SLI is it worth the money

[[24th_MID]Rice]

Re: SLI is it worth the money

Alright guys I have a FX-57 dual 7800 GTX BFG's 2 GB Corsair XMS pro Asus A8N-Premium and 4 74 GB raptors in a raid 0. The rig is fast, and the graphics are great except a few things: 1 with SLI on you have no vsync and that causes tearing in the middle of the screen where each cards render load end/begins. 2 there is some kind of issue with having AA on while in commander view, if you stay in the commander view too long the machine freezes. I have tested this on some of my buddies machines as well that have 7800 GTX's as well as 6800 Ultra's. But I still say it is worth it 99 fps 1920x1200 4x AA Ultra High settings.

Below is a link to the nVidia forums where they discus some of the issues with SLI tearing.

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=4244

[abtomat74]

Re: SLI is it worth the money

My 2nd reply was deleted for some reason.

I provided 2 links to recent reviews on 7800 series and SLI. They recommended a MINIMUM of a P4 3.4/AMD64 3200 for the 6 series of cards...and even higher CPU's for the 7 series.

The last couple of people to reply have also confirmed this.

So, unless you intend to play in 1600x1200 or GREATER resolutions...there is no point at all in SLI.
Because 1600x1200 + are the only resolutions that todays nasty cards even begin to have fps troubles with.

And for people like me, I wouldn't play in 1600x1200 even if I could! It is too damn small, you can't see as easily as 1024x768 when flying in a chopper for example. That guy standing behind a tree is too small in 16x12...I'll see him first unless you have Eagle eyes.

HL2 is the only game I found 16x12 to not display this "too small effect" on me. That is my personal experience and opinion, I'm sure there are other games that don't look too small in that reso.

[|D|-Char-ley_Killa]

Re: SLI is it worth the money

Thx guys I think i will just get 1 7800gtx

[king_kilr]

Re: SLI is it worth the money

its not worth it now but buy a mobo with support and a vid card with support so u are rdy for the future

[D3TON8R]

Re: SLI is it worth the money

something you may also not be aware of is the fact that when i sli mode you can lose pipeline structure. ie. if your card has 16 pipes, in sli mode they use half each.....so two cards at 8 pipes each. You lose some, you win some and with the new DFi boards coming out, apparently this is enabled (both use full pipelines)

[Vw-Merv-CL]

Re: SLI is it worth the money

something you may also not be aware of is the fact that when i sli mode you can lose pipeline structure. ie. if your card has 16 pipes, in sli mode they use half each.....so two cards at 8 pipes each. You lose some, you win some and with the new DFi boards coming out, apparently this is enabled (both use full pipelines)

Im not sure if this is correct, this is why im questioning it, but i am aware that your bus speed halves, ie one 7800 = 16x PCIe and two 7800 = 8x PCIe each, however this makes no difference in speed to your games, please feel free to correct me if im talking out of my a**e

[alphasnail]

Re: SLI is it worth the money

ya im getting 2x7800 gt with a 3800x2 HT athlon with a gig of ram i hope its worth the money i just want a CP with maxed out fps.