Sli or not

I readed that sli cards on notebooks can make many problems.What do you think about SLI ? Is better SLI or single card ?

 

SLI is a very inefficient technology to the point where its a waste of money; you're essentially paying twice the money, double the heat and power consumption (a big compromise in laptops) for a ~20% increase in game performance across the board; whereas you can get that same increase by just buying a very high-end GPU. Some games also have problems running with SLI.

 

I agree that SLI is not that great for notebooks. If you are really looking at getting maximum graphical power than you need to be getting that in a desktop. Otherwise getting the best single card in a notebook will last with many games.

What kind of notebook are you looking at? Also what games are you looking to play.

 

The 8800m GTX in SLI seems to be about 70 percent more powerful than a single 8800m.

 

More powerful than a what? GS? GT? GTX? The benchmarks I've seen (Tom's Hardware) haven't shown any benefits like that; and you're still essentially paying twice the amount for a disproportionate increase in power. Like I said, inefficient.

 

I want to buy NP9262(games crysis,bioshock,gears of war...)

 

Not sure about other cards but as I said, 2 8800m GTX's seem to be 70 percent more powerful than 1. I've read that many, many times around this site and seen benchmarks as well.

 

We could dispute the performance gains for pages in this thread (I have my sources, you have yours; even then, real world performance still yields different %-performance gains), but one way or the other SLI is a waste of money; lets say it does only yield a 20% performance gain, you have essentially paid double (maybe more) the money to get a disproportionate increase in performance. You've paid 100% more cash for only 20% more performance. The same goes for 70%; 100% more cash for only 70% more performance.

Another thing to account for is the additional cooling system, heat, and power draw of SLI technology all cramped into a laptop. All in all, SLI is a waste of money and hardware.

 

From what I have read, with some games SLI doesn't benefit much or at all. With others, it might help 70+ percent. Whether the cost is worth it is personal preference.

I actually chose not to have an SLI rig as I like less weight, heat and money - and I plan on building a desktop soon. For other people, an SLI notebook is perfect. The sager 9262 and Dell XPS m1730 seem to do a good job of staying cool as well.

 

I have SLI 8800M GTX and Crysis runs all high 1920x1200 at 25+ fps.
Show me a mobile single card that can do that.

 

Honestly though, Crysis has to stop being the end all of performance lol.
Its not a good game, its poorly coded, and its slanted towards nvidia gpus.
Anyway, SLI in notebooks seem a bit extreme imo, heck SLI/Crossfire in Desktops seem extreme seeing as Crysis didn't even launch with full SLI support.
Many games don't even utilize multi-GPU. That being said, i am running 2 4870s in my desktop, so hypocrite i guess =)

 

Crysis is the best benchmark, because it`s the most stressfull game in terms of quality and power.

 

But thats debatable as its been proven by various review sites that it favors nvidia's architecture over AMD, even with every other games' benchmarking favoring the AMD one. Thats why I don't really use crysis as a guideline myself. Not to mention tbh, benchmarks can only go so far, I know my old 9800GX2 benched pretty good, but actual gameplay it was pretty garbage.

 

To the OP: If you absolutely demand every last watt of power and graphical performance then SLI is the way to go, however what you have to decide for yourself is whether the performance improvement compared to a single card is worth the price premium.

 

SLI = best for highest resolutions and AA it seems. Best in a desktop if you ask me, I wouldn't want to carry all that power in a laptop!

 

8800m GTX SLI don´t have any max percentage of 20. I have 8800m GTX SLI myself, to the op if you want to play in high res 1920x1200 get SLI. The fastest card right now the 9800m GTX is not so much faster than a single 8800m GTX and definitely not 8800m GTX SLI.

In games where SLI is not effiecient the only few, mostly older games then yes of course SLI doesn´t perform up to to 70%, however newer games has not trouble at all to benefit from SLI.

Crysis is of course the best benchmark out there, which other game puts so much strain on the GPU´s? Poorly coded, hmm I read somewhere the game had 18000 shaders written for it, could maybe that be explained why the game is so demanding. I run the game at DX9 Very High with fps ranging from 25-45+ at 1920x1200 and this surely looks much much better than when I ran the game at DX10 High.

Hmm let´s see what other games benefits greatly from SLI. Now I am counting on some of the ones I own.

Lost Planet
STALKER
Mass Effect (Only one bug with SLI and that is in the tower)
Gears of War (Though a single powerful GPU handles this great)
World in Conflict
Crysis

 

Maybe check my thread about SLI vs NO SLI. its not about 1900x1200.. it still scales very well with a lower resolution like 1440x900