State of the SLI..... should I take the plunge?

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Ferrariman60

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Hey guys, I just got far cry 2 and realized it's time for a hardware upgrade. The problem is, my case is physically not big enough (length-wise) to take a millimeter longer than my current card, an 8800 GT. So, I'm thinking another would be a good option, as they are a great value these days if they can be found, and I have the power available from the PSU. It would be a relatively inexpensive upgrade, less than upgrading my system to 4 GB of RAM thanks to absurd DDR prices, haha.

Last time I dealt with SLI, it was not pleasant. Dual 7950GT's, it wouldn't even run half the Source based games I tried, and it would crash if I ran just about anything but FEAR. That was about a year and a half ago. I tried the Windows XP drivers.

Now I'm on Vista 64 bit, and am wondering if any Vista users have any feedback on the current state of the SLI. I am pretty happy with my current setup, but would always like more performance (duh!). I do fold with the GPU client, almost all the time..... last time I checked, I don't think that worked with SLI on, but I have no problem rebooting to enable SLI to go into "game mode," if you will, if it means I can fold on a single GPU when I'm not on Far Cry.

I guess my question is, is it any trouble to get SLI working stable-y these days? Thanks for the input here, I appreciate it.
 
Your answer is going to vary by the individual. This is my third foray into SLI and I am very happy with it. No real issues with it, in lots of games like CoD4, Crysis & Warhead, Far Cry 2, Call of Juarez, FEAR, Mass Effect, Lost Planet, etc. I've had some issues with Crysis with extreme slow downs in certain parts of the game, a little annoying but got through the game just fine. Once Crysis crashed to the desktop. Not catastrophic crashes, like BSODs and lockups.

So my opinion of SLI is rather high now. With the 180 drivers, SLI and multiple monitors are FINALLY supported which is very nice. Going in and out of game mode is much more seamless. The performance gains are very good overall with newer games, though 3x SLI is a bit of overkill for 1920x1200 but I most of the times the performance boost is noticeable, especially when settings are maxed. I can max out all known games, even Crysis with 4xAA.

If you're not worried about cost effectiveness which I know in a slowing economy is on a lot of peoples minds, then SLI is not the way to go. But if you can get it working the way it was meant to work, SLI has come of age and is very stable and can add a lot of joy to gaming.
 
I have my PC out in the living room connected to a 1080P 58" plasma. I started with one 280 but wasn't happy with the performance in Crysis, Warhead, and a few others. I had to play at medium settings in those two games to get a consistent frame rate over 30. I bought another 280 and now I can game at high settings with 16x AF and my frame rate is always over 30. Made a big difference for me.

I haven't had any problems at all. The system is rock solid, not one game has crashed.
 
What with having sli enabled on dual monitors now, i'm going back from crossfire to sli this weekend :)
 
I'm on my first SLI setup with the 780i and 2 8800GTS 512s, I couldn't be happier. It has been pain free. Really. It has come a LONG LONG LONG way from the horror stories I've heard about the 7950s.
 
multi gpu performance has been pretty solid since the 7900gtx/x1900 days. plenty of games showed good improvements by adding the second card. there are probably thousands of users out there who've had but a taste of these expensive setups and ended up feeling disappointed. i am not one of them. as long as users understand that multi gpu is not supposed to be a cost effective solution, then they can enjoy the performance boost in their gaming; be it large or small. there will always be snags here and there, but driver updates are often available fairly quickly. i must say, i saw much larger gains when games were less shader intensive, but developers aren't going back away from deferred shader engines, and i don't want them to anyway. games have never looked more realistic.
 
vengence said:
I'm on my first SLI setup with the 780i and 2 8800GTS 512s, I couldn't be happier. It has been pain free. Really. It has come a LONG LONG LONG way from the horror stories I've heard about the 7950s.
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I hear about those too but I must say that my 7950GX2 was my favorite card ever. (shrugs)

My last foray was with G92 8800GTS 512 and I wasn't impressed. BUT, I didn't have my big 24" monitor. I then tried 4870 Crossfire and was even less impressed but that was because really and truly, the drivers suck and I had a ton of "issues'......stuff like if you turned up gamma in game you could see scan lines and shit like that......in Clear Sky the fps would drop to 5 and stay there..almost like a semi-hard lockup. That said, now that I have an X48 motherboard, if they come out with a G200 based GX2, I'm a buyer. I would buy a 9800GX2 right now if they made one with 1Gb memory.
 
wrangler said:
I hear about those too but I must say that my 7950GX2 was my favorite card ever. (shrugs)

