
supply, your system will put out more heat and noise because you have two
video cards running, and not all games benefit from SLI.
Anonymous
July 22, 2005 8:48:12 PM

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 01:38:17 -0400, "Magnulus"
<magnulus@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> I see NVidia is now pushing SLI even for the regular 6600 graphics cards,
>the ones with only 500 MHz DDR, 9 gigabytes bandwith. What are they
>thinking? Are 2 GeForce 6600 LE cards really going to deliver the
>performance of even one GeForce 6600 GT card (which has about 16 GB/s
>bandwith)?
>
>

I notice three "No" in your replies, but not specific as to which part
of your 2-part question, which is:-
Part 1: Is SLI really worth it ?
Part 2: Are 2 6600LE cards in SLI equivalent to a single 600GT

Answering Part 2: Probably not...no comparative reviews
exist yet. Better to go with a single 6600GT anyway, and leave
the second slot free, to add another later maybe ?

Answering Part 1:

That's a little more complex.

A SLI motherboard really comes with 2 features:-
1. SLI
2. Dual video slots, either configurable as X16, X1,
or X8, X8

besides all the other goodies offered by the nForce4 chip-set.

And the price difference between a SLI motherboard and
a non-SLI motherboard (with only 1 video slot of course, unless
it is a prohibitively-expensive 955x ) has shrunk to less than $30,
and shortly will fall further, as nVidia is cutting the price of the
SLI nForce4.

So, if you are likely to ever work with multi-monitors ( more than 2),
video editing and the like --- the SLI motherboard is a very good
investment and LCD monitors are getting very inexpensive indeed,
especially for non-gaming applications (not requiring low-lag).

Also there is some real prospect that the second video slot might
be used in the future for something requiring lots of PCIe bandwidth,
but not necessarily a video card.... say your favorite PhysX chip,
or something similar. There are now more than a million SLI-capable
motherboards out there, mostly in the hands of gamers, and probably
only 10-20% are occupied by dual cards, leaving that other
"video-slot" available for other exciting things..

One warning with regard to Intel-based systems. Avoid SLI and nForce4
if you are intending to go with Intel 775 single or dual-core. The
Intel nForce4 chip-set currently does not support the Pentium D 820 --
for reasons so far unexplained by either nVidia or Intel. Only one
core is seen --- and it does not appear to be a BIOS problem. The 830
and up seem to work OK, but the lack of explanation with the 820 is
very worrisome.

John Lewis
Anonymous
July 22, 2005 11:20:40 PM

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

I have an SLI motherboard (Asus SLI)- isn't it true with the PCI-e specs
I could plug a PCI-e 1x card into the second slot and it would work just
like any other PCI-e?
July 23, 2005 8:43:14 PM

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 23:08:48 -0700, "JLC" <j.jc@nospam.com> wrote:


>Back in the day I had a couple of 8meg Voodoo 2 cards running in SLI and
>back then it really did made a huge impact on a games speed.

Even back then 2 V2's in SLI mode didn't double the speed over a
single V2.
Anonymous
July 23, 2005 11:25:46 PM

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 19:20:40 -0400, "Magnulus"
<magnulus@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> I have an SLI motherboard (Asus SLI)- isn't it true with the PCI-e specs
>I could plug a PCI-e 1x card into the second slot and it would work just
>like any other PCI-e?
>
>

It should when set to X16, X1.

John Lewis
Anonymous
July 23, 2005 11:30:31 PM

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

On Sat, 23 Jul 2005 16:43:14 GMT, Fisher <fisher@no_email.here> wrote:

>On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 23:08:48 -0700, "JLC" <j.jc@nospam.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Back in the day I had a couple of 8meg Voodoo 2 cards running in SLI and
>>back then it really did made a huge impact on a games speed.
>
>Even back then 2 V2's in SLI mode didn't double the speed over a
>single V2.


Hey, guys....

