So is NVidia SLI a Curve ball for ATI?...

[TiG]

I've been spending a lot of time looking at lots of things coming out soon and have to firmly admit that i've been hooked on the idea of SLI coming on the NForce 4 SLI motherboard solutions in due course.

Now i'm not a fan boy of anything Intel or AMD, ATI or Nvidia, I just want power pure and simple, fastest thing i can afford. ANd i do tend to be an early adopter. But i've just been considering exactly what you are left with in terms of choice of ATI over Nvidia on Nforce 4?.

It currently to me just doesn't make sense to consider ATI for an Nforce 4 board?, it may be slightly faster but with the benefits to be gained from Dual cards, and future proofing (discussed in another recent thread on here)
is there any way that Nvidia doesn't win out on this new Technology?.

TiG

[javalord]

Who cares if nVidia win on technology or whatever, what I really mean is how does that effect you?

And most importantly, can you really justify blowing so much money on TWO graphics cards? 2x 6600GT's is just 20-30% better than a 6800GT. I dont know about you, but thats a bloody inefficient way of getting a speed boost, imagine the power required to feed such a system!

Most importantly, you'll be better buying the one, and waiting 12-18 months to buy another, as you must know by now, that ATI + nVidia stick to some crazy product cycles.

Its all marketing this SLI. I can only see a few industries at best who could make real use of it, along with e-penis based enthusiasts.

[iMc]

I wouldnt need the power of 2 6800's and that would be the only reason for getting it imo. No point having it and using mid-range cards when you can get one really good one which will satisfy all your needs until a new version comes along.

[Rave]

Well, I don't need the power of two 6800 Ultras, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like to have it. I think the people who stand to benefit from SLI are:

a) those who can only afford a 6600GT now, but who can then save up to buy another; and

b) those who can afford two 6800GTs or Ultras now and want the best money can buy.

SLI shouldn't be particularly expensive to implement as far as I can see; the price premium over a non-SLI motherboard shouldn't be more than £20 although I expect there'll be some price gouging initially.

Rich :¬)

[iMc]

I wont say im not tempted to get it when I go NF4 cus I am. But I just can't see myself needing to use it. By the time I can afford a second gfx card there will be the next line of cards out which will be more powerful than two of todays mid range. Also with SLI being limited to nVidia that means it will be a waste if you ever want to buy ATi again.

I spose ill just see how much more expensive an SLI board is over a single slot version.

EDIT: did I just ramble on about b*****ks then. sorry getting tierd!

[daniel_owen_uk]

The only time I think I would go for sli is if I had to have more than 2 screens. Then it would make sense to harness the power of both graphics card whilst having the extra bonus of the two gpu's.

Saying that I suppose it does give them the edge over ati by a long margin even if the the price is very different.

[Zak33]

for me . the political intrigue is exciting.

Long ago (in PC terms) the mighty graphics card compnay, nVidia decided to support AMD's very fast CPU's. And in doing so, introdced one of technology's best ever motherboards. Even today, if you have to build a half decent gaming rig, you can do in with nForce2, 2 stiucks of ram, a cpu that costs very little, unlocked, and which has good sounds AND a good built in vid card. I KNOW its a Geforce4 MX, but it WILL play most peoples games to one extent or another.

In that first year, OUR computing future was concreted. BECAUSE, in most peoples minds, the nVidia of Motherboards and the nVidia of Graphics Cards are slightly different people. And because o the bias towards AMD with the Nforce boards AND now the SLI potential of the vid cards made by the same people.....it leaves ATI doing what ATI does best:

Either selling more built in 2d vid cards and other stuff to business....

OR

Trying to constantly battle nVidia's crown away from it. With a different attack. A change in direction. A new look on how graphics should be done.

Sadly, others have tried and slightly failed (Kryo, 3dfx, Matrox) to last the distance, but ATI are BIG enough to afford the slumps and carry on.

What I want, in my dreams, is the following.

An ATI mobo chipset, with integrated Radeon power, with oomph to whack nVidia up the bottom...hard.

The question would be....AMD or Intel? Or elsewhere?

Meantime......me and TiG talk a fair bit ... and he is going down the darkened road that is, SLI and he may well blow some cash on what he wants. Fair play to him. More power to early adopters. we need them. I am sometimes an early adopter too.

[PMM]

The question has too be asked what do ATI have ?

Nvidia have a Dual Board SLI solution 2 boards one core on each.