My last foray was with G92 8800GTS 512 and I wasn't impressed. BUT, I didn't have my big 24" monitor. I then tried 4870 Crossfire and was even less impressed but that was because really and truly, the drivers suck and I had a ton of "issues'......stuff like if you turned up gamma in game you could see scan lines and shit like that......in Clear Sky the fps would drop to 5 and stay there..almost like a semi-hard lockup. That said, now that I have an X48 motherboard, if they come out with a G200 based GX2, I'm a buyer. I would buy a 9800GX2 right now if they made one with 1Gb memory.
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For any SLI setup, pretty much anything under 19x12 or 1080i is a waste. Anything less than that and just grab a 260 or a 4870 and be done with it.

Looking through the reviews from [H]ard it seems like ATI has a lot of trouble with min frame rate problems on crossfire setups. That's the biggest reason I'll stick with Nvidia untill that changes. It doesn't matter if I'm getting 2000fps max if I'm still getting mins of 5 and 10 and "down spikes". It's nice that they release a driver to fix it 2 months after I would have stopped playing a game, but that's kind of beside the point. Especially if your paying that much money for top end hardware.

You may well get your wish with a 260GX2 or maybe even a 280GX2 after the refresh, either one would be one hell of a card.
 
I just added a second eVGA 8800GT 512mb for sli on my s939 nForce4 board. I got the card by RMA from my 7900GT KO. I couldn't be happier though I havn't had time flex the cards potential with any insane gaming yet. COD4 looks sick despite only running at 1680x1050(avg. 60-70 fps), with 4x AA as does HL2. I've been tempted to pick up Farcry 2 and Warhead but am still sticking it out as Fallout 3 is what I'm really waiting for. If you can't fit a card longer than an 8800GT and want a bit more performance then I say go for it.

I'm also running Vista x64 and 2gb of DDR at CAS2, the 8800's do heat my case up quite a bit more than when I was only using one of them. But kicking on the 120mm on my side panel helps alot, my PSU is runnning a bit hotter too(though is holding up nicely).

What res are you running BTW? I thought that my little 21" was not going to let me see much of a difference in gaming. But my framerates are much more consistant with not nearly as many frame drops. Pretty [H] to me! :D

*Edit* I nearly forgot, I have had only one driver related crash since I got SLi running in the last two weeks(which happend a couple nights ago). I am still running the 180 beta's before the far cry 2 beta drivers. Basically my system just would not wake up from screen saver mode. I was able to ctrl+alt+del and "log off" then shut down from the main menu, in order to avoid hitting the power button and doing a "hard off". So far I have not been able to replicate it but when vista rebooted my error message said that I had run out of system memory. Damn DDR being so expen$ive! :eek:
 
I am on my second SLI setup. My first was my 7800GTX's (Which were amazing cards) then upgraded to a single 8800GTX, then went SLI.

I have not forayed into some of the newer games that are out there like Crysis, COJ, COD and the other later games that have come out. I currently play UT3, WIC, SH4, & ETQW. With my current specs below, all my games run really nice. Esp with these 178.24 drivers. I have noticed some very nice improvements with Nvidia's drivers. I also pipe out my video to my 42" sony HDTV, and games look nice on that as well.

The only 2 real games that "I" am looking forward too are the new Return to Castle Wolfenstein (YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and Starcraft II. WHile my 8800's should be able to handle SCII, I am worried about the new RTCW. Hope this helps.
 
i'm on my second sli setup, i haven't had any major issues with sli. now that it supports multi-monitor setups it makes for an easier decision to go sli.

i don't know about the other newest pc titles, but far cry 2 scales beautifully from 1 to 2 cards. sli really does deliver close to 2x the performance for far cry 2.
 
Thanks for all the feedback, you've been quite helpful. Today, though, I actually got out the ruler. I will need to take my front 120mm out, but I will be able to fit a GTX 260 by the slimmest of margins (I think and pray my numbers are right, lol). The GTX 260 is going to be ordered tonight. Thanks again though, I would have done it if a 260 didn't fit.
 
I think SLI has improved over time but I think a big jump might come with the new intel chips and SLI now being support on the intel chipsets.
 
There is another issue that people neglect to mention. Microstutter. And if you are sensitive to that kind of stuff, which I am, it is a game breaker for SLI and even the GX2 selections. My 9800GX2 drove me to madness with the microstutter. I went from that back to a single 8800GTX which was alot slower but much more pleasurable to game with. You need to be aware that the problem is real and still exists with dual card solutions. For some people the slight stutter and min framerate issues are enough to convince them the single GPU solution is still the best way to go.


