Thirith on 2/11/2010 at 11:34
I've been looking for recent articles about Nvidia SLI gaming. I remember when it was first introduced and for years after, people said that there are major issues, from compatibility issues with individual games to inconsistent framerates and micro-stutters. What's SLI gaming like nowadays? Have the issues been resolved or at least lessened with recent drivers? Those who have two video cards in their system, do you have SLI enabled pretty much all the time or do you have to keep switching it off for certain games?
gunsmoke on 2/11/2010 at 12:25
SLI works a treat now. I haven't had to mess with it ever. Now, sometimes I change it from Nvidia rec'd to Force Alternate Frame 1 or 2 for a few bonus frames here and there. The drivers are ace and in my experience , compatibility is nearly flawless.
Thirith on 2/11/2010 at 15:03
Sounds good! :D What sort of a setup do you have?
Brian The Dog on 2/11/2010 at 19:54
At the risk of asking a noobie question, is it cost effective to buy two cards and SLI them, or is it better to spend twice the money and buy a much better card? Also, does the game need to have been designed with SLI in mind, or is it all handled by the drivers? I only ask as I wouldn't want it to mess up my older games (e.g. Thief, Deus Ex) if I went the SLI route. Thanks!
R Soul on 3/11/2010 at 01:11
I can't answer that question but if you go for two cards, I can remind you to make sure your PSU is up to it. :sweat:
LarryG on 3/11/2010 at 02:00
I'm running with two NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 512 cards. I have a Corsair 1000 watt PSU, but then again I have 8 hard drives and two DVD burners to power as well. In any event, I've not had any issues with legacy games like Thief. These SLI graphics cards have been great for me.
LarryG on 5/11/2010 at 20:54
One more thing, I have metered my setup and it has a pretty stable continuous draw of about 620-640 Watts while I'm using it. I don't know what the absolute peak might be. Maybe I could have gotten away with a 750 Watt PSU but I decided to build in spare capacity for possible future expansion.
gunsmoke on 7/11/2010 at 10:44
650 Watts is plenty fine for my SLI and 3 HDDs and DVD-ROM.
