Galaxy 7th Week of Christmas Give-Aways!

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2 Video cards are better than 1 because on the internet...its all about e-penis.
 
two video cards are better than one... because one is the loneliest number... that and SLI enabled triple screen surround gaming kicks ass.
 
Why are two cards better than one? More poooowwwuuuhhhh!!!!

I might actually be able to max out Metero 2033 at 5040x1050 with those GTX460's. Want!
 
7th week already!

Seems like it just started a couple weeks ago. Holidays flying by.
 
When you can get performance near or better for equal or less price, that ALWAYS makes 2 cards better than one.
 
SLI allows two or more graphics processing units (GPUs) to share the workload when rendering a 3D scene. Ideally, two identical graphics cards are installed in a motherboard that contains two PCI-Express x16 slots, set up in a master-slave configuration. Both cards are given the same part of the 3D scene to render, but effectively half of the work load is sent to the slave card through a connector called the SLI Bridge. As an example, the master card works on the top half of the scene while the slave card works on the bottom half. When the slave card is done, it sends its output to the master card, which combines the two images to form one and then outputs the final render to the monitor.

In its early implementations, motherboards capable of SLI required a special card ("paddle card") which came with the motherboard. This card would fit into a socket usually located between both of the PCI-Express x16 slots. Depending on which way the card was inserted, the motherboard would either channel all 16 lanes into the primary PCI-Express x16 slot, or split lanes equally to both PCI-Express x16 slots (i.e. 8 lanes per slot). This was necessary as no motherboard at that time had enough PCI-Express lanes for both to have 16 lanes each. With the increase in available PCI-Express lanes, most modern SLI-capable motherboards allow each video card to use all 16 lanes in both PCI-Express x16 slots.

The SLI bridge is used to reduce bandwidth constraints and send data between both graphics cards directly. It is possible to run SLI without using the bridge connector on a pair of low-end to mid-range graphics cards (e.g. 7100GS or 6600GT) with NVIDIA's Forceware drivers 80.XX or later. Since these graphics cards do not use as much bandwidth, data can be relayed through just the chipsets on the motherboard. However, if no SLI bridge is used on two high-end graphics cards, the performance suffers severely as the chipset does not have enough bandwidth.

SLI offers two rendering and one anti-aliasing method for splitting the work between the video cards:

  • Split Frame Rendering (SFR), the first rendering method. This analyzes the rendered image in order to split the workload 50/50 between the two GPUs. To do this, the frame is split horizontally in varying ratios depending on geometry. For example, in a scene where the top half of the frame is mostly empty sky, the dividing line will lower, balancing geometry workload between the two GPUs. This method does not scale geometry or work as well as AFR, however.
  • Alternate Frame Rendering (AFR), the second rendering method. Here, each GPU renders entire frames in sequence – one GPU processes even frames, and the second processes odd frames, one after the other. When the slave card finishes work on a frame (or part of a frame) the results are sent via the SLI bridge to the master card, which then outputs the completed frames. Ideally, this would result in the rendering time being cut in half, and thus performance from the video cards would double. In their advertising, NVIDIA claims up to 1.9x the performance of one card with the dual-card setup. While AFR may produce higher overall framerates than SFR, it may result in increased input latency due to the next frame starting rendering in advance of the frame before it. This is identical to the issue that was first discovered in the ATI Rage Fury MAXX board in 1999.[1]. This makes SFR the preferred SLI method for fast paced action games.
  • SLI Antialiasing. This is a standalone rendering mode that offers up to double the antialiasing performance by splitting the antialiasing workload between the two graphics cards, offering superior image quality. One GPU performs an antialiasing pattern which is slightly offset to the usual pattern (for example, slightly up and to the right), and the second GPU uses a pattern offset by an equal amount in the opposite direction (down and to the left). Compositing both the results gives higher image quality than is normally possible. This mode is not intended for higher frame rates, and can actually lower performance, but is instead intended for games which are not GPU-bound, offering a clearer image in place of better performance. When enabled, SLI Antialiasing offers advanced antialiasing options: SLI 8X, SLI 16X, and SLI 32x (8800-series only). A Quad SLI system is capable of up to SLI 64X antialiasing.
NVIDIA has created a set of custom video game profiles in cooperation with video game publishers that will automatically enable SLI in the mode that gives the largest performance boost. It is also possible to create custom game profiles or modify pre-defined profiles using their Coolbits software.

- Wikipedia
 
Two video cards are better than one because both my dad and I own gaming rigs that could benefit from a GTX 460.;)
 
Because I can't build my GF a PC she can use to game with since I only have the one card in my machine.
 
Two video cards are better because then I have an excuse to upgrade my MOBO! :p
 
ooooh, so glad I did not already win and disqualify myself

this is the one...er, two...baby!
 
2 is better than 1 for 2 reasons.

first they finally got sli right with the 460

and second if i DO get sick of it thats an upgrade for both my gf box and my home theater box
 
More is always better... folding@home points would be doubled if I had two.
 
2 videocards are better than 1, not just mathematically-speaking but also because even the man who has everything is jealous of the man that has 2 of everything.
 
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