Does SLI really work?

[TNTNightstalker]

My uncle says he has read that SLI does not work both video cards. Is this true and why do a 2 video card install if both cards don't combine and work together. Why not just stay with 1 BIG FANCY video card? Can anyone help me cause I was going to buy 2 Gigabyte GTS 450's. I don't want to waste the money if 1 card does the same as 2 video cards in SLI.

[Olly_K]

SLI scales well in 4xx and 5xx cards, much better than older cards.

So yes, it does work

[SexyMF]

Yes it works but it does not give you twice the framerate.

The best single card usually beats an SLI setup consisting of a little older cards.

Buy your SLI setup and you can have some experience yourself. Just remember that it is more heat and noise in your rig.

[NEOAethyr]

Heat, power...
When gta4 came out it would take your fps and drop it down to 1.

Not sure if the compatibility has been increased or not.
Great idea if you can get 2x older cards for really cheap.
Otherwise it's probably not worth it :|.

[shoota]

SLI works as well as the game you are playing supports it. Most games nowadays take advantage of SLI. The most important thing is to research what games you're going to be playing, how they respond to sli and then which gpus will fit in your budget (making sure that a single card in your budget won't outperform the sli'd cards)

sounds like fun to me

[Johnny87au]

My uncle says he has read that SLI does not work both video cards. Is this true and why do a 2 video card install if both cards don't combine and work together. Why not just stay with 1 BIG FANCY video card? Can anyone help me cause I was going to buy 2 Gigabyte GTS 450's. I don't want to waste the money if 1 card does the same as 2 video cards in SLI.

Because sometimes you can buy 2 cards for the price of one powerful card and scales up to 30% extra in terms of performance

[[XC] hipno650]

I have used SLI a few times and I must say I have been overall impressed. you don't quite get double the perf but in Crysis Warhead I noticed a 96% increase when going from one 480 to two of them. I also have yet to have an compatibly issues what so ever. Deff a good solution, I have also built a bunch of CFX systems but i find the solution to be junk in comparison to SLI... lots of bugs and driver issues...

[chinobino]

What CPU do you have? No point in running SLI on a weak/slow CPU.

[\/icious]

My uncle says he has read that SLI does not work both video cards. Is this true and why do a 2 video card install if both cards don't combine and work together. Why not just stay with 1 BIG FANCY video card? Can anyone help me cause I was going to buy 2 Gigabyte GTS 450's. I don't want to waste the money if 1 card does the same as 2 video cards in SLI.

Are you looking to buy 2 450s or are you buying another 450 to pair up with one you have. If you are buying 2 new 450s you are better off buying one 560 for the same price as it looks like the same if not better performance with less power, heat, and no potential sli issues. In some cases 2 lower end cards can be bought for the same price as one higher end card for more performance but i dont see that in this case. Now if you are just buying one card to add to one you have by all means go for it. Future reference though. Your question could better answered by googling "450 sli review". Places like Guru3d will answer your hardware performance questions as they put up reviews with comparisons to much of the latest hardware.

[Computurd]

dude. SLI is the best thing since sliced bread. seriously. you dont get 100 percent scaling but it is worth every penny to go to two cards. going up to three is less of a jump though. but two is a definite great idea!

a big thing that it helps you with that many dont take into consideration is the low FPS> you spend more time while gaming in your mid-to-low FPS range. this is where the SLI crush single card. (if you are considering one v two of the same thing.)

not in all situations will it be a good fit though. depends upon what your spending price v performance.

howeever, if you are just asking about the viability of it as a whole? hell yea its great i have ran dual sli and tri sli, and they are both great

[LinusTech]

I've run the following SLI configurations over the years:
7800GT
7900GTs
8800GTS 640MB
GTX 260 192s (ran this for over a year...)

Every time something new came out, I bought two.

Now I've gone back to single card (single GTX 480) since none of the games I play push that card to its limit at 2560x1600. If something more demanding comes out, I will grab a couple 560 Tis or 570s and go back to dual card. It's a much better experience now than it was with the old 7000 series cards. A couple people in this thread have mentioned that 400/500 series is better than older stuff, but I'd go as far as to say even 200 series is pretty darn good.

[mdzcpa]

yes...it certianly works. You just need to review the cost to performance ratio of what you're trying to do. Given your budget, sometimes 2 cheaper cards will get you more performance for less money, and sometimes just getting the single more expense card is the way to go. This depends on the games you will be playing and the screen resolutions you are trying to push. I suggest some interent research on the 2 450s in SLI versus the next best single card for the same money.

[TNTNightstalker]

What CPU do you have? No point in running SLI on a weak/slow CPU.

I'm running an AMD Phenom IIx4 940 processor.





I have bought 2 EVGA GTX 460's. Thanks guys for the info and the web sights to help me.

[shoota]

thx for posting back with a success story, glad it worked out for ya!

[lilmanmgf]

I have a crossfire setup and it works great. I get almost double frames in cod and BC. Shogun 2 not so much.

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