Vid Cards...SLI vs. PCI express

[rounder]

Hello to everyone,

The mobo I intend to purchase has PCI Express, but doesn't mention SLI. First of all, SLI is one acronym that I haven't heard difined. That BUGS me. (I hate it when I don't know what and acro stands for!) :mad:

Is SLI a hardware "thang" that, simply, utilizes the PCI Express connectivity or is it a slot on a mobo that different from the PCI Express connectivity? This is something, apparently, that I need to know when selecting a video card. I am considering a PNY 8800 GTS.

Thanks in advance,
rounder

[delRhode]

SLI's an nVidia-specific mechanism for running two cards in parallel to share the task load of rendering frames. On a motherboard that supports, there's two PCI-E slots for your matched videocards to inhabit... so, if you're just going after one card, SLI probably doesn't much matter (unless you're looking at upgrades down-the-road).

So far as the acronym... unless they came up with an updated version, it dates back to when Voodoo did the same sort of thing many moons ago. Stood for 'Scan Line Interleave' back then, as I recall.

[Midknyte]

http://www.sysopt.com/forum/showthread.php?t=162277

There are links for crossfire and SLI.

Unless you plan to run two cards right now, don't bother with SLI. by the time you choose to upgrade, you might as well get a single card.

[Kandar]

SLI was originally a concept by 3dfx for the Voodoo range of cards. As stated by deRhode it did indeed stand for Scan Line Interleave and allowed two cards to share the load equally by splitting the odd and even lines of the dispaly and one card dealt with the even lines and the second card dealt with the odd lines.
Nvida's implimentation of SLI stands for Scalable Link Interface and allows the use of two linked cards but the similarities end there. It should not be confused with the earlier Voodoo SLI