Saturday, October 6, 2007
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Friday, July 6, 2007
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Return of the SLI
The trends of PC gaming are definitely changing. Back in the day you used to brag to your friends about your new Pentium Processor with MMX technology. Or, your might have scoffed at the competition with your brand new P4 2.8c GHz hyper-threaded proc. The times they are a-changing. With these new high performance video cards from nVidia and ATi, we're seeing the emphasis on gaming shift from the chip to the card. Admittedly, it's essential to match your proc with your video card to avoid a hiccup in performance, but the writing is on the wall, frame rates are the new GHz. This has been a proven philosophy with the major chip makers moving from clock cycles to model numbers.
nVidia's new SLI (Scalable Link Interface) technology is poised to break every consumer-level frame rate in the world. Check out the article from Computer Power User for more information about SLI. In a nutshell, SLI harnesses the power of two (obviously nVidia) PCI-E graphics cards. Apparently, the benefits are astounding and it would make any game geek wet their diapers.
Granted, the gaming benefits of the SLI technology are amazing, and, unlike multiple CPUs, it doesn't require the game to support the technology (dual CPUs are application dependent. Translation: in order to get the benefit of dual CPUs, the app must be multi-threaded). But let's get practical here. nVidia touts their 6800 Ultra graphics card as the card that can do it all. So what's the use of buying another $600 card, shouldn't we be happy with just one? Think about it, $500 can buy an entire gaming PC just on its own. Add another $500 and you've got yourself a very competitive gaming rig. Instead, gaming elitists will spend nearly $1200 on two identical cards to push the limits of video game frame rates. As a testament, you get roughly 153 fps out of games with the resolution set to 1600x1200 when two 6800 Ultras are used in tandem. It's a $600 card which equates to $3.92 for each frame per second for each card. So for two cards ($1200), it comes out to $7.84. My suggestion, buy the second card and give it to your buddy. You'll get more enjoyment deathmatching your friend than hording the power of two cards and playing alone on a Friday night.
Bragging rights have always been a part of gaming, it makes it more fun. But this is ridiculous. Only true game snobs will buy the two cards which is completely unnecessary. One card will suffice, don't make this a pissing contest. You're paying double the cost for two cards when you don't get double the frame rates. The benefit of one high-end card like the 6800 Ultra should be more than enough to frag any spawn from hell or stop total alien domination. Put your SLI budget to good use, get a laser mouse for more accurate tracking, buy lower latency RAM, and/or maybe upgrade your aging processor.
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