SO I just ordered $420 in computer parts

[Bolter]

"deemed to be more stable" ??

"Voo-doo Magic" ??

Ex-squeeze me? YDKWTFYATA

I didn't say anything about buying a POS - but something inexpensive... there's good stuff to be had.

sorry, maybe used the wrong words. Stable as in, won't crash, mess up, can handle whats thrown at it, last further than the guarantee.

I didnt mean for a second that you buy POS products. Sorry you thought that. My bad.

[GT]

Like people that buy Intel, when really the bigger and better thing is AMD.

word

[Miscue]

Well thank you for explaining to the little people...

There is no denying that the newest applictions show a stastical signfigance for the use of SLI. Now, we can sit back and argue all night what is a better choice. The difference bewteen your choice and mine has more to do with values and absolutly nothing to do with the facts.

Does Muzikman need 1k in mobo and gpu's to run word and edit photos? Probally not, why, becuase he does not value the cost of the product to justify an unreasonible level of performance.

If the only games I played were diablo 2 and starcraft I too could not justify the cost, but you cant deny the fact that SLI, even in its infancy, is a viable alternative to the single gpu. Give it a year, I'd rather buy 2 cheap gpu's than one that cost over twice as much.

Granted everything is opnion, but have not read any articles that say that sli is "a waste of money and shows no significant performance increase in gaming. "

I never said it did not show significant performance increase, which is subjective to begin with. However, for $400 you can get a dual SLI setup. Or, for $400 you can get the higher end card that outperforms that dual SLI. The only dual SLI setup that makes any sense to buy is dual $400 = $800.

We're not talking about Diablo2 or Starcraft. A single $400 card can run ANY game perfectly fine. The $800 setup can run at 1600x1200 somewhat better (WTF, this is ridiculous resolution anyway). But lets say the latest and greatest video card relies on the marvel of quantum computing and has infinite processing power. If current video cards already serve the needs well enough, what good would this super card be? (Well, besides that the entire Earth can be run off that chip.) And mind you, these new cards do not yield triple digit % performance increases. A single card will whoop the *** of that $800 setup for less money, soon enough. Current cards are ALREADY beyond sufficient. The expensive stuff just goes even further into excess.

"Granted everything is opnion, but have not read any articles that say that sli is 'a waste of money and shows no significant performance increase in gaming.'"

$800 might not be a big deal to you, and maybe this is what it boils down to. But I remember full well what happened the last time you could buy an $800 SLI setup. Soon after I had a $150 card that kicked its ***, and I rubbed it in the faces of the morons who bought it.

Look at video card history. Look at the previous latest and greatest. What happens to costs EVERY time? EVERY time. EVERY EVERY EVERY time. You get that $800 stuff, and you'll have maybe an 8 month woody from the psychological advantage.

BTW, of course you will not get the response "It's a waste" from prominant review sites. They would burn their bridges with nVidia - DUH! They have to be careful and word stuff as: "luxury" or "for the guy that must have the latest." If they said, "You have to be a retard to buy this," you think there would not be repercussions? You can't piss off the people who give you stuff, or give you information before anyone else - gotta maintain good relations.

[Python14]

If you want SLI, go for it.

But don't expect me to be jealous.

[Miscue]

Yeah, for the time being, SLI is just a novelty.....as it was 10 years ago. Heck, some games don't even support or recognize SLI.

I give it 3 or 4 more gen. before SLI really becomes worth it.....and even then it will be like the difference between a stock video card and a overclocked video card with good cooling.

Why not use dual GPUs? :) SLI is the best option when they can't fit everything on one PCB...

What I predict will happen eventually, is we won't have a "video card" in the way they exist now. We might see something like a socket, or array of sockets, on the motherboard for a GPU(s) and/or other specialized processors.

[Python14]

lol.....I'm gonna laugh real hard the day graphics are handled by a second motherboard that's sole purpose is figuring out how to make Gordon Freemans hand's look as realistic as possible.

[Miscue]

lol.....I'm gonna laugh real hard the day graphics are handled by a second motherboard that's sole purpose is figuring out how to make Gordon Freemans hand's look as realistic as possible.

Haha. "Check it out dude, you can see his pores from a distance!"

It seems almost like, eventually you'll plug your motherboard into your vid card - and mount the vid card into the case.

Borrowed from the HL3 preview thread:

<img src="http://img24.exs.cx/img24/2053/HalfLife3.jpg">

[CrimsonTurkey]

I did some tests on SLI and found that it doesn't do a damn thing unless you are running Doom 3 or Half Life 2 at the highest settings at the highest res. Then with two X800's w/256 DDR there was a 32% increase in frame rate. For only $900 this can be yours too!

So, unless you have way too much money, don't think about it.

Personally, I would rather take that $450 and go for a dual processor setup. I'm running a pair of Athlon XP 3000+'s right now on an Asus K7V 333 and I love the damn things.

PS: If anybody needs a media center computer I build some very compact, integrated setups. shoot me a PM

[Python14]

lol seriously. I look forward to that day, but at the same time.......it's gonna be a fun time seeing how the industry morphs around this,

btw, if anyone wants larger than average gaming PCs....gimme a pm

[Target Practice]

420 bucks, huh.

All that cash and you insist on underpowering your maching?

:thumbsup:

[Kaiser Bob]

Personally, I would rather take that $450 and go for a dual processor setup. I'm running a pair of Athlon XP 3000+'s right now on an Asus K7V 333 and I love the damn things.

How much of a performance gain do you get from the dual setup? Last I checked dual processor systems were sometimes worse then just using 1 processor as far as gaming is concerned, but I havent really looked into that since the Athlon MP came out so...

[Timmee]

The problem I see currently with SLI is the fact that you need a motherboard designed for it (not a drop in setup for most of the current motherboards out there). Granted, a SLI setup would blow away my FX5200 (with 128 megs of video ram), but I'm not looking to replace the mobo too.

[Can_Opener]

The thing about the dual-processors is that they are fantastic for programs that can utilize the second processor. Your OS (if it supports dual processors) basically seperates the tasks that must be done to each processor so that each one does less work, and therefore your computer appears faster.

The problem arises when you get to a program (like alot of games) that doesn't really support dual processors, so you basically end up having your OS send all of the work to the processor it deems to be the primary one instead of splitting the tasks for this case.

About this whole SLI thing, didn't we try this back in the day with the like 12MB 3DFX cards, and it sucked?

[Python14]

Yes, 3DFX did it with Rage 2 and it really wasn't that big of a deal. The benefits were analogous to the benefits of an overclock using Clockgen.

[Miscue]

How much of a performance gain do you get from the dual setup? Last I checked dual processor systems were sometimes worse then just using 1 processor as far as gaming is concerned, but I havent really looked into that since the Athlon MP came out so...

People often have the wrong idea of what multiple processors do. But yeah, it very well could be the case KB. There is overhead involved with SMP (Symmetric Multi-Processing).

Let's take the OS out of the picture for now to simplify the explanation. If you have a process that does not take advantage multiple processors, it will run slower on a dual system than a single processor system because of the overhead for SMP.

Ok, let's put the OS back in. Software that does not support multiple processors can still benefit from a dual system because the workload for all processes, not just that software in question, can be shared... an OS that supports SMP coordinates this.

So... when that overhead is overcome - then dual CPUs run faster even with software that does not support SMP.

When that overhead is not overcome, then the dual system is slower for that application than a single CPU system.