NVIDIA GeForce 6 SLI (& ASUS A8N-SLI): Demolishing Performance Barriers

For months we’ve been waiting to take advantage of NVIDIA’s SLI and it’s looking like the tier one motherboard manufacturers will be doing their best to bring the first nForce4 SLI motherboards to market before the end of this year. So is SLI all it’s cracked up to be? With a final board [ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe] and final drivers, it’s time to look at SLI from a final perspective to see if NVIDIA squandered the opportunity to regain technology and performance leadership or if SLI is really everything it used to be…

…From a performance standpoint, SLI is just about as good as it gets. If you have the budget for it, a pair of GeForce 6800GTs will let you run at 1600 x 1200 with 2X or 4X AA enabled in the latest games while still maintaining a very smooth gaming experience – something that no single card is able to do.

The GeForce 6600GT seemed to scale reasonably well, with a pair of 6600GTs outperforming a single 6800 Ultra in Doom 3 and Half Life 2. It doesn’t make too much sense to buy a pair of 6600GTs today however, as you’d be much better off getting a single 6800GT and upgrading to a second one down the road, which brings us to our next point, the upgrade value of SLI.

If NVIDIA is able to get their SLI certification program successful enough and if motherboard manufacturers are able to get SLI boards cheap enough, then the upgrade value of SLI is significant. We’ve already seen that going from a single $200 GeForce 6600GT to a pair of them offers performance greater than that of a single $400 GeForce 6800GT. Take into account that the price of these cards goes down over time and you’re looking at a pretty decent upgrade path for the future, requiring minimal investment today.

NVIDIA’s GeForce 6 SLI: Demolishing Performance Barriers @ Anandtech