SLI....Is It Worth It

i was thinking about getting the NP9262 with dual 8800m graphics cards and i was wondering is it worth it for gaming the price is a bit steep and i heard that the performance increase is about 10-20% so hould i get the NP9262 or go for something else. i want to do a lot of gaming on it with as best settings as i can get so should i go for SLI or a different laptop? any suggestions on what alptop i should get, i have about £1,800 to spend though im hoping to get about another £1,000 if the laptop is good enough.

 

First of all, "worth" is subjective.. It's not worth to a person who doesn't get two square meals a day. It's well worth a person who runs multiple businesses and can manage getting a new car every week.
Secondly, you seem to know what's the right option to put in the vote, i.e. you said it yourself... "No, Its Pointless Waste Of Money For Minimal Performance Increase".

 

i put it like that as ive heard many people say that, i dont know if it will be worth it thats why im asking

 

I already told you my opinion by quoting that poll option.

 

so you think its pointless? can i ask why?

 

Think of it this way.
You have two computers. And two graphic cards.
Two graphic cards powering two computers is well worth it.
But two graphic cards powering one computer producing like what a 30-40% increase in performance with the current drivers and all, is it worth it ?? You're paying as much as the same graphic card in another machine that produces 100% result. So therefore "SLI" is not worth it.

 

Sli doesnt give full power output of two cards...... so whats the point in connecting them together ....... i think its just waste of money

 

but the performance could increase with future drivers and the like and is it possible that future games will use the technology better then it is currently being used so the performance increase could improve

 

WHO CARES?!?!!? Future future future... now we already know about 9 series... but hypothetically like from the 7 series to 8 series, there could have been a new card costing lesser than your SLI config and giving 200% the performance.....
Sli is just a gimmick!!

EDIT: At today's rate of advancing technology, a 30-40% increase for 200% the price is NOTHING!!

 

I'm afraid the answer is not that simple. It really depends on the video cards you will be using. I would say that with the Go 7950GTX SLi was quite well worth it. For the 8700M GT not really due to driver issues.

Now for the 8800M GTX no one can really tell you as there is no benchmarking or user collective experience. So it is really a bet (wait for real user experience in games, not just reviews over the latest novelty)

In the end IMHO all depends on the deal you are currently gettings for the second card. If the second card is costing you $500 I definitely would not buy it as currently a second card costs around $700 soled separately.

Why? If you don't buy it and it does not offer significant advantages you save $500. If you buy it and it does offer significant advantages you save $200 (significant for me is anything above 40% increase). This considering that prices will not drop and probabilities are equal (50/50). If they drop until you decide, you you will save even more then buying it now.

This considering your mobo does support 8800M GTX in SLi.

Anyway if everyone thinks like me no one would ever buy an 8800M GTX in SLi, so there will be no collective user experience on them, so you will not be able to decide in buying the second card lololol.

Trance
PS: Check the price of the second card with your supplier.

 

I so absolutely agree!!

 

My thinking, and of course like everyone else it's all very subjective, is that it is well worth it. Let's say, even at a worse case scenario, a second 8800mGTX gets you another 30% performance upgrade...and i believe that's on the low end. For me, that 30% will be the difference between being able to crank Oblivion or the Witcher or Hellgate or even SimCity: Societies (don't laugh, you want to talk about a graphics monster, that game could bog down the space shuttle) to full 1920x1200 reso and amp up every effect. So really its in how you want to use the mobile rig! Just some thoughts!

later,
pat!

 

It is a bet otherwise it would not be subjective . It is well worth it if you win the bet, otherwise is not.

It is a bet as we have no evidence of such gains during gaming on the new cards. I did that bet with the 8700M GT in SLi when it came out. So far for the games I play, I've lost that bet.

You might have won! What a monster of laptop you have there.

Trance
PS: With the Go 7950 GTX was totally different as that bet was won. I just gave it away due to lack of knowledge. So be warned, the answer is as simple as ... "maybe"

 

Let me extend on things to watch out when talking about SLi versus non SLi apart form 3dMark06 scores and Frame counts in games:

1) Stuttering. During a gaming session if the system stutters (althoug on average you get say 100 FPSs) mean that you loose some frags and the experience is not smooth. To solve this if you need to lower the resolution or reduce de graphics details or simply play with one card. In all these solutions you start wondering what is the hell the second card doing.

2) Response Time. If for no explainable reason you find out that you score more at lower resolutions, or with SLi disabled means that your system responds much faster at lower resolutions to make a difference in the overall experience, well ... why bother

These are two things that no benchmarking review I've read address. You can find that only on user reports in search for better drivers. Considering that so many users have been searching for better drivers in the forum, well you may wonder why.

Trance
PS: Don't go on over the idea that better drivers will come out, becouse evidence shows that new drivers have little impact on performance issues of past cards. New drivers mainly focus on stability. In my case new driver have not made much difference apart from stability.

 

The improvement, on average, is 60% - look at the M1730 review on Anandtech where he compared it to a single 8800m.

Whether it is worth it or not, is something for you to decide.

 

What is the perfomrance increase for the desktop PC? There are more people using the SLI in desktop PCs than in the notebooks. What are they saying?

