Quote:
Originally Posted by rwin
You will see a performance boost. You can get 2 cards in SLI for less than 500$. Comparing it to Rambus is laughable. SLI and crossfire are spread out over a much larger set of motherboards and price ranges than Rambus ever was.
SLI obsolete in one year, don’t be ridiculous. dual core cards? That is Rambus, they will last one year. Get up to date, 2009 brings GPU's on the motherboard and no video card at all.
a good 8800/2900 series pair will most likely be the last cards you ever buy.
in 3 years , we buy a motherboarsd with high speed integrated grafix. So, tuck in your e-penis and try to get up to date b4 you show is to everyone again
Totally agree, that what makes the 250$ 8800gt so attractive, it’s a mid range card 200 to 300 less then the front runners and it will drop in price soon.
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Never compared SLI to Rambus just said it would go the way of Rambus, early adopters bought in then the technology disappeared. SLI technology is old it was acquired from the 3Dfx buyout. CPU’s are multi-core and being built on 45nm process so it was only a matter of time before the GPU makers who are now switching from 65nm to 55nm would follow suit.
AMD Fusion/Swift News 12/16/2007
X-bit labs - AMD Claims First “Swift” Fusion Processor Due in Second Half 2009.
I imagine you are referring to AMD’s Fusion or Swift APU product, well this is not really new at all, you have been able to buy MB’s with integrated graphics for years (yes I realize there is a difference between what we can get today and what Fusion will bring to the table) and that’s all well and good but for a desktop system with technology changing every 6 months I would rather just put in a new video card when better ones become available rather than replace the whole MB and/or APU. Being locked into only one manufacturers technology roadmap is a bad thing IMHO because it also puts you at the mercy of their pricing whims. Since it will only be available for laptops initially it is of little interest at this point since it is at least 3 years away for the desktop anyway.
PCIe 2.0 is the next thing for video technology, even if they haven’t even pushed current PCIe limits. Both AMD and NVIDIA are working on multi core GPU’s AMD plans to integrate the PCIe bridge to the GPU with R700.
AMD R670 and R700
AMD to focus on multi-GPU cards for the high-end market
This man works on software for Cell and AMD NVIDIA GPU’s and seems to believe multi-core is the direction.
Dr. Dobb's | Multicore and GPUs: One Tool, Two Processors | May 11, 2007
Quote:
Originally Posted by AkiranBlade
It didn't, on my system.
I'm sorry, but the performance gains I receive between running a single and dual system is to great to be palmed off as a "waste of PED."
Early adopter cards often don't fully support certain specifications. The reason for this is that the hardware is being developed in parallel to the software/specification requirements. What often happens is the subsequent driver releases tend to fix any of the deficits over time, however some deficits are based in the hardware and will never be fully sorted.
All I would recommend to you is to ensure the graphics card drivers are up to date and installed correctly.
Again, another thoughtless comment. E-Penis, that's quite funny though, perhaps the only thing worth reading in this paragraph.
I run SLi and have tried single GPU operation too from time to time. The SLi does make a significant difference. Games run much smoother then when running on on GPU. I never run games at more than 1280x1024, mainly because I'm getting too old and reading text that's way too small is getting difficult :/. Yet I would never opt for non-SLi over SLi if I have the budget.
I intend to buy a single 8800 GTS in the coming months, which on it's own will be better than my dual 7800 GTX cards. When I can afford the second, I will buy the second for two reasons... firstly, because games will have moved on yet again and secondly, because the second card will end up being cheaper than the first so it's a cheaper way to get extra oomph out of your system.
The gains you get are not only the rather 2D thinking of bigger resolution at high frame rate, it's the ability to get higher image quality also.
Also, when graphics cards are able to house two GPUs per card, all that is going to happen is people will go for quad GPU setups, plain and simple. And provided the figures from reviews back it's worth up, I will go for that too. Especially seeing as I want to be able to run dual monitors, currently not supported in SLi but should be at some point. Some games will be released to support multiple monitor setups for full panoramic viewing. You will need multiple cores to process that adequately.
It's not all about the E-Penis.
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Well then here is truth about the cost/benefit ratio of a 7800GTX setup that you purchased. Then consider that a single 8800GT outperforms it. Further consider that a single upcoming NVIDIA D9E will likely outperform a current 8800 GTX SLI Solution.
GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB (SLI) Review November 14, 2005
GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB (SLI)
“Doing the SLI thang - For the 5 people here in the Netherlands that can afford two of these cards and activate them in SLI mode, well congratulations. A) you are rich and B) butter butter butter smooth gameplay is what you can expect. You can activate the highest resolutions, then enable 8 levels of AA and then set 16 levels of AF. The cards just don't care and will do it with at the least a 60 FPS framerate. Take Chaos Theory for example, with HDR enabled 16 levels of AF at 1600x1200 it did roughly 100 frames per second. What about Quake 4 then ? A 1600x1200 resolution with 8xAA and 16xAF .. yes, 78 FPS ! Craaazeey ! It's the fellowship of cards, Mordor in your box ! Remember the PSU requirements though and the fact that you need a very spicy processor to feed these minions.”
VGA Charts VIII: PCI Express Winter 2005
VGA Charts VIII: PCI Express Winter 2005 | Tom's Hardware
Pay particular attention to the performance gains chart and notice that several games that were available at the time actually run slower with SLI enabled.
7800 GTX 256 MB Review Friday, 25 November 2005
SLI is like a family, stone me - The INQUIRER
Again more performance testing results. Indicating cost/benefit ratio.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Koister
I would advise anyone thinking of upgrading there system to wait a few months.
Cpu's/Graphics Card/Motherboards will all be taking a huge leap in performance in a few months.
So if you've got money saved for upgrading. Save it a little longer. Cause theres some real great stuff coming out.
And the current high end items will be much cheaper in a few months.
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Ah the voice of reason.
Look it’s entirely up to you if you have the kind of money to purchase a 8800GTX SLI setup @ $1,142 USD and change, just for the cards, then you probably aren’t in this forum looking for advice on what to do since you are solidly in the top 10% of PC owners worldwide. For the rest of the peeps out there just looking for advice about technology they may not know much about and may only have a mainstream PC budget SLI is not the way to go.
Considering the cost versus benefit in my mind SLI is just for the e-penis, but then I am just frugal girl anyway. I like nice stuff, but I don’t like paying nasty prices for it.
I dun know why you boys can’t see what I am trying to tell you so I will lay it out for you. With the money you saved you can afford to buy “That special someone” in your life something real nice too and if she is grateful, like I would be, she would show her appreciation in return. The rest you will have to figure out for yourself. I was just saying myself I would love a fur coat.
Have a Great Day!
