norwichgooner wrote:
Most pc shops i have talked to tell me the way to go is buy a SLI Motherboard and have 2 nvidia cards runing in sli mode but i have seen a couple of posts on here that FSX does not support sli - am i therefore better off not going for 2 SLI cards ?.
WARNING: NEVER EVER believe ANYTHING you are told by a salesperson in a PC shop. And yes, they all are salespersons because selling is foremost on their mind - not customer satisfaction.
Now that we have this out of the way a huge burden has been taken off your shoulders.
Naturally, in the shops they will recommend SLI boards and Dual core chips because they are the most expensive at present.
I have a SLI board in my current PC and though my next PC will be running Vista and FSX, I will not opt for a SLI board again. It's overrated and a waste of money.
The SLI board by itself costs almost twice as much as a simpler board that is just as functional.
My philosophy is: The mobo must support everything I want to run, nothing more and nothing less. I don't need SLI. If I have money to burn, I'm better off to spend it on the fastest processor and best GFX card I can afford.
The only thing I must consider is that within the next two years or so I might want to upgrade CPU and GFX card. This means the motherboard I choose has to have those upgrade possibilities. This keeps it simple and after doing all my sums it won't cost me more in the long run than a SLI setup would cost.
Think about it. You opt for a SLI setup. The way technology progresses, it won't take a year for a new GFX card to be on the market that's faster than both of your current, identical cards combined. Wanna upgrade? What's it gonna be - just a single of those new, superfast cards (in which case you'd already be losing because the money you spent originally for the luxury of SLI lies dormant) or two new cards? Will you be able to afford it? And remember, there's a chance that upgrading from 2 identical, SLI enabled cards to another 2 identical, SLI enabled cards may require you to upgrade your CPU as well.
My theory when I got my SLI motherboard was: Just make do with one card for the time being without enabling SLI, and when you can afford it (given the fact that prices keep dropping) in six months get a second, identical card and enable SLI.
In short: That was my theory -- the reality turned out different. Another reason, last but not least is the fact that even though I have a large enclosure, the motherboard itself is already so cramped with only one GFX card installed, that I'm reluctant to try and squeeze a second GFX card onto it, for fear of damaging something.
And this is not even having thought about the additional cooling that would be required.
Of course, for many, if not the majority, SLI is still a novelty and it will remain so until they get burned. I've done my numbers, and I think I've got it figured out.
My next system will be based on a simple principle -- simple but flexible, meaning having upgrade options for CPU and GFX card. After one major upgrade it's time to think of the next rig anyway. What a waste 😳 -- but the only way to go 😀