What are your plans for SLI? - Page 4

RBIEZE · 31-March-05, 11:55 PM

Sli is the best . I built my system for under $1500. 3DMark 03. 14250

amd64 3000 / 2 x nvidia 6600gt @571 gpu. 1170 mem.(sli mode)

BigAkita · 09-April-05, 08:00 PM

I plan on a pair of XFX 6600GT cards on a DFI LanPary NF4 board. I can't afford almost a grand for a pair of 6800 cards, so I figure a pair of cards running DD3 memory and highly overclocked ought to game pretty good.

Coelacanth · 12-April-05, 09:58 AM

Hmm, that's a great idea, actually...kinda like when people used to run dual Celerons and Durons on motherboards that didn't "officially" support it. However, speaking for myself, I could barely afford a GF6600 256M card, let alone two GF6600 GT's. I think my problem is having more than one mod project on the go simultaneously...damn money pit, I tell ya!

From the reviews I've read, though, the performance isn't anywhere near twice as good, so I voted the "suck money out of us gimmick" option.

Benz · 18-April-05, 11:28 PM

I voted to gradually upgrade, quick question has ati released anything similar to this yet?? or do they have anything in the works?

shadow66 · 19-April-05, 02:35 PM

I recently purchased a few parts from an online company to put together an SLI-modded monster machine, I call "Beauty". Although setting up my WD SATA HDD's in striped array made me want to pitch the whole thing out of the window, I have yet to be unimpressed with this new technology. As it stands, this machine is an unholy beast, capable of video rendering that makes this single man choose celibacy rather than spend 1 minute away from my gorgeous mechanical mistress.(And I wonder why I'm single!

) I only have 1 6800gt that is slightly OC'd w/coolbits and playing HL2 leaves me shaking and feeling like reality slipped past me and into my CRT. I have found paradise and a new reason to exist! When the goblin that lives in my shed gives me another 400 dollars I'll get another vid card and see what this beast can really do. Until then, I'll wait in trembling anticipation.................

GOD, I need therapy!

When you wish upon a star(or ask a goblin that lives in your shed),
your SLI dreams come true!

$SOLID$ Necro · 20-April-05, 04:21 PM

Just in case the new guys are wondering what SLI 6800 Ultras look like in 3DMARK 05 with a bit of tweekin (on air)

This is what the game looks like with "View Load Balancing" enabled in the NVIDIA control panel

11531 3DMARK05 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=777881

24722 3DMARK03 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3900928

320573DMARK 01 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=8537702

Digital-World · 20-April-05, 11:08 PM

SHOWOFF!!! hahahaha........Good score man....
To bad I got your gear .......PFTTTTT!!!! Sitcks out toungue....
HAHAHAHA

$SOLID$ Necro · 21-April-05, 08:00 PM

You may have my gear, but ya must not know what to do with it...

J/K, but I haven't seen any new high scores ORB'd yet

ZootCadillac · 24-April-05, 04:09 PM

...back in 1999. Had ( and still have, gathering dust somewhere) two Voodo 5 5500's running in sli. 4 GPU's ( support for 32 in SLI mode) with 16 pipelines and all that 6 years ago.
As for using SLI these days, even though I am a complete tech whore, that would be a resounding NO for two reasons.
The first being that I have two X800XT's and a 9800 pro in my three main rigs and a Hightech X850XT platinum edition ordered Friday so it begs the question, what would be the point? I can't see any combination of Nvidia cards giving me any kind of noticeable performance hike and I have no interest in boasting numbers at some 'my ****'s bigger than your ****' overclockers site, I'm 40 not 4.
The second reason is that I will never use an Nvidia product as long as I have a hole in my ass. This bring;s me nicely back to the Voodoo cards, they cost me Ã‚Â£249 each back in 1999 and I would have bought a V 5 6000 ( 4 GPU's on 1 card in SLI ) had 3dfx not held up the UK release fearing that the $600 pricetag was going to be a bit rich for our market. They never got the chance, you see back in the late 90's Nvidia were just another so so video card producer who were technologically running third behind ATI and 3dfx.
3dfx were a small company in comparison but their products were streets ahead so Nvidia stole the ir competitors technology. There was a 1998 patent infringement case and 3dfx were due to win it with expected damages running into many millions of dollars so what did Nvidia do? They bought the company, took all the proprietry tech they needed including GigaPixels low power chip tech and promptly shut down 3dfx including all support and driver updates. Ã‚Â£500 I spent and 3 months later was unable to find a driver to run the latest games. I'm not Nvidia's biggest fan as you can well imagine. The FX cards that Nvidia produce today are all based on the technology that they took from 3dfx labs because it was quite clear that they did not have the technical know how to come up with the technology to compete without infringeing copyright.
I will continue to purchase ATI's excellent cards as and when they are released and I could not care less what the price is, just so long as it does not go into nvidia's pockets. It's a good job I am not a very rich man as i dream of buying out Nvidia just to close them down!

