Worth Investing in SLI?

_Gawd_

When building a setup I can see that for a novice such as myself the process usually goes like, more shiny = better. But somewhere along the line surely there comes a point where you cross the line of diminishing returns....

So I'm getting this graphics card..
http://www1.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsps?aid=46795&agid=1004

Would it be worth investing in another for SLI? Or is it unnecessary given what it will do for the price it costs?

dwighet

_Gawd_ wrote: »

When building a setup I can see that for a novice such as myself the process usually goes like, more shiny = better. But somewhere along the line surely there comes a point where you cross the line of diminishing returns....

So I'm getting this graphics card..
http://www1.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsps?aid=46795&agid=1004

Would it be worth investing in another for SLI? Or is it unnecessary given what it will do for the price it costs?

mate if you havnt already bought the 6870 and am willing to spend another 150 snots to go sli I would be more inclined to go for this
Also after reading your other thred you may need to up you psu a bit...Im not sure but 450 watts may be on the borderline...

frozenfrozen

Definitely always go for the higher 1 card solution instead of buying to sli. You will be let down with the performance of one since you're going to be looking at sli benchmarks and then when you finally do get the second one they're old tech. It's also much easier to sell a single high end gpu rather than two low end ones down the line because people will want to sli with their one high end card.

Definitely do that unless you don't need the performance. Benchmarks are always nice to see huge numbers in but that 150 quid is still 150 quid you could save if you don't actually need to spend it. If you're not going for the top of the top of the top end stuff, your benchmark scores mean nothing because there's always going to be someone who spent 20 grand more than you on their rig. (So optimistic, I know!)

That 150 you would be saving could also go into buying maybe your first or a second ssd, which except for in games could give you a huge performance increase.

TheDoc

frozenfrozen wrote: »

That 150 you would be saving could also go into buying maybe your first or a second ssd, which except for in games could give you a huge performance increase.

You get significant boosts for games. Its the only reason I got my SSD's.

Battlefield 3
World of warcraft
Diablo 3
Starcraft 2
League of legends

All experienced significant boosts in performance and load times using SSD. For wow this was most noticable with how quickly zones loaded etc.

tylercollins

Noob question here, what is SLI?

dwighet

tylercollins wrote: »

Noob question here, what is SLI?

"SLI" is running 2x nvidea graphics cards..
"CROSSFIRE" is running 2x ati graphics cards..

frozenfrozen

TheDoc wrote: »

You get significant boosts for games. Its the only reason I got my SSD's.

Battlefield 3
World of warcraft
Diablo 3
Starcraft 2
League of legends

All experienced significant boosts in performance and load times using SSD. For wow this was most noticable with how quickly zones loaded etc.

Even better, then! More reasons to not sli and to get an ssd

Skylinehead

Could probably get a 7850 and a 128GB SSD for something like the price of two 6870s.

Tea_Bag

@OP

don't get that GPU either way. I see your into BF3, which is one of the few games (for now) that likes lots of vram. I'd be getting a 2gb 7870 on your budget:

www2.hardwareversand.de/2048+MB/57697/Sapphire+HD+7870+2GB+GDDR5+PCI-Express.article

Skylinehead

Tea_Bag wrote: »

@OP

don't get that GPU either way. I see your into BF3, which is one of the few games (for now) that likes lots of vram. I'd be getting a 2gb 7870 on your budget:

www2.hardwareversand.de/2048+MB/57697/Sapphire+HD+7870+2GB+GDDR5+PCI-Express.article

If he doesn't have an SSD I'd say get a 64gig SSD with a 7850 instead, will improve his PC more than just a graphics card will.

Tea_Bag

yea. it all depends on budget though.

hell a 7850 is a mahhoooosive upgrade from his xbox anyway.

_Gawd_

Too late, gents. I've already purchased the 6870 - it will do me for a little while until I can get some money together to upgrade again (perhaps before the Summers end). What are the specs of an XB or PS3 out of pure interest if anyone knows.....

frozenfrozen

_Gawd_ wrote: »

Too late, gents. I've already purchased the 6870 - it will do me for a little while until I can get some money together to upgrade again (perhaps before the Summers end). What are the specs of an XB or PS3 out of pure interest if anyone knows.....

Completely different beasts but ps3 has a single 3.2ghz processor. They can't really be compared.

Tea_Bag

you can't compare them really, the consoles have direct compute style abilities, meaning developers get low level access to the hardware, unlike PC, where they run through an API making it more inefficient.

the ps3 has 256mb of RAM, which has become a huge problem for games like skyrim.

glynf

_Gawd_ wrote: »

Too late, gents. I've already purchased the 6870 - it will do me for a little while until I can get some money together to upgrade again (perhaps before the Summers end). What are the specs of an XB or PS3 out of pure interest if anyone knows.....

Not too late at all, there is a 2 week withdrawal period allowed for all european online retailers-you can return a product no questions asked.