Question about SLI

[Mag-Mower]

SInce SLI* is the next big thing, i was wondering one thing;
If you had two (2) nVidia GeForce* 6800 Ultras, at 256 MB RAM, would you (reader) be able to say you have 512MB Video RAM? would it (the setup) be able to play Doom 3* on Ultra High Settings? just a bit of curiosity...



(*) Property of nVidia Corporation
(**) Property of id software and/or activision

This Post Has Been Approved By MagMower

[Electrofreak]

AFAIK, all SLI does is render half of the screen at a time with each card, thus decreasing that card's workload. It doesn't actually add their abilities, just splits everything between them. So, as for it having 512k video RAM, yes and no. Total, yes. But since it will have to load the same textures into both cards (AFAIK) for rendering purposes, no.

Will it run Doom 3 on Ultra High settings? I assume so. My Radeon 9800 PRO was able to run Ultra High with a little bit of stuttering, so 2 6800 GTs each running at half workload should have no trouble of it whatsoever.

Disclaimer: I'm a bit of an ATI fanboi, and thus not a huge expert on nVidia hardware. I've skimmed over a few articles on SLI but personally, I see it as a waste of money unless you're doing some kind of graphics editing. Most modern games are designed with the current best video hardware in mind, and thus aren't demanding enough for you to need 2 high-end gfx cards to run them at topped out graphics. And with 2 cards, all you're getting is more frames. Which sounds great, until you realize that just one of those cards is more than capable of running any current game (and probably any released within this year) at high graphics settings with plenty of FPS to spare. There isn't a visible difference that the human eye can detect between 100 FPS and 200 FPS. So, if 1 6800 GT will run the game at 100 FPS, whats the point in spending money on having 2 6800 GT in SLI mode to give you 200 FPS when you can't even see the difference?

I suppose you could get some good longevity out of those 2 cards, but I'd rather just upgrade a single card every year or 2 than a pair of cards every 3. Besides, while 2 6800s will have the processing power to last you for several years, they won't have the support for new technology that may show up in the meantime, which is why I see upgrading a single card every year or 2 as a better alternative.