ZootCadillac · 24-April-05, 04:11 PM

Oh and sorry for the language in the above post, It was my first post and i'm not aware of how severe the swear filter is.

St8ic · 24-April-05, 07:26 PM

Quote:


	I plan to close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears and sing "LALALALALA" until it goes away.

My plan exactly.

Highperf15 · 26-April-05, 11:33 AM

Why have two cards when ATI is currently working on "duel-core GPU" cards that will perform as good if not better than Nvidia's "two-card" concept.......

Seyeklopz · 26-April-05, 01:22 PM

Isn't there an sli dual gpu nvidia card? One card, but it uses both pci channels?

Or was it two dual gpu nvidia cards in sli?

$SOLID$ Necro · 28-April-05, 06:03 PM

I know Gigabyte makes one, there may be others.

http://tw.giga-byte.com/VGA/News/News_105.htm

Review: http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzEy

Highperf15 · 29-April-05, 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by $SOLID$ Necro


	I know Gigabyte makes one, there may be others. http://tw.giga-byte.com/VGA/News/News_105.htm Review: http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzEy

Yeah.......But according to Hardocp......that card comes ONLY bundled w/ the specific Gigabyte mobo........meaning you can't purchase the card separately..........looked good performance - wise though......

Belgianwaffles · 30-April-05, 09:00 PM

i heard alienware is making it's own sli style system. it's called video array and from what i understand it uses it's own mobo called the X2 and can work with any graphics card (yes it works with ati), although it's limited to using 2 of the exact same cards like sli. But unfortunutly it seems like there's no AMD support, the mobo uses the intel 7525 chipset.

the site also claims that video arrays can be expanded to more than 2 vid cards but I think they have their hands full as it is so i don't expect crazy quadruple card systems anytime soon.

Alienware claims it can reach 100% performance increase compared to one card but from what i've read around the net it's more like 70% under full load and 50% under light load.

of course it's being developed in house so the price will be astronomical and it doesn't look like they are planning on selling it outside of thier own boxes. and no info on a release date either.

http://www.alienware.com/alx_pages/main_content.aspx

$SOLID$ Necro · 02-May-05, 05:01 AM

They were actually the first one on Desktop with a modern SLI system using ATi video cards, but they were never sold to the public as far as I know.

There was a good article on it in Maximum PC way back with a preview of what they were told was going to be avaialble, but the tech kinda fizzled when NVIDIA hit the market full force shortly after....my guess it was just to expensive and buggy at the time.

xgeko2 · 12-June-05, 05:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drougnor


	To be honest, I'd get it now, because I strangely enjoy working the bugs outta new stuff. Always have . . . Can probably blame that on my friend who helped me install the 13 floppy version of windows 95 back in the day . . .

lmao i know exactly what you mean i had the 13floppy version of windows95 version c that was some great fun what driver issues wtf

but yea anyways getting a sli system now is worth it because there will always be newer sli based cards that come out so you can get something medeocore like dual 6600gt's then upgrade later when you have more cashe to experiment with.

31-March-05, 11:55 PM	#61 (permalink)
RBIEZE Apex Tech Demi-God Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Northern Illinois,In the basement ,programing my CnC mill Posts: 1,767	robs-SLI Sli is the best . I built my system for under $1500. 3DMark 03. 14250 amd64 3000 / 2 x nvidia 6600gt @571 gpu. 1170 mem.(sli mode) Last edited by RBIEZE; 10-April-05 at 12:08 AM.

09-April-05, 08:00 PM	#62 (permalink)
BigAkita n00b-ass reviewer Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Nirvana Posts: 14,313	I plan on a pair of XFX 6600GT cards on a DFI LanPary NF4 board. I can't afford almost a grand for a pair of 6800 cards, so I figure a pair of cards running DD3 memory and highly overclocked ought to game pretty good. __________________ "I'll stop being an A-Hole if you will stop being an Idiot."

