[Damon D]

...boards? Can someone please help me figure this out....what exactly can I expect with an SLI setup.I've seen them advertised in some computers as being 2 video cards for added performance.This one in particular grabs my interesthttp://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...id=5493335Then I read in other places that's it's 2 processing units using 2 pci-express slots but not really 2 actual video cards.What would I actually see in the tower....2 identical geforce cards or something other than that?Also, If there's 2 seperate cards with 256MB ram each, would that be a total of 512MB video ram? I've seen 2 different answers to this question and not sure what's correct.I kinda get that pci-express is just a faster bus than the older agp. But what does it mean to be pci-x 16. I've read on some sites that enabling SLI will reduce data bus width to 8 but I'm lost as to what that means.Lastly, quad sli? Is this 4 video cards? Does that mean I need 4 pcix slots?

[Alex R]

Ok, see all the newest graphics cards use pci expressx16. Dont worry about anything else. Yes, an sli setup would significantly improve the speed of the cards. You would see two of the same cards with a bracket connecting them. THe video ram would be combined. Quad Sli is not exactly with 4 video cards, but with 2 video cards that have 2 GPU's each. (GPU= graphics processing unit) Only one card like this exists, as far as I know: the nvidia 7950GT. Also, keep in mind that Directx 10 is out, and I would upgrade to it soon. I suggest waiting for the mainstream cards to come out, but if you have a lot of cash, get the nvidia 8800gts or 8800gtx. I suggest newegg.com. Hope I helped.

[Wolfeymole]

See also an excellent answer here.

[alex]

Originally Posted by Alex R Ok, see all the newest graphics cards use pci expressx16. Dont worry about anything else. Yes, an sli setup would significantly improve the speed of the cards. You would see two of the same cards with a bracket connecting them. THe video ram would be combined. Quad Sli is not exactly with 4 video cards, but with 2 video cards that have 2 GPU's each. (GPU= graphics processing unit) Only one card like this exists, as far as I know: the nvidia 7950GT. Also, keep in mind that Directx 10 is out, and I would upgrade to it soon. I suggest waiting for the mainstream cards to come out, but if you have a lot of cash, get the nvidia 8800gts or 8800gtx. I suggest newegg.com. Hope I helped.

Good reply Alex but you're not strictly correct in some of the things you've put, and as Damon has said that he's already confused between two answers he's already had i have to correct some of the things you've put.

An SLI setup wouldn't significantly improve the speed of the cards, only oc'ing the gpu and/or memory can do this, and even then it takes rather a high oc to see a huge increase in performance.

SLI can significantly improve a game's framerate and can give you the ability to run a particular game at higher detail settings. Unfortunately not very many games can make use of SLI as it has to be coded into them (Good link Wolfie).

The 7950GT is a single gpu card, the 7950GX2 is the only dual-gpu graphics card on the market.

But SLI makes no sense also if you're going to connect two mid-range cards together, as more than likely your setup will suffer from what i've put above and also you'll more than likely lose access to one or more pci sockets on your motherboard due to the second card overlapping it/them. Also, for the cost of two mid-range cards you could probably purchase a single top-end card for the same money and not have to worry about access to your mobo's sockets and you'll see the benefit in every game, you'll also not need worry about the increase in wattage required from your psu (to a lesser extent anyway) and the extra cabling in your case. Dual 16x pci-e socket mobo's are also pretty expensive, adding to the cost.

Quad SLI was a non starter really, the driver's were really buggy and it also only made sense when gaming at massive resolutions (1920x1200 or 2560x1600) or when playing, say, a flight sim and you wanted quad monitor support.