Question for April mag!

Post by **Nab** » 29 Feb 2008, 08:39

Graphics cards, quantity or quality? Are Crossfire and Sli sales ploys or the best thing since sliced bread?

po10cy · Post by **po10cy** » 29 Feb 2008, 08:42

i think its a sales ploy, just to make more money from those overclockers and benchy ppl, cause a single card does provide enough grunt for your needs. powerhungry users, who just want bragging rights will buy ANOTHER 8800gts just to say they can and have, even tho its not necessary.

Mori · Post by **Mori** » 29 Feb 2008, 08:48

Quality over quantity..

DarkRanger · Post by **DarkRanger** » 29 Feb 2008, 08:49

In short: Crossfire/SLI is not worth it. So I go with Quality over Quantity. Why take out 7 Grand for two 8800GT's and a proper SLi board when you can just buy a 8800GTX or Ultra?

qace · Post by **qace** » 29 Feb 2008, 09:34

I think SLI was great when it was released , but now it is not worth it. It just seems wasting your money buying 2 graphic cards when you can rather install one fast graphic card and upgrade your cpu and ram.

Website · Post by **hamin_aus** » 29 Feb 2008, 09:43

I think there will always be a small and dedicated market for SLI.

There are individuals out there who will want to push for those extra few frames, that slightly smoother look and feel, and of course - that holy grail - the highest scoring benchmark!

As long as there are dedicated overclockers with money to spend, there will be people spending outlandish amounts of money on SLI rigs.

DarkRanger wrote:Why take out 7 Grand for two 8800GT's and a proper SLi board when you can just buy a 8800GTX or Ultra?

Why run one 8800GTX when you can run 2

It's their money and as long as they are spending it on what makes them happy, I say more power to them.
Huzzah, Consumerism!

Synthesis · Post by **Synthesis** » 29 Feb 2008, 09:55

If you look at the market majority here, SLI is aimed at gamers, right? Ok, so in essence all SLI is giving you is a higher framerate. So if you have a HUGE monitor and want want bragging rights, then SLI is for you, only you're not the majority. Game developers want as many people as possible to play their games, not just the wealthy.

Hman · Post by **Hman** » 29 Feb 2008, 10:03

SLI / Crossfire is only really feasible if you have two cheaper mid-range cards for less than a single high end card and get the same performance, or when you have a insanely large monitor like the Dell 30 incher.

Post by **Ron2K** » 29 Feb 2008, 10:14

It depends on the application. If your idea of gaming is DotA at 1280x1024, you don't need SLI. If, however, you want to run Crysis at 2560x1600 at full detail with all the fancy DX10 effects, anything less than two 8800GTX cards in SLI isn't going to cut it.

Personally, I would like to see a shift away from SLI, and instead see multi-core GPU's. Not everyone owns a SLI or a Crossfire motherboard, so this could work out well for everyone. Not too far off from the 7950GX2 of old; the difference being that you wouldn't have two seperate GPU's on two seperate boards. After all, this did work rather well for CPU's, didn't it?

And then, there's the bragging rights. "My rig, consisting of a QX9650, 8GB DDR3 RAM and four 8800GTX cards in Quad-SLI gets a six-figure 3DMark score..." - ya, you get the point.

The nice thing about SLI and Crossfire is that it's a decent upgrade option. If you already have an 8800GT and your rig is getting outdated but you can't splash out on a new one, just throw another graphics card in.

Samaya · Post by **Samaya** » 29 Feb 2008, 11:18

SLI and Crossfire is a good marketing strategy but that is all. Get tomorrows performance today. Much like Absa's adverts - today, tomorrow, together - the problem is that Absa's banking fees costs an arm and a leg and so does SLI. Ok put 2 8600gts's in SLI and you get the performance of a 8800GTS 320MB? I don't think so...

If you have a 8800gt 512MB card and your game play starts to get all choppy and so on, getting another 8800gt probably wont make a big difference. PLUS if games get choppy on a 8800gt based PC - you need a new PC.

Mog · Post by **Mog** » 01 Mar 2008, 11:49

While there will always be a small market for multiple graphic cards in one system, the majority of gamers is better off buying one card and stashing the difference in a savings account for a subsequent upgrade. They'll get all the latest features the newer card boasts without breaking the bank twice.
Anything over 20fps is unnoticeable to the human eye anyway, so no point in trying to get beyond that.

cYcLIc · Post by **cYcLIc** » 01 Mar 2008, 12:07

DarkRanger wrote:In short: Crossfire/SLI is not worth it. So I go with Quality over Quantity. Why take out 7 Grand for two 8800GT's and a proper SLi board when you can just buy a 8800GTX or Ultra?

Because should one get messed up, you always have a backup in the second card.

To answer The Nab, Quality or quantity....depends on the pricing involved.

WiK1d · Post by **WiK1d** » 01 Mar 2008, 12:31

If you have the money, why not?

Stevo · Post by **Stevo** » 01 Mar 2008, 13:19

WiK1d wrote:If you have the money, why not?

What he said !!!

B0r0m1r · Post by **B0r0m1r** » 01 Mar 2008, 14:02

Sli/crossfire is mostly a marketing gimmick, but can come in handy if you have a sli/crossfire mobo, and a older gfx card. It is good to know that you can buy a secondhand gfx card that you can drop in beside your other one

PCFormat Forum Archive

Question for April mag!

Question for April mag!

Marketing ploy