SLI or not??

**Snizel** · September 06, 2007, 02:12 AM

Hey everyone.

I have an Nvidia 7600gt and am thinking about buying another one to use SLI. Will SLI improve my games much such as M2TW and Oblivion? I heard that it only works at 150% instead of 200% which you think it would but i read somewhere that Nvidia fixed it so it can run up to 200%. Am i right?

Also should i just sell my 7600gt and buy a new card like a 7950gt or higher. Something no more than 150 Australian dollars, which i think is like 120 U.S.

Thanks

**VALIS** · September 06, 2007, 03:32 AM

I think SLI's are very good, probably better than singular cards.
If you got the money, go for it.

**Freddie** · September 06, 2007, 03:57 AM

Originally Posted by Snizel

Hey everyone.

I have an Nvidia 7600gt and am thinking about buying another one to use SLI. Will SLI improve my games much such as M2TW and Oblivion? I heard that it only works at 150% instead of 200% which you think it would but i read somewhere that Nvidia fixed it so it can run up to 200%. Am i right?

Also should i just sell my 7600gt and buy a new card like a 7950gt or higher. Something no more than 150 Australian dollars, which i think is like 120 U.S.

Thanks

Your better of getting the 7950gt if you can afford it, SLI is poor value for money often you get games that won't see any difference when using SLI (although this isn’t as big problem as it use to be). With Sli you may get up to 50% improvement (CPU dependant), so really you need to a cost benefit analysis.

**SonOfCrusader76** · September 11, 2007, 07:13 AM

Originally Posted by Freddie

Your better of getting the 7950gt if you can afford it, SLI is poor value for money often you get games that won't see any difference when using SLI (although this isn’t as big problem as it use to be). With Sli you may get up to 50% improvement (CPU dependant), so really you need to a cost benefit analysis.

SLI is a waste of money, unless you can afford to buy both cards at the same time.

**Snizel** · September 06, 2007, 04:40 AM

I got an AMD 4600+ X2. Will this allow SLI to perform at full potential. I can afford a 7950gt but will there be a difference between dual 7600gt and 7950gt? isnt 7600gt SLI equivalent to a 7900gtx?

**Dick** · September 06, 2007, 08:47 AM

In terms of price v perfromance SLI is a poor way to go. A good single card will outperform two average cards, especially since most games don't even support SLI.

And I've heard the performance increase is more likely to be 33% for SLI, but I don't have any figures.

**OTZ** · September 06, 2007, 06:54 PM

Save your money, unless you can come by the other card at a cheap price...SLI is rarely worth the cost:performance ratio.

**Snizel** · September 06, 2007, 07:44 PM

Oh damn so not many games support SLI? I guess i should just get a better card. What do you ppl suggest i buy. I was thinking 7900gt or gtx or 7950gt.

**Dick** · September 06, 2007, 07:54 PM

Depends on your budget. 8800GTS 320MB is the current favourite, but if your budget doesn't stretch that far I'd say a x1900xt.

**Snizel** · September 06, 2007, 10:54 PM

My budget is around 120 US dollars. I think i can get a 7900gt off eBay for around that price minus postage. Plus i don't wanna spend much on a new card because of the new dx10 cards coming out soon, which would make any top end card i buy useless within 2 years.

**spartan_phalanx** · September 07, 2007, 03:50 AM

Sadly very few graphics cards will last much longer than 2 years in terms of performance anyway. Check the September graphics review from tomshardware.com, there's three right in your price point (8600GT, 2600XT or the X1950 PRO, 7900GS).

**Hadrian** · September 11, 2007, 07:34 PM

Snizel, I have two 640GB 8800GTS's in SLI, and it is definately a performance enhancer! But, an important thing to note is that SLI is really optimized for top end GPUs and unfortunately a couple of 7600GT's won't give you the performance increase your looking for. Now two 7900GTX's in SLI will out perform a single 8800GTX operating in DX9 on an average resolution like 1280X1024. (Don't buy a 7900GTX though, as they were discontinued within a year of their release. I suspect a severe flaw in the G71 chipset made them unusually vulnerable to being damage when overclocked. I went through a pair of 'em myself!) I would try one of the cards spartan-phalanx suggested, or the 7950GT Freddie suggested, vs. purchasing another 7600GT because SLI just isn't optimized for GPUs that far down in the series list.

If you said you had plenty of cash to spend then a couple of high end cards then SLI certainly wouldn't dissappoint you (I have yet to play a game that my twin GPUs even blink on no matter what the settings. It's like graphic peace of mind.) but if price to performance (Personally, I think the concepts of price/performance, "overkill", and "a waste of money" are often thrown around by people who can't afford killer gaming rigs, but want one!) is an important factor to you in your decision, then SLI isn't advisable. SLI will "generally" give you anywhere from a 20-60% performance increase depending on the GPUs linked and the game. Within the bounds of current technology SLI/Crossfire will never come close to achieving a 100% performance increase so it appears that SLI/Crossfire will always be subject to the dreaded law of diminishing returns.

Every current game supports SLI and Crossfire. You have to go back to games released before 2004 before you find games that you can't play utilizing SLI and even then most of them work, you just don't get the performance increase your used to. Just like dual core processors, games are only going to become more optimized and compatable with Scalable Link Interface technology.

As Dick said earlier, a single top end card is preferrable to a couple of lower or mid-range cards in SLI. It's also true that two high end cards in SLI will out perform any one single GPU as well as potentially enable you to play at higher resolutions and at filter and graphic levels unattainable with one GPU. The best feature of SLI is similar to having more RAM. It doesn't make your system faster, it raises your threshold of draggggg....

**Snizel** · September 12, 2007, 04:08 AM

Thx for all your replies. I've decided not to use SLI, like alot of you said it's not worth the money. I'm looking for a 7950gt now, which i think should be powerful enough for M2TW.

Anyway thx heaps ppl.

**LoZz** · September 12, 2007, 05:59 PM

sli is not worth the money.

the idea that 2 cards will give you double isnt true, most games only see a 20-50% increase in sli and to get full value for money you need games that support sli. and since the fuss about sli and crossfire has died down i cant think of any apart from call of duty 2 that support sli.

like dual/quad core its a waste of money because no/very few applications/games support it