SLI, Worth it?

[Vanquished]

Hey,
My friend has an SLI board with only one video card. Personally i think that SLI mother boards are really stupid without two cards, and really stupid at this current date...
I feel that by the time you have enough money/stupidity to buy a second same video card that you have now there will be a better one out there that does better than two obsolete cards together...
Although my friend has enough money to by a second video card as many times as he wants i think i've convinced him to hold off...
Anyways what do you guys think of SLI technology?
-Jack

 

[kcnychief]

Worth it if you will utilize the full potential, waste of money if not.

What will be the purpose(s) of this rig?

 

[Vanquished]

Well, mostly Gaming, my friend does Counterstrike Source and Fear, thats pretty much it... Right now.
All i can say is that my computer looks just as good as his and he has a newer video card not SLI'Ed though... So basically video gaming...
-Jack

 

[LeeJend]

The top end 7800 should be ok for any game out now, including FEAR. SLI is an insurance policy against next years games. Example:

Buy a 7800 SLI w/1 card now. Plays fine.
---Figure $50 extra for SLI MB + $499 top end 7800.

Next years version of FEAR that is GPU intensive comes out.
---Go full SLI with a 7800 for ~$350 (price drop since it's last years card)
OR
---Buy a new "8800" for $599 (new card pluis inflation) minus $250 (sell 7800).

Price comes out slighly in favor of not doing SLI (SLI MB/vid cards carry a $50price premium each or more).

Then there are the secondary considerations:
-Wasted electricity from 2 cards & using last years larger geeometry chipsets
--This is not trivial at 120W per vid card.
-Cost of larger power supply?
-Need more case cooling/csae crowding.
-Noise increase.
-Issues with getting SLI to work with everything you play/hand tuning the config files manually.

Of course predicting what the pricing differentials are going to be is a crap shoot. It can swing either way as market pressures change.


Personal opinion-
Dual cards has been done before and always died out. The economics business case is not there. Dual GPUs flopped also.

Go for single, top of line, non SLI GPU and plan on upgrading / selling old about every 12-16 months.