It's that time again... I've been thinking of putting together a new system. Since it's been a while, I've had to do some research on the new tech that's out there, and SLI owns me.
For those who don't know, SLI lets you run two video cards simultaneously, which share video processing duties (they either render alternate frames or split the rendering of each frame). The only catch is that you have to have a motherboard that supports SLI and you have to have two video cards based on the same chipset that also support it. Only certain nVidia cards can run SLI right now so the options are a little limited.
One way to take advanatge of SLI is to get more bang for your buck from two cheaper video cards. The 6600GT, a solid card that's starting to show a little age, is around $100. Two of them running SLI will outperform the $250 6800GT.
Of course, then you're stuck buying two more video cards once you want more power.
Another option is to use SLI as a cheap way to keep your video hardware current. With SLI, if you buy one decent video card at the outset, you can toss another one in as the system ages to more than double the video performance. For example, the "vanilla" GeForce 6800 is more than capable of handling any game currently on the market. Right now you can get one for about $150. If you put one of these into an SLI system, two or three years down the road when you need to upgrade you can just buy another one instead of having to buy a newer card and replacing your old one -- and by that time, the prices will have dropped, so you can keep your machine current for $100 or less.
Needless to say, I'm going SLI with my next system. What's even better is that since the technology has been on the market for almost two years now, you don't have to pay early adopter costs; Socket 939 (Athlon 64/FX/X2) motherboards that support SLI start around $80.
For those who don't know, SLI lets you run two video cards simultaneously, which share video processing duties (they either render alternate frames or split the rendering of each frame). The only catch is that you have to have a motherboard that supports SLI and you have to have two video cards based on the same chipset that also support it. Only certain nVidia cards can run SLI right now so the options are a little limited.
One way to take advanatge of SLI is to get more bang for your buck from two cheaper video cards. The 6600GT, a solid card that's starting to show a little age, is around $100. Two of them running SLI will outperform the $250 6800GT.
Of course, then you're stuck buying two more video cards once you want more power.
Another option is to use SLI as a cheap way to keep your video hardware current. With SLI, if you buy one decent video card at the outset, you can toss another one in as the system ages to more than double the video performance. For example, the "vanilla" GeForce 6800 is more than capable of handling any game currently on the market. Right now you can get one for about $150. If you put one of these into an SLI system, two or three years down the road when you need to upgrade you can just buy another one instead of having to buy a newer card and replacing your old one -- and by that time, the prices will have dropped, so you can keep your machine current for $100 or less.
Needless to say, I'm going SLI with my next system. What's even better is that since the technology has been on the market for almost two years now, you don't have to pay early adopter costs; Socket 939 (Athlon 64/FX/X2) motherboards that support SLI start around $80.