ATI... They have a X800 core and chipset that can scale to 256 GPU's
on the same board.

A case of will they or won't they ..... ?

Speculation but I feel ATI have the potential too meet Nvidia performances
within a 1 board solution.

[DR]

The trouble with doing it on a one board solution is the cost you are forcing people to pay - SLI is an upgrade route.

It is all a balance - to be honest they are both as good as each other

[daniel_owen_uk]

They won't, its one thing to produce mass amounts of 1 card and sell 2 of them to a small amount of people, its a completely different thing to create small amounts of a 1 card.

[Zak33]

The other major benefit people will see in nVidia is that the PCI Express cards dont need a seperate power supply molex cable. Now it doesnt bother me....but I guaranteee people WILL consider it a problem when they get down to the nitty gritty bit of choosing a card.

David is lucky enough to play with all of these. He's right....ATI and nVidia are very similar in performance. Its a close close thing.

I am an ATI fan boy. Apart from the cards being SMALLER and fitting easily....I like the way they fly in Il-2

[DR]

As long as your card delivers what you want in your gaming you are laughin

However, people do need balanced systems

[ed^chigliak]

Well it's interesting that both Intel and AMD are moving to multiple core CPU's and Nvidia introducing SLI. Also.... two HDDS raided & two sticks of RAM running dual chanel and two monitors. Maybe just maybe one of everything has had it's day.

[PMM]

Well it's interesting that both Intel and AMD are moving to multiple core CPU's and Nvidia introducing SLI. Also.... two HDDS raided & two sticks of RAM running dual chanel and two monitors. Maybe just maybe one of everything has had it's day.

Indeed and ATI have Multiple Core GPU plans Nvidia don't and if I remember
right ATI prototyping is more cost effective compared to Nvidia anyway so
its not out the realms of reality that ATI shipping Dual core at prices that
could cause Nvidia headaches.

The world of production/supply/demand is an interesting art and to be honest
Nvidia's approach is not necessarily a good one and could be one that costs
them money if ATI have an equal performace product and maintain good prices
esp if they produce as one what Nvidia need to achieve with 2 esp if the pricing is between a single and two board costing you could see people opting for a single performace board solution from a performace aspect and a cost
aspect.

I know my frame of mind works in the way that if I can get near the same in
one without buying 2 i'd go for the one.

Plus I don't know enough about SLI but I presume you need 2 cards of
similar spec or one is going to limit the other ? so when you want to go
better in a 2 card SLI setup you have to ditch 2 cards leaving you with again
a choice 1 card or 2 ditching a 2 card solution for another 2 card solution
is going to be costly if the situation exists, so I hope I am wrong there.

[zawer612]

just my 2cents, but no one knows if the next gen cards are gonna be faster than 2x6800gt in SLi yet and if so by how much?. If you buy a NF4 SLi board and buy a 6800gt card then later on you've got the choice of;

a. - buying another 6800gt card and running the two in SLi mode which should give you a decent performance increase (up to 100% in some cases) for a resonable ammount (£100-£200)

or

b. - buying a new next gen card for approx £300+ and get X amount of performance increase....

Going the way of Nvidia Grfx and NF4 SLi gives you the 'choice' of which upgrade path you would prefer, as no one knows the future. Whereas if you go ATI you'll have to buy a new card. The only reason i think people with such a setup would choose option (B) is if the next gen cards started incorporating new features (new pixel/smart shader support, DirectX10 support etc.) rather than raw pixel pushing power as two 6800gt/ultras can push some serious pixels! Look here http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2258 and you'll see what i mean, over 100fps in farcry at 1600x1200 with 4xaa! Thats 2x the speed of one 6800gt!for some reason i seriously doubt the next gen cards would offer that sort of performance increase and even if it did the price performance ratio for the upgrade will weigh in favour of option (a).

And as for the idea of a dual/multi core X800, well it'll be really fast but also really exspensive and i'll have to ditch my old card, what would you go for?

H.H

[ISS]

There is no such thing as future proof in gfx card world.

The only benefit you can get now is having the performance of a next generation today, but at 1.5-2x the cost.

The only thing I could say is that all these are rich man's toys. Dual PCI-E mobos, SLI, A64 FX etc, these are out of reach to most of us.

One thing is that don't discount ATI. They may not have made SLI cards before but they have extensive knowledge in dual GPU cards. This means they could combine 2 or more cores on a single card. It will be more expensive than SLI but faster due to lower latency etc (all the benefits of putting everything on the same PCB).