One in SLI

[albo1000]

Can you have one video card in a SLI motherboard.

 

[ceewi1]

Yes

 

[Geoff]

Yes you can, it just gives you the ability to use two if you wish.

 

[sloojoe]

what?

you can build it like a plain old regular system. Although, I would compare 1 video to buying a porche and going 25mph all the time.

joe

 

[jimmymac]

you can build it like a plain old regular system. Although, I would compare 1 video to buying a porche and going 25mph all the time.

joe

why so, a single card will be plenty fast in most situations, its jsut nice to have the opportunity to add a second card into the sli port for an improvement.

 

[ducis]

never buy two cards and put them in sli at the same time, buy one at a time. i like to think of sli as a upgrade not something you start out with

 

[Geoff]

never buy two cards and put them in sli at the same time, buy one at a time. i like to think of sli as a upgrade not something you start out with

Well thats your opinion, what if someone wanted to build the best computer ever, with say 2 8800GTX's in SLI?

 

[Bradan]

its pointless nobody needs that..

the first card could cost 400$ then in two years when rig isnt up to speed you can add one for 200$

 

[Geoff]

I have an SLI motherboard and I honestly think it's stupid.

Most people buy a decent card and say "i'll just buy another one later on", but when they want a better card, it turns out that for not much more money you can buy a single card thats better then both of your cards in SLI, and then you start over again.

 

[mrbagrat]

I have an SLI motherboard and I honestly think it's stupid.

Most people buy a decent card and say "i'll just buy another one later on", but when they want a better card, it turns out that for not much more money you can buy a single card thats better then both of your cards in SLI, and then you start over again.

Agreed, but its nice to have the option. My motherboard has 3 PCI, 2 PCI-e, and 1 PCI-1x I think. Most non-SLI mobos don't have more then 3 PCI slots, and other non-gpu PCI-e slots usually aren't used much.

 

[sloojoe]

whats the point then

So here's the question to all that believe 1 video card is acceptable in a SLI system.

What is the point? If you only have 1 video card, then you have a regular computer that can be "SLI" if you choose to upgrade.

Oh and by the way, in reference to the function that SLI serves. SLI helps your computer improve graphic performance. If you only have 1 video card, all you have is a SLI compatible system.

joe

 

[jimmymac]

What is the point? If you only have 1 video card, then you have a regular computer that can be "SLI" if you choose to upgrade.

pretty much answered your own question there.

TAke for instance a machine with something like an 7900GT or even and 8800GTX in the board, just the one card. That would be more than capable of running the majority of games at high levels. What would be the point in forking out a ridiculous amount of money to get minimum extra performance as there is not much more to increase in game.

The reason for buying one of these SLI boards without using the SLI is that many of the top boards (good for overclocking and such) come with SLI capabilities anyway. So you may not be buying the board for the SLI part of it.

Having the option of SLI is useful, whthere you choose to use it is a different thing but you can still have high performance from an SLI board with one card!

 

[kobaj]

Upgrading is why I went with an SLI mobo. Except, not what your thinking. I built two rigs. One for me, one for my brother, both have sli and currently a single 7600gt each. But in the future when I want to upgrade (and I will) I will simply movie one 7600gt to his computer giving him SLI and then buying myself a single 7950 (or 8800 or whatever else comes out in the future). That way we both win and get a boost in preformance without both spending more money on two new cards.

 

[Geoff]

So here's the question to all that believe 1 video card is acceptable in a SLI system.

What is the point? If you only have 1 video card, then you have a regular computer that can be "SLI" if you choose to upgrade.

Oh and by the way, in reference to the function that SLI serves. SLI helps your computer improve graphic performance. If you only have 1 video card, all you have is a SLI compatible system.

joe

Even if you dont plan on using two video cards, with an SLI motherboard you have at least 2 PCI-E x16 slots, which could be used for things such as physics processors in the future.