What is NVIDIA SLI and why is it so great for gaming?

October 30th, 2009 | Author: Some Web User

Q. Lately all i’ve been seeing and hearing on computer forums, youtube videos, and on the NVIDIA website is SLI,SLI,SLI!
What is SLI and what makes it so great for gaming?

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histofwar - October 30, 2009 at 10:10 pm

Sli is when you connect two or more graphics cards together. When they are connected, they will work together to improve performance by as much as 50%. Typically in SLi mode, your screen is split in half and each graphics card processes the information needed to display on that half of the screen.

If you’re in the market for a gaming computer, you might try StealthMachines http://www.stealthmachines.com

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Jimmy Buffit - October 30, 2009 at 10:12 pm

SLI or Crossfire in a nutshell, splits your screen in half and lets one video card render the top half and one video card render the bottom. “Render” = a boatload of math, processor (and therefore math) intensive. It’s a lot like asking your friends to help you move. Transfer a large load to multiple helpers. Overall, a fantastic idea. The trouble comes when you ask everyone on earth to buy new and expensive stuff.

Is it worth the money is a better question. In my humble opinion, NO. One good video card works just fine for any recent release you wanna name.

If you built cars for a living and wanted to sell any, would you build a car that ran on something other than gasoline?

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Brodey - October 30, 2009 at 10:42 pm

NVIDIA SLI, or the Scalable Link Interface is the process where you link 2 NVIDIA GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) together either through a little connector called an SLI bridge (http://estore.asus.com/images/C1TC60-0A01.JPG) or the new option, which is through software.

The reason it is so “great” is the amount of performance gained through doing this. Having 2 GPUs work simultaneously to render your games will increase performance (Frames Per Second, Microstutter, Vsync, Anti-aliasing quality) abilities. Running 2 cards in SLI is an awesome thing. I do it myself. With some cards, it is even possible to run 3 cards together through tri-SLI.

Check out NVIDIAs own SLI ZONE for more info.

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What is NVIDIA SLI and why is it so great for gaming?

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