sli is it any good.

[atarist]

I have never run a sli pc set-up befor and was just woundering is SLI any good.? comperd 2 a singel grafics card set up.

all i hear is that its good for fps in games and thats about it

makeing your game run abit faster when playing it.

is SLI all what it lives up 2 or is it all just hype.

2 get you 2 by 2 crads insted of just one card.

 

[Rastalovich]

I think this is a case of money vS experience of using SLI.

Having never used SLI and not really looking to do so, IF I had another gfxcard laying around, sure I'd check it out and see what happens. Then ofc I'd probably get hooked on it and go on from there.

The biggest gripe for most is that if u have a GTX280, buying another GTX280 doesn't give u exactly 2x the performance. Hence in this case u'r buying 2 cards for the performance of 1.5 cards (or something). So u gotta justify the cost within urself.

If the money doesn't matter, or even if u have an older 8 series card, and happen to get another one dirt cheap, it's no longer a case of justifying not getting 2x the performance cos u didn't pay full price.

Crossfire is nothing to be rejected either, for me the same reasons above apply. Plus there's an advantage of the very good Intel chipsets of the last 2 or so years.

Myself, I'm not interested. 1 card for me does everything I want. If I had 2 cards around, I'd try it and then probably think differently, but I'm happy

It's mainly the cost vS scaling for most people tho.

There is a driver question, but having not attempted it I can't comment too much on it.

 

[atarist]

i have allways liket the idea of SLI for games but like you say it comes down 2 the cost,

Of SLI its is very priesy for just one card mevermind 2 of them,

and them theres the P.S.U. in your p.c. can it power 2 cards at ones.

in my case no so that wound have 2 go and be up-dated with a more beter one like 650w/800 and then theres the cpu can it power 2 cards with out a bottelneck running the,

Games.

i fink if i ever whent down the SLI rute i wound just be better of making a new p.c.

From scrash insted of up-dateing my old rig whats about 4 yers old.

 

[gotmaxpower]

It depends really, some people buy SLi motherboards and 1 GPU, and then when the upgrading season comes, they buy a second card and add it in. There are lots of pro's and con's to SLi'ing, and as Rastalovich stated, in the end, it all comes down to how much money you have to spare.

For example, one GTX260 will cost ~£200, and two 9800GTX+'s will cost ~£300. If you were to buy both of these and compare cost and performance in both instances, you'd discover that you're paying 50% more on the 9800GTX+'s than you are on the GTX260 for slightly worse performance.

In some cases, SLi can be beneficial. For example, if you were to pay someone £100 for one 8800GT, and then he said that he'd throw a second one in for £20 extra, you have to think about it theoretically. If adding a second 8800GT and SLi'ing them would offer a 40% increase in performance over the first card, and you're only paying £20 for it, that's 1% increase in performance for every 50p spent. If you think about it as a ratio, in terms of Moneyerformance Increase then its much easier to speculate. On the first card you payed for, you got 1% performance for 100p (or £1), a 100:1 ratio. On the second card, you got 1% performance for 50p, a 50:1 ratio, making the second card much more affordable than the first. Hence, someone going SLi instead of buying a better primary card and chucking out the old one.

There's much more to explain, but I don't feel like writing an essay.

I hope this solves your query.

 

[atarist]

It depends really, some people buy SLi motherboards and 1 GPU, and then when the upgrading season comes, they buy a second card and add it in. There are lots of pro's and con's to SLi'ing, and as Rastalovich stated, in the end, it all comes down to how much money you have to spare.

For example, one GTX260 will cost ~£200, and two 9800GTX+'s will cost ~£300. If you were to buy both of these and compare cost and performance in both instances, you'd discover that you're paying 50% more on the 9800GTX+'s than you are on the GTX260 for slightly worse performance.

In some cases, SLi can be beneficial. For example, if you were to pay someone £100 for one 8800GT, and then he said that he'd throw a second one in for £20 extra, you have to think about it theoretically. If adding a second 8800GT and SLi'ing them would offer a 40% increase in performance over the first card, and you're only paying £20 for it, that's 1% increase in performance for every 50p spent. If you think about it as a ratio, in terms of Moneyerformance Increase then its much easier to speculate. On the first card you payed for, you got 1% performance for 100p (or £1), a 100:1 ratio. On the second card, you got 1% performance for 50p, a 50:1 ratio, making the second card much more affordable than the first. Hence, someone going SLi instead of buying a better primary card and chucking out the old one.

There's much more to explain, but I don't feel like writing an essay.

I hope this solves your query.

yes thanx it has helpt

the thing is tho i am running a gameing p.c. whell if you can call it that lol.

i have a 8500gt 512 pci and was just finking about SLI and the cost of it,

in my case i was hopeing 2 by a SLI mobo on the cheap like 80 pounds or so,

and running it with my 8500gt-pci with a sechand one in sli-mode (but) the rest of my p.c. is very old i.e. its just got ddr and not ddr2 so i wound have 2, by a new mobo and a sachand card and some ddr2 for the new set up,

the p.s.u i am running is just 500watts so i gess that i wound have 2 get a new p.s.u 2.

all in i wound be looking at a price of about mobo-80 card-47 ddr2 50 psu 60

paunds just 2 go down the SLI route

just 2 make some of my games 2 run faster

 

[gotmaxpower]

At that sort of price range mate, I'd reckon you'd be better off getting a decent primary card. I assume you meant your card was PCI-E, as Google dictates that they only made a 256MB version of the 8500GT PCI.

If your PC happens to have a spare PCI-e slot, here are a small selection of cards, arranged cheapest to most expensive. They're all links, so click them to find out more.

Gigabyte HD4670 - £62.63

Palit 9800GT - £83.41

HiS HD4830 - £100.10

The 9800GT and the HD4830 should perform on par with each other.

Out of those three cards, I'd reccomend you buy the HD4670. Its the most affordable solution, and it's from a very reliable company. It should keep you gaming for another two years, depending on how long you want to leave it before upgrading again.

Best of luck.

EDIT - JSYK, If your computer is a prebuild, chances are you might need to upgrade your PSU to support a better graphics card.

 

[FarFarAway]

Agreed with gotmaxpower on just getting one nice card. Also yep, check your PSU can hadnle it too....

 

[Talonaer]

for those sorta prices you could probly get 2x8800 gts 512mb off ebay and SLI them...

safest route = 1 card thou tbh

 

[atarist]

gotmaxpower,

crap i mist typed that lol yes its pci-e lol

whats the best out of the 9800gt and the hd4830?

For games like Crysis i played it on my 8500gt was o.k on medem seting

But wound love 2 see it on hi-setings tho

 

[atarist]

Kempez

is a winpower 500w psu any good for a power hugery pci-e

its about 28a on the power rail my one,

 

[atarist]

Talonaer.

ive never trusted e-bay but was thinking of it,

some nice cheap bargins on there i like the look of,

 

[Talonaer]

i had an 8800 gts512 and got another to sli with it for 60 about 3months ago so...end of day you should have paypal/credit card protection so should something go wrong...

try and find things that are still boxed etc etc.

 

[atarist]

i had an 8800 gts512 and got another to sli with it for 60 about 3months ago so...end of day you should have paypal/credit card protection so should something go wrong...

try and find things that are still boxed etc etc.

i was thinking of geting set up on e-bay but,

I hear about some of the scams on there n peoples acounts geting hijacked

For there good pro-file so scamers can sell dodgey stuff.