 

I have 7950GX2's in SLI on my rig, the performance is very close to double that of a single card. 4,613 for the single in 3dmark06 and 8,930 for the two in 3dmark06. These cards have been out for quite a while now so the drivers are good.

As the Mobile 8800GTX is new, and drivers are pretty much still in beta. Right now the performance increase for the price is not worth it. I ordered my Sager with a single 8800GTX and will either upgrade to another single 9 series or dual 88's sometime in the (not so near) future.

 

I'm going to post this here since the SLi/Stutter-specific thread has been back-burnered:

Would the folks running GPUs in SLi (answers from folks with 8700s as well as 8800s would be great) check their registries for the following values:

Under the device instance data (also called the hardware key), look for the following:

• \Interrupt Management\Affinity Policy\AssignmentSetOverride
  - this should be a REG_BINARY value
  .
• \Interrupt Management\Affinity Policy\DevicePriority
  - this should be a REG_DWORD value
  .
• \Interrupt Management\Affinity Policy\DevicePolicy
  - this should be a REG_DWORD value

Also, please indicate whether or not the registry contains two sets of device instance data (one for each card) or just one set.

 

The whole point is not to get +100%.

The fact of the matter is, SLI puts you at a point there you CANNOT get to otherwise, no matter the hardware or the software or OC'ing or whatever.

It DOES give you an improvement in game, that has been shown, and in a week we will see user reviews that will surely show the same results as the M1730 review shown before.

a 40% increase in fps is HUGE.

from 25-35? i'd kill for that in any demanding game.

It depends on what you will be using it for.

Do you NEED it? definitely not.

Does it make a difference? YES.

Is it worth the money? Only you can decide.

 

agreed, once I put my humpty dumpty back together. I will save for SLI.
I just spent my SLI money on all new plastics. boo hoo.

 

Your order of Upgrades:

1 8800m
Then Screen
Then CPU's
THen HDD's
Then RAM

IF you have money left over then go for it. If ur budget is 5000, why not get Sli?

 

It seems to be a very tricky thing to put the 8800's to work in SLI in the 9262. Many customers have been waiting for 2-3 months. That's to long. Expectations have been shattered. Sager/Clevo need to make very humble apologies and have to pay a visit to Dell to find out what they did to make it work in their "Beast"

 

...or, since we're playing speculate-a-rama, perhaps NVidia should apologize to everyone and share the fixes they developed with _Dell with everyone else.

 

Hi all,

I did not wanted to back-burnered anything. 8800M GTX SLi might well be worth it as it was the Go 7950 GTX. So becouse 8700M GT Sli IMHO did not prove itself as a good SLi system (all the reasons pro SLi today are just the same as it was back in August last year), my suggestion is to hold your horses until more real world reviews are done by users in games (if you see the word "smooth" experience high settings and good resolution... yes that is the word to look after, and not 3dMark06 scores or FPSs count)

It is not clear that you get better gaming performance by going for 2xSomething. Without SLi in my system I get around 5600 in 3dMark06. With SLi I get ~8800 in 3dMark06 and ~10500 OC'ed (50% to 100% increase) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In terms of FPS count t 1600x1050 in COD4 everything maxed out I go from 25-40 to 40-60 (plus 10 to 20 FPS ... 30-40% more cool).

Yet to play COD4 without getting frustrated due to stuttering I can't use SLi as it is supposed although the game seams to be prepared for it. When it is smooth it is smoooooooooth but when it stutters (often) it ruins your game.

So be warned. If it turns out to be a good or bad bet, it does not mean that I was right or wrong. I'm just advising you to go for SLi when you have more consistent data later favorable to that move (not just speculation and marketing spin).

Trance
PS: We have been speculating faster and faster drivers since July last year. 8 months afterwards were are those drivers that increase say 6 FPSs or solve stuttering in certain games? In 8 months only two official drivers were launched, that perform worst then the unofficial ones in laptopvideo2go, that are simply ok.

 

sli in a notebook is not a good idea, generally. i made this bet and lost due to the finicky drivers of sli, especially in notebook drivers. i have done nothing but fight with drivers and settings to try and get sli to function properly to no avail. each game demands some other driver and or to spend 15 hours trial and error benchmarking to try to get optimal performance.

the two games i play are eve online and supreme commander. in supreme commander there is an 82% performance increase with sli but the game is not stable as the fps will come crashing down unless i enable vsync. vsync cuts that 82% gain to about 50% and frusteration builds. in eve online sli has issues with shadows and the fps crashes if am viewing certain structures. in other more populated areas it the fps will not crashing down. i enjoy running eve and other games in windowed mode so i can multi-task easier but sli only works in full screen mode.

in the end it was frusterating experience with the drivers and the performance gains of sli were almost negated by them....

i purchased crysis to find out that sli on it is a joke. it gave only a 30% performance increase when i really needed that juicy 80%+ performance increase from sli to make the game playable because i had a dual 7950gtx setup.

in the end i was left feeling that i almost had the power of 2 graphics cards, that the power was dangling in front of my nose but i could not grab it. but the damn drivers prevented this dream and expectation from comming true. only the games that officially support sli are the ones you can get bragging rights for, it appears. otherwise you will just end up feeling like a fool.

but hey, if you got the cash go ahead and spend it. i would.

