Quad Sli?

[SneaksieDave]

Oh good heavens. I am sooooo behind in hardware. (source: Blue's)

 

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=195

[oDDity]

Who in their right mind would buy it. I guess they could do a sales tour of mental hospitals.

[OrbWeaver]

Yeah, what the hell is the point? In six months to a year they will be releasing single graphics cards with the same performance as this 4-board setup, at a fraction of the price.

[Domarius]

IMO - the whole SLI thing is only for people who can afford to waste enough money to buy two when the cards are cutting edge.

 

OrbWeaver is right.

[Vadrosaul]

Actually I bought an SLI board so that I can extend the life of my board. I put just one card in it, and when the graphics start getting choppy, maybe 2 years down the road, the price of the exact same card will have dropped (it's already dropped by $90 in 6 months)

[obscurus]

You have to be careful to get *exactly* the same card though, or SLI won't work (even a slight firmware version difference can be enough to screw it up, or such is my understanding). Anyway, in 2 years time it will be better to buy a new mobo and graphics card...

SLI is all hype, as few people have money to spend on two identical graphics cards, let alone four. Since most gamers won't have a quad SLI rig, most games won't be written to take advantage of it, so there is not much value in having an SLI setup. Games are going to be increasingly written for consoles, and I suspect fewer and fewer games will make it to the PC platform. Meaning that uber 1337 hardware will be redundant for the vast majority of games. I'll personally be sticking with single graphics cards, I cna't justify the expense or the power consumption of SLI...

[OrbWeaver]

Actually I bought an SLI board so that I can extend the life of my board. I put just one card in it, and when the graphics start getting choppy, maybe 2 years down the road, the price of the exact same card will have dropped (it's already dropped by $90 in 6 months)

 

Are you sure that you get a better price/performance ratio by doing this, rather than just upgrading to a newer single graphics card?

 

Two years down the road, the midrange single cards will probably be faster than your two-year-old SLI setup.

[Zaccheus]

http://www.pcper.com/images/reviews/195/specs_2.jpg

 

I agree it would be nuts to buy one - though it's fun to read about it; a nice little pre-view of what will be 'normal' in a few years time.

[saxmeister]

In response to obscurus' comments, you don't have to have exactly the same card to work together anymore since the release of ForceWare 80 drivers. Apparently you can mix and match different manufacturers, different clock speeds, different memory configurations, they just need to be the same series of graphics processor (i.e. 6600GT & 6600GT, 6800 & 6800, 7800 & 7800, 7800GTX & 7800 GTX). So, it's not as limiting as it used to be.

 

A dual-6600GT s olution can be had for a fairly cheap price... even cheaper that a single 7800 solution. Just a thought....

[obscurus]

I was wondering if theyt would relax the SLI requirements - obviously it makes it a lot more viable if you can mix and match to a degree. I would still be cautious about mixing overly different cards though - they might be supported, but whether or not they will work reliably or with decent performance is another question. I would hazard a guess that mixing a low spec card with a higher spec card of the same series might create problems.

 

I still wouldn't bother with it personally, I am not hardcore enough of a gamer to be bothered about having the latest cutting edge gear, since I usually wait until games have been around for a year or two before buying them. That way my hardware is generally current enough for the games I buy, and I don't spend money on bleeding edge stuff that is riddled with bugs.

[Domarius]

What kind of speed increase would you notice anyway, and would it really justify the price?