So I wanted to dabble in SLI to see what I was missing (errr, sorta ... I think I was just bored) and found it to be a mixed bag. On one hand, you are adding a second card to your rig, which stands to reason that you will double your performance !!
Wellll, not quite ... not even close, in fact. But still, it was fun to do and I wouldn't recommend it over a faster single card setup, but to each their own.
I bought Kyler's old 7900GS card to pair up with one I already had. I had searched high and low for over a week, missing out on several Ebay auctions when I finally posted here as a last ditch effort to find one.
Sure enough, Kyler had one handy ... but .. he wasn't upgrading yet ! Well, soon after a discussion with him, he did have the means to upgrade, so I promptly snapped up the card and set to work modding it:
This Zalman vf900 is quite a beast of a cooler, and my existing card was already voltmodded from 1.2v to 1.4, so the extra cooling abilities came in handy.
Here's a comparison shot of the stock to the aftermarket cooler ... quite a difference !! In this case, sizes does indeed matter !
Yeeesh !!! Sooo WT, you sure that card will fit in that case ??? Ummmm, no .. no it won't ! I had emailed Zalman after already buying the second cooler and immediately noticed the lower cards backing bolts would hit the fan on the upper card in SLI mode.
Zalman's blunt reply ?? No, it will not fit.
Hmmmm ... well, never one to step down from such a challenge, I figured a litte grinding on those four backing bolts would solve my dilemma. So I got everything together and plugged in, and it STILL looks like they will hit !!
After firing up the rig and hoping I didn't hear the horrible sound of plastic blades running at 2,500rpm crashing against the cold, hard steel of those bolts, I was rewarded with only the deafening sound of eight fans (2 case, 2 vid, 2 PSU, 1 CPU and 1 NB fan) humming along ....
So there you have it. SLI is definitely a niche hardware setup, and I will go on record as saying it isn't what I would recommend for about 85% of the gamers out there, but if you have that 30" display taking up your entire wall and really, really want to run it at its native resolution, then by all means give SLI a looksee.
Wellll, not quite ... not even close, in fact. But still, it was fun to do and I wouldn't recommend it over a faster single card setup, but to each their own.
I bought Kyler's old 7900GS card to pair up with one I already had. I had searched high and low for over a week, missing out on several Ebay auctions when I finally posted here as a last ditch effort to find one.
Sure enough, Kyler had one handy ... but .. he wasn't upgrading yet ! Well, soon after a discussion with him, he did have the means to upgrade, so I promptly snapped up the card and set to work modding it:
This Zalman vf900 is quite a beast of a cooler, and my existing card was already voltmodded from 1.2v to 1.4, so the extra cooling abilities came in handy.
Here's a comparison shot of the stock to the aftermarket cooler ... quite a difference !! In this case, sizes does indeed matter !
Yeeesh !!! Sooo WT, you sure that card will fit in that case ??? Ummmm, no .. no it won't ! I had emailed Zalman after already buying the second cooler and immediately noticed the lower cards backing bolts would hit the fan on the upper card in SLI mode.
Zalman's blunt reply ?? No, it will not fit.
Hmmmm ... well, never one to step down from such a challenge, I figured a litte grinding on those four backing bolts would solve my dilemma. So I got everything together and plugged in, and it STILL looks like they will hit !!
After firing up the rig and hoping I didn't hear the horrible sound of plastic blades running at 2,500rpm crashing against the cold, hard steel of those bolts, I was rewarded with only the deafening sound of eight fans (2 case, 2 vid, 2 PSU, 1 CPU and 1 NB fan) humming along ....
So there you have it. SLI is definitely a niche hardware setup, and I will go on record as saying it isn't what I would recommend for about 85% of the gamers out there, but if you have that 30" display taking up your entire wall and really, really want to run it at its native resolution, then by all means give SLI a looksee.
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