What exactly is SLI?

[Beatem445]

I'm thinking about getting two of these and SLIing them but I have no clue what SLI does

 

[PabloTeK]

SLI simply makes the system use both graphics cards as one card (i.e. sharing the load between them and allowing more processing). It's not twice as quick though and some games don't support it. In any case, this is cheaper and about the same power as BOTH of the 8800GT's in SLi: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161236

 

[Beatem445]

that thing is expensive dang i know its better but seriously....

 

[PabloTeK]

Just buy one, no need to buy two you see and you can save on a PSU as well. The 4870 is so powerful getting two is a bit of a waste unless you have a massive monitor and have a 'Crysis on uber-Max' fetish.

 

[Beatem445]

na im just gonna be playing this on max settings and maybe some WoW too on high settings i think ill stick with my first choise because i dont need a ultra mega power card also people say that card gets hot and i want some cool cards

 

[PabloTeK]

Then you don't need SLI'd 8800GT's, heck, you don't even tneed the 4870, just get a single GT, I can't imagine WoW is too hungry on power.

 

[Beatem445]

trying to build the most least expensive rig ever =P that can handle the games of course

 

[PabloTeK]

Well my 8800 sails through UT3 and COD4 pretty much maxed out (I never max out a game though, I always aim for 60+ FPS)

 

[oscaryu1]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102747

And be done with it.

 

[mep916]

SLI is a marketing scheme designed to sell more GPUs.

 

[Shane]

na im just gonna be playing this on max settings and maybe some WoW too on high settings i think ill stick with my first choise because i dont need a ultra mega power card also people say that card gets hot and i want some cool cards

a GT will max out COD4,and mostly anything you throw at it exept Crysis which will do medium to high on some settings.

with the current GTs prices i would get one of those.

 

[G25r8cer]

SLI is a marketing scheme designed to sell more GPUs.

Basically Not very many games can take "Full" advantage of SLI. And most benchmark test's reveal little to no gain.

 

[mep916]

And most benchmark test's reveal little to no gain.

That's not true at all. In fact, the only benefit to running SLi (unless you're running resolutions at 1900x1200 or above), is the benchmarking numbers. If you're an "extreme" bencher, you def want to run a multi card config.

 

[James^.^]

What about crossfire? Is it as good or better than SLI? I was planning on eventually using two hd4870's with a vga cooler so they stay cool.

 

[TrainTrackHack]

What about crossfire? Is it as good or better than SLI? I was planning on eventually using two hd4870's with a vga cooler so they stay cool.

Xfire is slightly more efficient than SLI, for what I know. Not sure though, but adding a card in CrossFire is supposed to bring up to 80% more performance in *certain applications/games* (and while runnin at high resolutions). SLI can't be far behind (if it is at all). However, the performance increase when running at low resolutions is marginal (for both setups), and while a game doesn't need to be designed to utilize multi-GPU setups, some poorly designed games will gain very little performance from SLI or crossfire.