SLi

[Gef]

I bought a new PC last year at some point, its all SLi ready, Athlon 64 3500, Gig of fast Corsair memory and a GeForce 6800 card, specifically This card now my question is, if I buy a second one for £90 would the performance boost be worth it? I was playing Oblivion last night and it was quite choppy at times, it seems like a great game and i'm not willing to fork out £400 for a 360 just for one game.

 

[Aada]

I bought a new PC last year at some point, its all SLi ready, Athlon 64 3500, Gig of fast Corsair memory and a GeForce 6800 card, specifically This card now my question is, if I buy a second one for £90 would the performance boost be worth it? I was playing Oblivion last night and it was quite choppy at times, it seems like a great game and i'm not willing to fork out £400 for a 360 just for one game.

Ahhhhhhh the SLI debate.

Oblivion doesn't use SLI and neither do any other games i know of so people with 2 cards are getting the same performance as with someone with just 1 card.

And for you info the 6800 aint all that good now.. if you want a great Oblivion experiance you either fork out £300+ for a 7800/x1600 or you go for the 360 version which works right off the bat with all the eye candy.

My shiney new x850pro 256mb i bought before christmas would run oblivion on high settings but with AA off and some other bits even then the game would chug along according to people who have my card+oblivion, if i wanted a framerate free game i would have to have the settings on medium.. not something im prepared to do with one of the most visualy stunning games out atm.

You could probably do with 2 gig of ram too like me.. with 2 gig you notice a boost in performance on games like BF2 etc.

This is the main reason why i bought a 360.. don't want to be forking out hundreds of £ for a graphics card only to find out a new one is out in 2 months time. In a years time devs will have harnessed the power of the 360 and you will be seeing amazing games, while PC gaming is slowly going nowhere.

Also where do you get £400 for a 360 for? £280+ £50 you do the math, you'll be forking out more or less for a new gfx card.

 

[Gef]

Ahhhhhhh the SLI debate.

Oblivion doesn't use SLI and neither do any other games i know of so people with 2 cards are getting the same performance as with someone with just 1 card.

That really wasnt very helpful, and I have no idea where you get your information, but EVERY game can benefit from SLi, and Oblivion has actually been optimised for it..

http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone2_game.html

I already said I dont want to fork out £300 for an upgrade, hence I was asking if a CHEAP £90 upgrade would be worth it.. and I know the 6800 isnt the best card on the market (its almost/over a year old) but its CHEAP, and two working in tandem cant be a bad thing. I know there are a tonne of different SLi setups, one of which allows you to use one card purely for FSAA .. cant be a bad thing.

 

[Aada]

That really wasnt very helpful, and I have no idea where you get your information, but EVERY game can benefit from SLi, and Oblivion has actually been optimised for it..

http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone2_game.html

I already said I dont want to fork out £300 for an upgrade, hence I was asking if a CHEAP £90 upgrade would be worth it.. and I know the 6800 isnt the best card on the market (its almost/over a year old) but its CHEAP, and two working in tandem cant be a bad thing. I know there are a tonne of different SLi setups, one of which allows you to use one card purely for FSAA .. cant be a bad thing.

I wasn't trying to be unhelpful but the fact is SLI isn't really being used and willing to put money on if you got another card you'll not see much performance increase. Sure they can beneifit but they don't use SLI to its full worth and thats why you won't see much difference. If you really wanted to see the difference then like i said you will have to go for a 7800/x1600. Some how i really doubt another 6800 is going make alot of difference dude.

Go for the card man it seems like the only way your going to enjoy Oblivion abit more, reading around PC boards it seems Nividia cards are the ones having the most framerate issues.

 

[Moriath]

aada your taking crap ..
SLi is used in a number of games and is becoming more and more mainstream for the top end systems.

even if there isnt a profile for SLI for the game you want you can set up one that will allow you to take advantage of higher fps.

you should get like between 50 and 70% performance boost from 2 cards over 1 .

you should get higher fps but it depends on what rezz / details you are playing with as to how smooth it will be

 

[Danya]

Aada, maybe you should actually use an sli system before shooting your mouth off?

 

[smurkin]

You might want to try updating your exisiting 6800 drivers before doing anything - I don't have any specific information that this will help, but newer drivers are more likely to have been optimised for your game. ould make a big difference. After that, I'd go for the SLI.

 

[Panda On Smack]

On the subject of SLI, i have an XFX 7800GT. Do i have to get the exact same card again if i want SLI or can it just be any 7800GT?

Thanks

 

[Clown]

Any 7800GT with the same BIOS.

 

[Danya]

With latest drivers, any GT will do fine.

 

[TdC]

I have a pretty hefty computer: two 7800GT’s, 2048mb ram, amd X2 4400+ and the game runs like a dog when I’m outside. like a 10fps dog! maybe it’s one of those games that doesn’t like SLI. or maybe I’m just pushing it with 1280x1024 and everything maxed out note: mind you I had 4xAA on at the time and was running about in full daylight with full grass on and everything heheh

I have the driver set to use both GPU's at all times mind. Btw, I've changed from Bloom lighting and 4xAA to HDR lighting...and that raised the framerate somewhat. Also, I reset the grass distance and shadows to their defaults which also helped. Upping the grass to one notch above default can hardly be seen (but will be felt in the framerate loss right away), so look out. Maybe I'm doing something wrong with the driver though, it's the latest version available from nVidia and set up through some guides I like

On all other games (and Oblivion too), tbh my studied opinion is that SLI is *not* worth it. Imo you will be better off with another gig of ram and one of the newer gfx cards, like a 1900 or 7900. They're not too nastilly priced, at least not like what I bought my 7800GT's for ;/ I say that, but, through discussion here, I do now agree that if you can get another 6800 on the cheap then then you will certainly enjoy the extra performance. Just as long as you can get the other card as cheap as you can. Still, another gig of ram will also help you along, expecially with games like BF2 and stuff.

 

[Danya]

TBH tdc that sounds a bit odd as I get decent outdoor FPS with standard options (HDR) and dual 6800GTs at 1680x1050 (1920x1200 is a bit choppy alas).

 

[TdC]

nah matey, it was me: I had 4xAA and full grass/shadows on at the time. I now have default settings for the grass and stuff and HDR on. game runs just fine