Nvidia Sli?
<div class="IPBDescription">is it worth it?</div> Ok, long story short, I got a really nice anual bonus, and have been thinking of going with a SLI mother board and 2 nvidia 6600gt's. Everything kinda seems too good to be true. Better performance than a x800 for 100 bucks less? Anyone know the real scoop on this, or has anyone played on a a similar rig?
[edit]realising now that people may not be aware what sli is, here is a link <a href='http://www.nvidia.com/page/sli.html' target='_blank'>Nvidia SLI</a>[/edit]
[edit]realising now that people may not be aware what sli is, here is a link <a href='http://www.nvidia.com/page/sli.html' target='_blank'>Nvidia SLI</a>[/edit]
Comments
They're coming out with a Pentium 4-compatible implementation of it via the nForce 5, and ATI's equivalent technology (called AMR) is expected in March-ish.
One advantage of SLI is that it can maintain a comparatively high framerate even with everything turned on, because it's got more than one GPU to handle the rendering.
6600gt's only run 180-ish a piece, and the MB only cost 40 dollars more than what I would be upgrading my system to for agp....
so total vid upgrade cost =400... still less that a x800.... and yes, ive thought about buying one 6600gt for now, and getting one in a few months when the prices drop again.
6600gt's only run 180-ish a piece, and the MB only cost 40 dollars more than what I would be upgrading my system to for agp....
so total vid upgrade cost =400... still less that a x800.... and yes, ive thought about buying one 6600gt for now, and getting one in a few months when the prices drop again. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'd be interested to see how the framerate benches actually compare... weather it would literally be like running off the power of 2 6600's or if it is some considerably lower fraction...
I'll have to see if I can find the benchmark site, but someone ran a bench of the 6600GT SLI and 6800U SLI, against the Radeon X850 XTPE.
Short version, the SLIs both beat the Radeon by about 20-35% in OpenGL games (difference between the GT and the U)... but in every DirectX9 game, the X850 came out between 2-4% faster.
So justify between spending between $1000-1500 for an SLI rig, or $500 for a single card (which is quieter, cooler and draws less power) that can make a good showing in one segment, and actually pull out the win in the other.
I'll have to see if I can find the benchmark site, but someone ran a bench of the 6600GT SLI and 6800U SLI, against the Radeon X850 XTPE.
Short version, the SLIs both beat the Radeon by about 20-35% in OpenGL games (difference between the GT and the U)... but in every DirectX9 game, the X850 came out between 2-4% faster.
So justify between spending between $1000-1500 for an SLI rig, or $500 for a single card (which is quieter, cooler and draws less power) that can make a good showing in one segment, and actually pull out the win in the other. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
hrm..... im still confused on how you guys are getting these price numbers........
if I buy a new video card, regardless im going ot upgrade my MB... right now I can only run at 4x agp. So, when it comes down to it, the price difference between the SLI mother board and the agp motherboard is roughtly 40 dollars. That and as I stated above, 2 66000gt's are cheaper than a x800. My concerns are the limited benchmarks released so far are, 'embelished' so to say, as soo many companies have a tendency to do.