SLI - are you going to do it ?

[TiG]

I have to say i was definitely wanting to go SLI, but Rysard's excellent article has made me reconsider this and have a wait and see what happens.....

It certainly sounds like the technology still needs a bit more driver support and testing before i'm going to upgrade. But i still view it as a superb technology in principle.

TiG

[Zak33]

with TiG on that.....its literally in its infancy. DOnt like instability of anysort....

but knowing nVidia...they WILL sort it

[Spunkey]

basically I'm waiting for the technology to mature. As TiG said, Rys' article was excellent and definately showed it has a way to go yet.

If rumours are anything to go by ATI's SLi implementation will allow for the two cards to output up to 4 monitors; ie you can hang monitors off each card, as opposed to only the one card with nVidia.

Triple Monitor GTR anyone? *drools*

[Stewart]

If I had the money, I'd buy one asoon as I could get one.

But as it is, I'll have to sell my nan, any offers?

What condition is the old girl in? How many previous owners? Comes with own teeth? Hips in good working order?

If you want a sale, we need details man.

[DR]

Yes I will

[Swafe]

i thought david might a lot of people seem to like cheese tho

i personally wont till the proces drop, and then, maybe still not



also i havnt read about it properly, but would, say 2 x 2 output gfx cards allow you to have 4 monitors? with 2 monitors being rendered by each card ?

[PMM]

Matrox have triple head cards for 3 monitors single card solution.

Anyway... Yes & no to the benefits of SLI
Yes certain games / benchmarks are CPU limited tis true and so wasted performance with 2 cards.

However There are certain games / benchmarks where the opposite is equally true and the Gfx card side rendering is the bottle neck.

Pro's & con's either way.

SLI if I could justify the cash but since I work in a cheese factory I'd have to vote for I like cheese .

[DR]

NEWS just in I have a new stepping board here and it is a LOT More stable - I suspect that has fixed a lot of the problems.

However, as always drivers need some work

[PMM]

Plenty down under NewZeland <sp?> Africa / Ireland / Canada.

Where I work we just package it as per what you have in supermarkets
but were part of the Irish Dairy Board so the bulk we get come's mainly
from our places in Ireland.

We shift about 1200tonnes a week something like 25% of the UK's total requirements.

[Rys]

i thought david might a lot of people seem to like cheese tho

i personally wont till the proces drop, and then, maybe still not



also i havnt read about it properly, but would, say 2 x 2 output gfx cards allow you to have 4 monitors? with 2 monitors being rendered by each card ?

Yes, but you have to turn SLI off and run them in non-linked mode. Bit of a pain if you want to run four heads and then game at some point during the day, since it's a reboot to switch back to SLI linked.

Rys

[Sk!mD4Rk]

No i won't be so cheese, cheese, cheese.

I used to run a couple of voodoo's in SLI mode though. Still got 'em in the loft somewhere. Anyone else do that? bloody huge cards as well

[Lee H]

Yeap


voodoo = Scan Line Interweaving ( alternating line per card )


now fast foward (hurry before its banned ) to now and...

nvidia = Scalable Link Interface ( 1/2 / 1/2 split or even less )

Same acronym , just a slight difference technically on how they were implemented

[Swafe]

apprently on dual voodoos with a fast CPU, HL2 is still playable .....just

[PMM]

somebody had doom 3 running on a pair of voodoo 2's , bit graphically impared but running at playable speeds.

[Lee H]

somebody had doom 3 running on a pair of voodoo 2's , bit graphically impared but running at playable speeds.

http://www.3dfxzone.it/enboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1462

Looks damn ugly to be frank... but the fps are pretty high

[iMc]

now fast foward (hurry before its banned ) to now and...

gotta love that! lol.

its amazing that todays games can still run on ancient hardware. albeit by looking ancient themselves.