SLi?

I'm looking into buying a Laptop. One comes with 2 256MB 8600M GT Nvidea SLi graphic cards the other with just one 512MB 8700M GT.

My question, is SLi just another gimmie to charge more for a computer, or does it really impove the graphic peformance...and more importantly are there programs, games, etc that take advantage of such a set up?

Sparks

 

Its no gimmic it really adds to performance. What games will you be playing?

 

http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone2_game.html

 

if your looking a the x205 sl3 mac mall has it for 2,349 .Amazon has the X205-S9359 for 2199.I can not make up my mind .Not sure if 8600 sli is better than 8700

 

I have the S9359, bought it 3 weeks too early at higher price ...
would have gotten the SLi3 just for the 2.2Ghz CPU upgraded from 2.0GHz.

My own experience with it tend to suggest that the 8700m's internals are significantly hindered or "held-back" by the CPU.... when I play games, the cpu tend to hit 100% most time and when it does, the fps drops or stutter often....

Also, someone else managed to change his X205 CPU from 1.8Ghz to 2.4Ghz - a 30% cpu upgrade,
but results in 80% fps increase in real performance in games like FEAR....

So a small cpu upgrade will results in massive "released" improvement in overall GPU performance... at least for the 8700m GT in X205.

 

getting dell 1730 tommorrow dont know how I convinced wife.But I know I will be paying her back forever