trinibwoy said:
I see. And exactly how is SLI becoming a minimum requirement pertinent to this discussion?
Uh, you'd have to ask the person who, several posts back, voiced his "concern" that game developers would start *requiring* SLI for their software. It was in response to his initial comments that I initially made my own comments about it. Gee--and here I am thinking the people asking me questions in this thread have actually read the thread itself. Shame on me, right?
That was due in no small part to the emergence of the AGP standard which was not SLI friendly. Read Dave's SLI article - it's very informative!
Well, I hate to break it to you this way, but dual-slot PCIe mboards are *not* the standard configuration for the great majority of PCIe mboards being manufactured presently. The PCIe mboards the major OEMs are deploying at present are all single-slot PCIex16 mboards. Dual-slot is very much a fringe commercial novelty at the moment and is certainly likely to remain so as the major OEMs have little to no interest in it. Some smaller OEMs (like Alienware) are offering it--but they are also selling many more single-slot PCIe & AGP mboard systems as well, at the same time.
Also, you forget that V2 SLI was PCI--not AGP--and long after AGP slots were appearing on motherboards they were still coming standard with multiple PCI slots. In fact, the very reason 3dfx did so well with V2 SLI in the first place is because whether it had an early AGP slot or not, practically all mboards currently in use at the V2's introduction had a spare PCI slot into which a second V2 was instantly configurable. Today with the case of PCIe mboard deployment the numbers vastly favor single-slot PCIe boards--which are not suitable for nV or ATi SLI at all. That's in sharp contrast to the PCI-slot situation at the time 3dfx shipped the V2.
But I do find it ironic that you are admitting that in the case of PCI vs AGP that single-slot AGP eventually completely overshadowed and obsoleted PCI SLI, even though multiple PCI slots on motherboards were never discontinued as the result of AGP deployment; yet you cannot see how the single-slot deployment of PCIe into the market virtually guarantees a short life for dual-slot PCIe SLI and makes it immediately much more of a novelty than was V2 SLI (which required but an open PCI slot which almost everyone already had when 3dfx introduced V2 SLI.) IE, the majority of PCIe mboard owners *right now* have but a single graphics slot--and that alone renders dual-card SLI an impossibility for them in the absence of a complete mboard swap. Considering that most people have just bought their single-slot PCIex16 mboards--how likely is it that they'll want to switch?
I haven't misunderstood. SLI is a concept - it is not bound to any particular IHV or architecture. What is stopping Nvidia or any other company from providing a dual-gpu setup with two of your 'incredibly powerful' gpu's of the future. Or do you think that hardware will outpace the demands of games? Hardly likely.
See above--you keep forgetting that the majority of PCIe mboards being sold are *single-slot* PCIex16 mboards. So *that's* what's stopping them. What's hardly likely is that SLI will be anything more than a flash-in-the-pan fad, just as it was for 3dfx (which again had a much easier SLI deployment scenario than any IHV will have today because of the ubiquity of multiple-PCI-slot mboards that were installed in the market before 3dfx launched V2 SLI.)
Second thing stopping them: the expense, power requirements and heat--all of these things mean nV/ATi SLI is *bad news* to the larger OEMs like Dell, for instance--who just don't want to sell it. Bottom line is that 3dfx basically gave up V2 SLI *as a concept* primarily *because* they couldn't get any major OEM wins with it--and OEM wins are where these companies really live. It won't be a bit different with the current SLI novelty--just watch and see. No use getting upset with me about it--it's just the way things are.
What's obvious is that you can't admit that your ridicule of another poster's analogy was nothing but infantile. When discussing the cost/benefit ratio of SLI or Hummers as solutions, it does not matter how many different 'parts' the solution comes in.
Oh, baloney...
I was being "ridiculed" by you and others because both you and others mistakenly believed that *I* had created the "Hummer" analogy in the first place. I didn't create it--but just like you I ridiculed it because it was a poor analogy inapplicable in the first place.
Look--these are merely my personal opinions on the present viability of SLI as a concept and nothing more. If you want to buy SLI go right ahead with my blessing. After all, why should I object to what you do with your money?...
I'm just not interested in it, and the only thing I'm guilty of is telling you why.