12-April-05, 09:58 AM	#63 (permalink)
Coelacanth Apex Tech God Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Alberta, Canada Posts: 5,993	Hmm, that's a great idea, actually...kinda like when people used to run dual Celerons and Durons on motherboards that didn't "officially" support it. However, speaking for myself, I could barely afford a GF6600 256M card, let alone two GF6600 GT's. I think my problem is having more than one mod project on the go simultaneously...damn money pit, I tell ya! From the reviews I've read, though, the performance isn't anywhere near twice as good, so I voted the "suck money out of us gimmick" option. __________________ Flipping the bird at 400 million years of evolution "If assholes could fly, the skies would be black!" "The human brain can be amazingly resistant to accepting an inconvenient truth" ~Moi Completed Projects & Worklogs: Charger Gothic Gargoyle Pisces Micro-Blaze Modding On The Cheap View My Gallery

18-April-05, 11:28 PM	#64 (permalink)
Benz Apex Techie II Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Orlando Posts: 93	I voted to gradually upgrade, quick question has ati released anything similar to this yet?? or do they have anything in the works? __________________

19-April-05, 02:35 PM	#65 (permalink)
shadow66 Apex Techie Wannabe Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Amarillo, Texas(Home of ragweed, tumbleweeds, and rednecks!) Posts: 5	My SLI machine I recently purchased a few parts from an online company to put together an SLI-modded monster machine, I call "Beauty". Although setting up my WD SATA HDD's in striped array made me want to pitch the whole thing out of the window, I have yet to be unimpressed with this new technology. As it stands, this machine is an unholy beast, capable of video rendering that makes this single man choose celibacy rather than spend 1 minute away from my gorgeous mechanical mistress.(And I wonder why I'm single! ) I only have 1 6800gt that is slightly OC'd w/coolbits and playing HL2 leaves me shaking and feeling like reality slipped past me and into my CRT. I have found paradise and a new reason to exist! When the goblin that lives in my shed gives me another 400 dollars I'll get another vid card and see what this beast can really do. Until then, I'll wait in trembling anticipation................. GOD, I need therapy! When you wish upon a star(or ask a goblin that lives in your shed), your SLI dreams come true!

20-April-05, 04:21 PM	#66 (permalink)
$SOLID$ Necro Mastah Overclocker Join Date: May 2003 Location: Lima, Ohio Posts: 7,217	Just in case the new guys are wondering what SLI 6800 Ultras look like in 3DMARK 05 with a bit of tweekin (on air) This is what the game looks like with "View Load Balancing" enabled in the NVIDIA control panel 11531 3DMARK05 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=777881 24722 3DMARK03 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3900928 320573DMARK 01 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=8537702 __________________ Join the PC Apex "Overclock and Benchmark" team today! Click Here! Necro's "Ultimate Links" Collection Click Here! Last edited by $SOLID$ Necro; 21-April-05 at 08:10 PM.

20-April-05, 11:08 PM	#67 (permalink)
Digital-World Old Skool Pimp Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Naked in a bean bag eating cheetos! Posts: 2,669	SHOWOFF!!! hahahaha........Good score man.... To bad I got your gear .......PFTTTTT!!!! Sitcks out toungue.... HAHAHAHA __________________

21-April-05, 08:00 PM	#68 (permalink)
$SOLID$ Necro Mastah Overclocker Join Date: May 2003 Location: Lima, Ohio Posts: 7,217	You may have my gear, but ya must not know what to do with it... J/K, but I haven't seen any new high scores ORB'd yet __________________ Join the PC Apex "Overclock and Benchmark" team today! Click Here! Necro's "Ultimate Links" Collection Click Here! Last edited by $SOLID$ Necro; 21-April-05 at 08:09 PM.