 

Did you get already your laptop?

 

no, im saving up i keep changing my mind what laptop to get bu ive decided to go for the 9262 and i WILL gt this once ive decided the config and got the money, gonna get it from Kobalt

 

That's true.

If you make $5,000 a week and live under your means(unfortunately most people don't), for a little extra scratch, it's nothing to add SLI. That's goes for desktops too. It's an added luxury more than anything really. If you make $600 bones a week, it's probably not that good of an idea.

 

it would only cost about £350 to add it so i may just go for it.

 

@ ARGH and WuJen,

I tried EVE (using the 14 days demo). At 1900x1200 with the extended version and all quality settings turned to high ... it is smooth as a baby (very nice to look at). Only tried the tutorial section and approaching the base station. So many things to learn and so little time.

Trance
PS: EVE looks emazing and I could clearly get hooked as a old Elite fan (if you remember the game in ATARI 800XL, Commodore64 and ZX Spectrum). Unfortunately I don't have the time to have a life in a parallel universe . That is the problem I have with all MMORGS.

 

you have to go to whats called a "POS", a player owned station that is anchored to a moon. that is where the fps crashes. the fps does not crash at a normal large station like the ones where you start out from, it is smooth as butter there. these new-player zones actually have more traffic and things on the screen than a small pos that i have located remotely in space.

i know this sounds confusing, but sli has been nothing but confusion lol.

with sli on, the high and extreme shadows causes the fps drop at pos's and i even managed to make it happen while in an asteroid belt viewing hostile npc ships. with sli off, the bloom settings on high and low gives a sever performance hit while shadows on high or extreme does not, ironically.

 

I`d say it`s not worth it. I mean, SLI is beginning to show it`s age, nowadays it`s X2 all over. No driver hassle,double the performance.

 

i thought x2 is sli on one card that you still have to deal with driver support...

 

Yes, but it`s not you standard SLI type of driver issues. And the GX2 shows promissing results, wiping the floor with the 8800 ULTRA , so if they`d ever make a mobile version of that,it`d definitely kick some arse.

 

It's much easier to spend someone else's money than your own.

SLI has it's share of headaches, but if your dedicated then most, if not all, can be overcome. It boils down to what do you want. For £1,800, you should be able to get a quad core and SLI 8800's, no?

 

where? the cheapest ive seen with quad core and dual 8800m's comes to £2300+ if you know where its cheaper then please tell me, as long as it aint dell they have real ugly machines

 

Only if it is bought from US or Canada and there is no extra VAT paid.

 

X2 and GX2 have exactly the same issues as two-card SLI solutions, since they are, after all, two cards on the same PCB or joined together. The only advantage is that they are easier to install and, for GX2, work on non-nVidia chipset motherboard. But they use the same drivers as two cards in SLI and exhibit similar performance.

 

i may just go for the one card and wait for benchmarks and reviews of SLI performance before i decide on what to do, if it turns out that the performance aint that much better i may decide to go for a different laptop.

 

What exactly do you intend to do with you future laptop? Me for exmaple I do not care so much for shooting games so much, so even the 8800GTX might be too much for me.

 

Yeah... after all, a single 8800M GTX can max out any game except Crysis, not that two 8800M GTX can max it out either... so what ARE you trying to achieve ?
Hell, even dual desktop 8800 Ultras (with better driver support) couldn't max it out, nor the new 9800GX2!!

 

Yes, if you don't care for First Person Shooters I would say that even a single 8700M GT would make you good. The 8800M GTX would maxout anything that is not an FPS.

Trance

 

i want to play a load of different kind of games such as adventure shooting (1st and 3rd person) some racing games RTS games, their are a load of FPS games that i will want to play such as crysis, UT3, Bioshock, 2142 and maybe some others when they come out.

 

Read.......

 

yeah i may decide to go for something else, ill wait to see what the benchmarks of SLI are to see how much performance increase their is.

 

Prasad,

1313 posts since Feb. That makes 14 posts per day on average man. You are a POST MACHINE ... Congrants

Trance

 

Are you calling me a bot ?
Not really, check my profile.... Total Posts: 1,313 (25.70 posts per day)
A good friend of mine on another forum has a 75 posts per day avg. He's a mod, and so proper posts, none spam.

 

Oh no, I'm not saying you are bot. If you were you would have passed the Turing test, and who ever made you would be on the way to be extremely rich

Trance
PS: My calculations were wrong since I was counting 3 months rather then two. Sorry for the offtopic, but I thought it was funny.

 

No problem, buddy! Either way the answer in this thread is pretty clear..

 

8800m cannot max any single game in 1900x1200 native resolution. For example, World in Conflict or Supreme Commander have severe slowdowns, if you run World In Conflict benchmark, it will slow down to single digit FPS in certain parts of the benchmark. I have personal experience on World in Conflict on M1730 compared to my 5792 and it is significantly faster.

SLI provides, on average, 60% improvement, depending on which game you are looking at.