Will Nvidia SLI ever?

[wenis]

Will Nvidia SLI ever support different card types like ATI claims theres will? Now being able to buy a 6600gt now and add 6800gt later makes sense to me. That would get me excited. The NV48 cards will be out sometime this right? It would be cool to just put your old 6600gt inot the second slot. IF ATI can do Nvidia can do it.

Is there any possible way a SLI setup could ever be achieved with a card from both makers? Now that would be cool! I have always liked the Nforce chipset so I prefer to stay with their boards. From what I have heard ATI SLI just seems more flexible.

[Xaneden]

No.

Or at least, it won't be happening until either...

1) ATi and Nvidia merge in some mad company crisis.
2) A perculiar 'de facto' graphics card standard arises, which allows 2 different cards to add their processing power together without compatibility issues.

[Steve]

Nvidia's SLI relies on the cards being in synch, which makes using different speed cards a bit dodgy.

I've been trying to get SLI to work on a 6600Gt and 6800Gt. If I have any luck HEXUS will be the first to know.

[wenis]

Nvidia's SLI relies on the cards being in synch, which makes using different speed cards a bit dodgy.

I've been trying to get SLI to work on a 6600Gt and 6800Gt. If I have any luck HEXUS will be the first to know.

Kez, thats cool keep up the work. Seems to me Nvidia should be able to implement this easily or am I wrong? SLI makes more sense if you can have the latest and greatest card and couple it with your old one.

[Xaneden]

The only way that will ever work is if the faster card reduces its speed and RAM usage etc to that of the old card. Which is stupid.

SLI v2 anyone?

[Olly1234]

In the current form thats true but there should be no reason why it can't work like a form of parrelel processing system that only reneders what it can handle, the 'controller' knows how much capacity or power each chip has and only asks it to render what it can handle while the more powerful processor renders the remainder

[StormPC]

Yes but that's not how it works now. It would be a different technology. Are you watching this thread ATi?

[Olly1234]

Indeed but who's to say that Nvidia couldn't bring out a new card in the not too distant future that had a 'controller' built onto it that could do that and maybe work with the previous generation cards, I mean you connect the two cards with a bridge at the top..

[nvening]

interestingly Nvidia said that you could not have two GPUs on the same card with SLI but look what Gigabyte have done with the 3D1

[Steve]

interestingly Nvidia said that you could not have two GPUs on the same card with SLI but look what Gigabyte have done with the 3D1

And ASUS:

http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews...lld19JRD0xMDUx

[Olly1234]

And actually there are even rumors of 4 GPU systems hitting the market soon...

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/d...309164235.html

[Steve]

Yes but have you seen the size of the effing things? They need a small nuclear reactor to power them too.

[Olly1234]

Lol..I know absolutly vast, god only knows how much heat 4 6800 gpu's in very close proximity would generate and how on earth you'd get the heat away beings the boards are as big as your MB pratically!

[Steve]

god only knows how much heat 4 6800 gpu's in very close proximity would generate

Well I'm no deity, but I'd imagine about four times more than one 6800 GPU.

[Olly1234]

There go my sides

Seriously though, 4 gpu's pretty much on top of each other would be a bit of a nightmare to keep cool, especially beings the airflow's pretty restricted, still though it's mostlikely gonna be the way forward, much like dual core cpu's

[Steve]

Indeed. It might be useful in a workstation, but I think we have enough FPS in dual GPU SLI for gaming rigs.