24-April-05, 04:09 PM	#69 (permalink)
ZootCadillac Apex Techie Wannabe Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 15	SLI? Been there, done that.... ...back in 1999. Had ( and still have, gathering dust somewhere) two Voodo 5 5500's running in sli. 4 GPU's ( support for 32 in SLI mode) with 16 pipelines and all that 6 years ago. As for using SLI these days, even though I am a complete tech whore, that would be a resounding NO for two reasons. The first being that I have two X800XT's and a 9800 pro in my three main rigs and a Hightech X850XT platinum edition ordered Friday so it begs the question, what would be the point? I can't see any combination of Nvidia cards giving me any kind of noticeable performance hike and I have no interest in boasting numbers at some 'my **'s bigger than your **' overclockers site, I'm 40 not 4. The second reason is that I will never use an Nvidia product as long as I have a hole in my ass. This bring;s me nicely back to the Voodoo cards, they cost me Ã‚Â£249 each back in 1999 and I would have bought a V 5 6000 ( 4 GPU's on 1 card in SLI ) had 3dfx not held up the UK release fearing that the $600 pricetag was going to be a bit rich for our market. They never got the chance, you see back in the late 90's Nvidia were just another so so video card producer who were technologically running third behind ATI and 3dfx. 3dfx were a small company in comparison but their products were streets ahead so Nvidia stole the ir competitors technology. There was a 1998 patent infringement case and 3dfx were due to win it with expected damages running into many millions of dollars so what did Nvidia do? They bought the company, took all the proprietry tech they needed including GigaPixels low power chip tech and promptly shut down 3dfx including all support and driver updates. Ã‚Â£500 I spent and 3 months later was unable to find a driver to run the latest games. I'm not Nvidia's biggest fan as you can well imagine. The FX cards that Nvidia produce today are all based on the technology that they took from 3dfx labs because it was quite clear that they did not have the technical know how to come up with the technology to compete without infringeing copyright. I will continue to purchase ATI's excellent cards as and when they are released and I could not care less what the price is, just so long as it does not go into nvidia's pockets. It's a good job I am not a very rich man as i dream of buying out Nvidia just to close them down!

24-April-05, 04:11 PM	#70 (permalink)
ZootCadillac Apex Techie Wannabe Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 15	Oh and sorry for the language in the above post, It was my first post and i'm not aware of how severe the swear filter is.

26-April-05, 11:33 AM	#72 (permalink)
Highperf15 a.k.a., Frank Bullitt Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Have Gun ....Will Travel..... Posts: 3,891	Why have two cards when ATI is currently working on "duel-core GPU" cards that will perform as good if not better than Nvidia's "two-card" concept....... __________________

26-April-05, 01:22 PM	#73 (permalink)
Seyeklopz Apex Tech Fanatic Supreme Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Fredericton Posts: 712	Isn't there an sli dual gpu nvidia card? One card, but it uses both pci channels? Or was it two dual gpu nvidia cards in sli? __________________

28-April-05, 06:03 PM	#74 (permalink)
$SOLID$ Necro Mastah Overclocker Join Date: May 2003 Location: Lima, Ohio Posts: 7,217	I know Gigabyte makes one, there may be others. http://tw.giga-byte.com/VGA/News/News_105.htm Review: http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzEy __________________ Join the PC Apex "Overclock and Benchmark" team today! Click Here! Necro's "Ultimate Links" Collection Click Here!

30-April-05, 09:00 PM	#76 (permalink)
Belgianwaffles Apex Master Tech Apprentice Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Salina, Kansas Posts: 215	i heard alienware is making it's own sli style system. it's called video array and from what i understand it uses it's own mobo called the X2 and can work with any graphics card (yes it works with ati), although it's limited to using 2 of the exact same cards like sli. But unfortunutly it seems like there's no AMD support, the mobo uses the intel 7525 chipset. the site also claims that video arrays can be expanded to more than 2 vid cards but I think they have their hands full as it is so i don't expect crazy quadruple card systems anytime soon. Alienware claims it can reach 100% performance increase compared to one card but from what i've read around the net it's more like 70% under full load and 50% under light load. of course it's being developed in house so the price will be astronomical and it doesn't look like they are planning on selling it outside of thier own boxes. and no info on a release date either. http://www.alienware.com/alx_pages/main_content.aspx

02-May-05, 05:01 AM	#77 (permalink)
$SOLID$ Necro Mastah Overclocker Join Date: May 2003 Location: Lima, Ohio Posts: 7,217	They were actually the first one on Desktop with a modern SLI system using ATi video cards, but they were never sold to the public as far as I know. There was a good article on it in Maximum PC way back with a preview of what they were told was going to be avaialble, but the tech kinda fizzled when NVIDIA hit the market full force shortly after....my guess it was just to expensive and buggy at the time. __________________ Join the PC Apex "Overclock and Benchmark" team today! Click Here! Necro's "Ultimate Links" Collection Click Here!