[Darkenreaper57]

Quote

nForce4 will support DDR2 and SLI for GeForce 6800's will be an option.

I think that may be my next board, will be the first time I've gone away from VIA if it happens; unless VIA pulls out a gem before that time.

This is true, but unfortunately, it is extremely expensive to drop a $800 to a grand for two high end video cards. But hey, if you can afford it, go for it.

Honestly, I dont know whether DDR2 will bring a performance increase for AMD. AMD systems tend to benefit greater from low latency memory, and DDR2 is still running at higher latency, comparatively. It is also more expensive. Please correct me if I am wrong about the latency thing.

[Mwarhead]

Well that is definetly true with Athlon XP systesm. The Athlon 64 is an entirely diffrent story. I am unsure how much performance would increase by DDR2.

[Pollux]

SLI seems more practical when u buy a video card now, then instead of upgrading, simply add a 2nd video card later down the road.

[Bucu]

Well what are the real benifits to running 2 vid cards at the same time? I mean like it kinda seems redundant having 2 things doing the same job....... like do they really boost proformance, or is the boost negligible

[BUDMAN]

Bucu said:

Well what are the real benifits to running 2 vid cards at the same time? I mean like it kinda seems redundant having 2 things doing the same job....... like do they really boost proformance, or is the boost negligible

its really significant...the only thing that really kind of sux tho is that there are 20 lanes for pic-e and vid cards use 16...sooo even tho u arent nusing the full potential of each vid card (when uhave 2 in there) you still have a huge increase in performance ass each card doesnt have to work very hard

[Bucu]

so i've seen the pci-x1 and the x16, does this have stuff to do with the lines u were talking about?

[Mwarhead]

BUDMAN said:

its really significant...the only thing that really kind of sux tho is that there are 20 lanes for pic-e and vid cards use 16...sooo even tho u arent nusing the full potential of each vid card (when uhave 2 in there) you still have a huge increase in performance ass each card doesnt have to work very hard

HUH?


Also I doubt Nvidia will make low end cards SLI compatible. Probably only their most expensive products.

[Pollux]

Quote

HUH?


Also I doubt Nvidia will make low end cards SLI compatible. Probably only their most expensive products.

geforce 6600GT's will work in SLI, and theyre only $200.

[Mwarhead]

Interesting.

[Bucu]

Pollux said:

geforce 6600GT's will work in SLI, and theyre only $200.

paycheck

[BUDMAN]

Bucu said:

so i've seen the pci-x1 and the x16, does this have stuff to do with the lines u were talking about?

yep thats what i was talking about

[Mwarhead]

That only 20 lanes for PCI Express and the card wont be fully used thing is not exactly correct. Granted each card uses a 16x socket as its interfacte but they dont nearly hit the bandwidth of PCI Express 16x so in reality both cards can be fully utilized until cards progress to the point where they actually use PCI Express 16x. Why they dont double in performance is because there is over head and ineffieciences in breaking the rendering process between two cards. Also the memory bus and processor may not be able to feed them both data fast enough for full utilization. This is where dual core, dual processors, or just faster processrs come in. As well as ddr 2.

[Bucu]

so with all that in mind wheres the list for the rig that would correctly, effectively implement this stuff

[Mwarhead]

Nforce 4, SLI, DDR2, AMD 939 64, and PCI Express ?

Affraid that much of that technology is not available yet. PCI Express is only currently avail for Intel Platforms (AMD's boards will be out soon). DDR2 is also currently only avail for Intel. There are also no current PCI Express boards on the market that have dual PCI Express 16x. All of this will be fixed when the nforce 4 comes out. Don't plan on being able to affoard any of this any time soon though.

Nforce 4 board 100-200 dollars (one with ddr2 and SLI being more towards the 150-200 range)

DDR2 (at least 130 dollars for 512mb)

AMD 939 64 (a 3000+ is 160 Dollars)

Then you would need at least 1 PCI Express SLI compatible card to start with (About 200-400 dollars)

A power supply that can hanlde all of that, at least 430 watt plus I would imagine for two video cards. (Probably 70 or more as the new boards may require a special connector like the 915 for intel does.)

So thats 710 dollars worth of hardware for an SLI Compatible system with only one card so you can add another in the future.

Also that doesnt include the hard drives, case, burner, sound card, etc. Even assuming that the motherboard has integrated sound and lan, you still need the hdd, case, burner, and whatever else.