The SLI motherboard has TWO advantages, besides the significant
peripherals capability of the nForce4 chip-set. Go back and read my
posting earlier in this thread. You don't HAVE to use it in SLI mode
and the price difference between the dual video-slot SLI and the
single video-slot Ultra is now peanuts when you consider the price
of everything else in the system... Check relative prices on Newegg,
etc.

John Lewis
Anonymous
July 25, 2005 2:07:08 PM

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 01:38:17 -0400, "Magnulus"
<magnulus@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> I see NVidia is now pushing SLI even for the regular 6600 graphics cards,
>the ones with only 500 MHz DDR, 9 gigabytes bandwith. What are they
>thinking? Are 2 GeForce 6600 LE cards really going to deliver the
>performance of even one GeForce 6600 GT card (which has about 16 GB/s
>bandwith)?
>

Probably not. I did SLI back in the days of the Voodoo2, and back then
the prices were on par with today's prices. You had to have a 2D card
($150 or so), and two Voodoo2 cards (about $500 for the tops of the
line). Thus, I spent about $650 on bleeding edge video. Was the system
fast? Yes. Was it worth it? In hindsight, no.

If you have the money to burn it is DEFINITELY worth it. But for must
of us, we don't have the money to burn. The simple fact is that video
card companies come out with better graphics cards almost yearly, and
that what is leading edge now will be outdated in two years.

Similarly, a modern system will not have just one bottleneck as time
passes, it will have several. Spending a large sum of money on the
video subsystem will not help much when your games start getting
CPU-throttled, memory throttled, etc.

Sure, you can spend $800 now on video and get framerate that are 50%
higher than everyone else. But in a year, when game technology starts
stressing other components of your system, the benefit of that video
subsystem decreases quite a bit. And this assume you have a leading
edge system right now; if you don't already have a CPU releases in the
last few months, with 1GB of RAM, fast drives, etc., then consider
spending your money elsewhere.

People tend to ignore one of the biggest elements of system slowness,
and that is your drive subsystem. A fast drive subsystem causes levels
to load quickly, and gives you much more pleasurable computer
experience. RAID 0 with 3+ drives is great, but costs a lot of money
and has no redundancy. I like RAID 1 with 2 fast drives; reads are
wicked fast, writes are about the same as a single drive, the cost is
not outrageous, and you get redundancy. RAID 0/1/5/10 are affordable
with ATA/SATA/SATA2.

Your best bet is to buy the best single card you can afford and use
the money you save on a second card to upgrade other parts of your
system, or save the money if you don't have it to burn.


Please replace the "NoSpam" with "MCI" in my email address in order to
reply.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joe Granto Joe.Granto@NoSpam.Com
Senior Engineer Intel Engineering,MCI
Anonymous
July 26, 2005 3:52:56 AM

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

I run almost all games at 1280x1024, or older games at 640x480 (which
scales very well to the native resolution- though my monitor does pretty
good with non-native resolutions anyways). At 1280x1024 the 6600GT is
running most games pretty good with 2X antialiasing, and 4X anisotropic
filtering, but being able to run one of the supersample modes would be
cool. Still, adding a second SLI card is not going to give me new features.
The 7800 , for instance, will do antialiasing on alpha textures (even though
4xS/8xS sort of does this now), and supports gamma-corrected antialiasing,
but of course costs alot. But by next winter there might be a mainstream
version out that costs less. And there's always the issue of power
consumption with only a 430 watt power supply, and additional PCI/PCI-e
cards in the future like the newer Soundblasters and the PhysX chips that
may (and I emphasize "may") be worth buying.

The 6600 GT is fast in heavily pixel shaded games, but it just isn't as
fast in some of the older games that don't use as much pixel shading, and
you cannot really crank up the antialiasing much or the card starts choking.
I guess all in all it's pretty good, though. Life was a whole lot easier
when the maximum resolution you could really run a monitor at was 1024x768.
Anonymous
July 27, 2005 9:47:16 PM

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

Thing is Voodoo2 SLI was the first solution that does 1,024 x 768
practically.

That was worth some distinction.

T.
!