I have been bouncing around the idea of adding another GTX 260, but until they figure out a way to fix microstutter I don't think I'd be happy.
 
The microstutter is indeed annoying, I agree. I'd take a steady, and lower, framerate over a high, inconsistent framerate any day. I don't know how they can get around it really, maybe the new GTXs are better, with the double SLI connectors and all? I don't know, it is definitely an issue that would bother me. I'm just glad a 260 will fit, it simplifies things considerably.
 
dnottis said:
There is another issue that people neglect to mention. Microstutter. And if you are sensitive to that kind of stuff, which I am, it is a game breaker for SLI and even the GX2 selections. My 9800GX2 drove me to madness with the microstutter. I went from that back to a single 8800GTX which was alot slower but much more pleasurable to game with. You need to be aware that the problem is real and still exists with dual card solutions. For some people the slight stutter and min framerate issues are enough to convince them the single GPU solution is still the best way to go.


I have been bouncing around the idea of adding another GTX 260, but until they figure out a way to fix microstutter I don't think I'd be happy.
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I had a 9800 GX2 and its not any where in the same league as GTX 280 SLI. All games run smoothly. I think you'll find similar comments like this from others that owned the 9800 GX2 and GTX 280/260 SLI.
 
vengence said:
For any SLI setup, pretty much anything under 19x12 or 1080i is a waste. Anything less than that and just grab a 260 or a 4870 and be done with it.
Click to expand...

I often game on a large lcd tv at 1080p, but even when I play on my 1680x1050 monitor, my second GTX 280 makes a huge difference in certain games such as Clear Sky and Farcry 2, however even when it doesn't make a huge impact in FPS, with a second card I am able to really have 4x or higher AA in every game, which I cannot do with a single gpu at a decent framerate.
 
dnottis said:
There is another issue that people neglect to mention. Microstutter. And if you are sensitive to that kind of stuff, which I am, it is a game breaker for SLI and even the GX2 selections. My 9800GX2 drove me to madness with the microstutter. I went from that back to a single 8800GTX which was alot slower but much more pleasurable to game with. You need to be aware that the problem is real and still exists with dual card solutions. For some people the slight stutter and min framerate issues are enough to convince them the single GPU solution is still the best way to go.


I have been bouncing around the idea of adding another GTX 260, but until they figure out a way to fix microstutter I don't think I'd be happy.
Click to expand...

I've had SLI setups going back to the 6800Ultra days and I've never had an issue with micro-stuttering outside of the 9800GX2 cards. I did skip the 7950GX2 because let's face it, that card was the red headed step-child of NVIDIA that no one wanted to support. I don't notice any micro-stuttering on my BFG Geforce GTX 280 OC 3-Way SLI setup.

heatlesssun said:
I had a 9800 GX2 and its not any where in the same league as GTX 280 SLI. All games run smoothly. I think you'll find similar comments like this from others that owned the 9800 GX2 and GTX 280/260 SLI.
Click to expand...

Indeed. I feel the same way. The 9800GX2 is the worst video card "upgrade" I have dealt with in 10 years. I can't think of anything more disappointing.
 
Ferrariman60 said:
The microstutter is indeed annoying, I agree. I'd take a steady, and lower, framerate over a high, inconsistent framerate any day. I don't know how they can get around it really, maybe the new GTXs are better, with the double SLI connectors and all? I don't know, it is definitely an issue that would bother me. I'm just glad a 260 will fit, it simplifies things considerably.
Click to expand...

As far as I know, the double connector is only for tri-sli. In any case, I used to have CF x1900s and 7800s in sli, the micro-stuttering was maddening. I swore off SLI forever. However, I found a really awesome deal on a pair of GTX 280s ($400 for both) and I took it. The microstutter is almost completely gone, as I have only seen it crop up once for a brief period of time.
 
pahncrd said:
As far as I know, the double connector is only for tri-sli. In any case, I used to have CF x1900s and 7800s in sli, the micro-stuttering was maddening. I swore off SLI forever. However, I found a really awesome deal on a pair of GTX 280s ($400 for both) and I took it. The microstutter is almost completely gone, as I have only seen it crop up once for a brief period of time.
Click to expand...

Yes, the dual SLI connectors are only found on cards that can be used in 3-Way SLI.
 
Dan_D said:
Indeed. I feel the same way. The 9800GX2 is the worst video card "upgrade" I have dealt with in 10 years. I can't think of anything more disappointing.
Click to expand...

Is the Voodoo 5 more than 10 years old now? :p
 
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