- Jan 29, 2005
- 5,196
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I wanted to get information from you, gamers, rather than "professionals", about how worth it, how good, or not SLi really is. Some of you might have seen my recent topics and overall disappointments about R600, and that I've decided to switch, at least temporarily (even if it means years) to nVidia. First, I planned to get an 8800GTS 640MB version. But then I thought ... what if I just get two 8800GTS 320MB instead and run them in tandem, a.k.a SLi.
Even with ATi I never touched CrossFire, and since I haven't owned any nVidia cards since 2003 I don't know anything about SLi, since I never needed to. But now I think I should at least know the basics, I should be aware of the facts, the overall known issues (there surely is some, nothing is perfect after all) and all the rest I need to know.
My questions, to start with:
1) Is SLi "forced" upon games ? I.E Are games supposed to be "optimized for" or simply "made for" SLi ? More precisely, let's say I buy 'x' game, and I got my SLi setup, then is it because I got SLi that the game will take advantage of it right away, or is it more like it'll take advantage only if the developers made the game actually support it ?
2) Now, optimizations and compatibilities aside, what kind of performance gains can I expect ? Is there a "universal" gain that any games are seeing when played with SLi ? Here again, will SLi give more performance if the game was optimized for it ?
3) Important one I really need to know: Is there games that will simply never, and can't take any kind of advantage from SLi and will simply detect only a single card even if SLi mode is active ? I.E Old games, for example ... let's say I run UT99, will it take advantage of SLi with a simple "drivers help", or is it condemned to never take advantage of it because ... well, because it's old ? I know what you're going to say, something like "WHO needs to run UT99 in SLi in the first place, that game can be maxed at infinity-high resolutions on G70's and X1K's already". I know that, I just mean on a mere technical point of view.
4) Do both cards need to be of the same brand to run in SLi ? Or do they need to be "the same" as in amount of Memory and/or Frequencies ? (Or anything else to consider ?)
5) Is it safe to run an SLi configuration on 24/7 for weeks non-stop ? Let's pretend nothing is OC'ed, but still on stock coolers.
6) What happens in simple Desktop activities ? Is the second card automatically ... ermmm ... disabled ? I mean is it like electricity doesn't power up the second card at all, completely off ? Or do I need to physically remove it so that it doesn't always run in SLi for nothing ? I mean it's not like I need two G80's to browse Anandtech smoothly Seriously though, is the control over the setup being single-card or SLi software-based or it needs physical intervention ?
7) What do YOU think of YOUR own SLi set-up ? Were you expecting more of it ? Were you entirely disappointed ? Or on the completely opposite, were you in awe and amazement in front of the advantages over a single card setup ? Simply said, was it/is it worth it ? Be honest, please.
That's pretty much about it for my questions, however if you think I missed important points that wouldn't be answered due to the lack of questions for those subjects then please let me know everything I need to. If I ever do it, if I ever buy two of those for SLi, then it'll mean no GPU upgrade for at least two years, and living with a mistake for that amount of time, if not more, wouldn't be good for my sanity. I really need to make sure about it, it's like the biggest, most important purchase/investment of this year for me (well so far it looks like it).
Thanks to everyone for reading, your help, and your time.
Even with ATi I never touched CrossFire, and since I haven't owned any nVidia cards since 2003 I don't know anything about SLi, since I never needed to. But now I think I should at least know the basics, I should be aware of the facts, the overall known issues (there surely is some, nothing is perfect after all) and all the rest I need to know.
My questions, to start with:
1) Is SLi "forced" upon games ? I.E Are games supposed to be "optimized for" or simply "made for" SLi ? More precisely, let's say I buy 'x' game, and I got my SLi setup, then is it because I got SLi that the game will take advantage of it right away, or is it more like it'll take advantage only if the developers made the game actually support it ?
2) Now, optimizations and compatibilities aside, what kind of performance gains can I expect ? Is there a "universal" gain that any games are seeing when played with SLi ? Here again, will SLi give more performance if the game was optimized for it ?
3) Important one I really need to know: Is there games that will simply never, and can't take any kind of advantage from SLi and will simply detect only a single card even if SLi mode is active ? I.E Old games, for example ... let's say I run UT99, will it take advantage of SLi with a simple "drivers help", or is it condemned to never take advantage of it because ... well, because it's old ? I know what you're going to say, something like "WHO needs to run UT99 in SLi in the first place, that game can be maxed at infinity-high resolutions on G70's and X1K's already". I know that, I just mean on a mere technical point of view.
4) Do both cards need to be of the same brand to run in SLi ? Or do they need to be "the same" as in amount of Memory and/or Frequencies ? (Or anything else to consider ?)
5) Is it safe to run an SLi configuration on 24/7 for weeks non-stop ? Let's pretend nothing is OC'ed, but still on stock coolers.
6) What happens in simple Desktop activities ? Is the second card automatically ... ermmm ... disabled ? I mean is it like electricity doesn't power up the second card at all, completely off ? Or do I need to physically remove it so that it doesn't always run in SLi for nothing ? I mean it's not like I need two G80's to browse Anandtech smoothly Seriously though, is the control over the setup being single-card or SLi software-based or it needs physical intervention ?
7) What do YOU think of YOUR own SLi set-up ? Were you expecting more of it ? Were you entirely disappointed ? Or on the completely opposite, were you in awe and amazement in front of the advantages over a single card setup ? Simply said, was it/is it worth it ? Be honest, please.
That's pretty much about it for my questions, however if you think I missed important points that wouldn't be answered due to the lack of questions for those subjects then please let me know everything I need to. If I ever do it, if I ever buy two of those for SLi, then it'll mean no GPU upgrade for at least two years, and living with a mistake for that amount of time, if not more, wouldn't be good for my sanity. I really need to make sure about it, it's like the biggest, most important purchase/investment of this year for me (well so far it looks like it).
Thanks to everyone for reading, your help, and your time.