nVidia 3 way SLi, failed faster than SLix4

[ctjoyce]

http://www.hothardware.com/articles/NVI ... ew/?page=1

Well I like the idea, but the numbers show that unless you are running resolutions greater than 2x00 there is just no point to having the third card, unless you are looking for a way to run up the electric bill even further.

However the article does have some nice 8800 vs X3850 numbers in it which are very interesting to see.

Cheers
Cameron

[NickN]

SLi is a joke unless you are in need of bragging rights and have nothing better to do than spend money on hardware to support it. The format is more in line for needs with high res 3D graphics design than games

[ctjoyce]

Well I disagree to some respect. I mean personally I run a resolution of 1920x1200 so having SLi on my main rig really helps to be able to run games at max settings at that resolution. Now if I were running a lower resolution, I would have gone with a single powerful card setup instead of SLi.

The only other reason to do SLi would be for a quad monitor setup and you need something cheaper than a matrox.

Cheers
Cameron

[Mees]

Well 2 8800's ain't cheaper than a Matrox...

[pepper_airborne]

Meh, i hope the price drops soon, although i doubt it.

[ctjoyce]

Meh, i hope the price drops soon, although i doubt it.

ROFL! Its besides the point. No game on the market today needs any more than two cards to play at respectable FPS. Remember what happened with Quad SLi, the sold it to enthusiasts and we didn't buy it. So the new 780i chipsets that are supposedly coming out will be a nice addition to the party, adding future core support among other things, but overall, its just a power hungry waste.

And Mees, you are right, and the Matrox is the only way to go if you want to do multiple monitors ingame.

Cheers
Cameron

[GunnerMan]

Im not usually a "Company ethics speculator" but I do not like to see people buying 2 video cards. Instead we should say "No" im not paying for another video card, I want that performance on a single chip. Nvidia and ATI make more money on you buying 2,3 or 4 video cards than if you bought one. Thats why they do it, even though it dosen't really help a whole lot they are taking you to the bank. If they have any say in this they will keep it that way, they know there are lots of people out there that will pay almost anything to max a game out and if the only way to make a game is to run 3 or 4 video cards then they just sold 4 video cards to dumbass number 1. Its like our gas prices today, first we were paying 1 buck a gal then 2 then 3 and soon 4, the onyl way it is going to stop is if the people say 'No" were not paying that price, and were not buying your gas cars. We want cheap gas and we want alternative fuel cars, untill we get that your out of business.
If we let the GPU companies keep making us buy more video cards soon it will be the norm and it will be much harder to stop.

Im no engineer but i don't see why we cant make a dual gpu, or a card with 2 GPUS instead of filling up our case with video cards that have no purpose other ran support a higher resolution.

Im with Nick on this one SLI is a cheap gimmick that serves no good purpose other than fill up nvidias pockets.

[ctjoyce]

The one card 2GPU has happened several times. 7950 GX2 / 6600GT Dual core etc etc. Its not that it can't be done, its just that as its been shown in the past two cards have always been better than two cores on one board.

Now I think I read something somewhere about ATi doing two cores on one card, and I would be interested to see how that ends up (if its actually happening and I'm not going crazy) maybe they can get it right?

Cheers
Cameron

[GunnerMan]

Yes they from what i read they are making a 2 GPU graphic card, so you can run something like 8 GPUs effective. Run out of motherboard space forces em onto the card I guess lol.

[NickN]

SLi and multicard Nvidia has value to graphics engineers who are designing ultra high resolution art work and 3D rendering. Other than that, its bull, total bull.



The single cores will run the games just fine and ATi will be forcing the bar up a notch too.

And yes, ATi's version of multicard is GAME geared, not the BS Nvidia pushed on the market. Each GPU will have access to each CPU core. So if you are running a quad card/dual GPU setup with a dual quad core processor, your GPU's will each have a private conversation with their own CPU core which is how AMD beat Intel well past the teraflop in a home box 10 months ago.

[GunnerMan]

I agree, but hey its business and nvidia knows if they can get something on the market it will sell. Hell I bought one. I told myself I was not going to buy an 8800 and then Crysis came along and I had no choise haha. I think Nvidia knows ATI has something up their sleeve thats why they are making the GT and the new GTS to compete with themselves. get a few last selling surges in before ATI catches up to them and they don't make so much money.  

Yeah maybe once this new ATI chip comes out is where AMD really starts to shine. Might not have the fastest proc but their unified tech is far superior to what Intel can do because Intel dosen't have nvidia working for them. Intel proc might wipe the floor in number crunch benchmarks but the AMD platform might rape it in gaming and 3d applications...

Time will tell and I am very interested to see how things work out. AMD could be smarter than we think....

[NickN]

Just a FYI

As of Nehalem, Intel will officially move to the x64 platform where the memory controller is in the proc. The same platform AMD has been using since the x64 was developed back in 2000 (military apps)


So now now perhaps you understand why Vista is a dog. Intel BS'd MS into developing for IA64 instead of x64 and as such the OS was a terd from day one. Intel did not drop the format change bomb until after Vista was released, and, that meant their processors had an edge with Vista over AMD... get it?

MS is sitting there with their finger up their .... wondering what happened... what happened is they were used by Intel to try and keep AMD down until they released their x64 version. The fact that AMD went sideways and bought ATi was a perk for them but when you look at AMD's decision to back oout of the market for that time, you understand why now. They knew what Intel had done and as such launching processors during the Vista release was a waste so why not re-group and attack from another angle while Intel was developing their x64 slug


And you wont read that in the tech sites either... but that is what really happened and how this mess all went down

[GunnerMan]

Makes sense, a lot actually and is kind of far fetched for anyone to concieve. kind of hard to understand why AMD took all of this extra time to release a proc and when it does come out it dosen't even perform to the companies own expectations. This is where big business rears it's ugly head, Intel fukx the OS up so they can keep the market share. Speaks a lot about the company, thats why i moved to amd and never looked back. If it werent for AMD we would probably still be sporting P4 on the incredibly craptastic Netburst and barely making the move to Dual core. Hehe Nick im sure you know a hellova lot more on what happens behind the scenes of these companies than me but it's fun to speculate. Thanks for that bit of info to think on though, id rather hear about this than who is running for president

[NickN]

                                         

[GunnerMan]

They must have a pretty big team on SP2 to recode an OS and implement fixes. I wonder how the fix/change log will read... "Previously the OS was written for IA64 because intel sucked our ..... , reworked code for full support of x64."