Depending on your personal beliefs and on the extent of your love for videogames you may think of PC setups that feature two graphics cards as; an exaggerated misuse of money, a chance for the companies to increase benchmark scores or simply a practical idea for getting the most out of current games.
Whatever your personal thoughts however, these setups are now available from both major graphics cards manufacturers and they are here to stay. So whether your income puts you in the 1 per cent of this world’s population that can afford a twin card setup or if you just marvel at the power wielded by these systems, you will want to know how the ATI Crossfire (+Fire) and nVidia SLI compare.
SLI started life as an abbreviation for Scan Line Interleave as 3DFx boffins got together in 1998 in order to harness the power of two Voodoo 2 boards and deliver the unheard of quality of 1024x768 gaming. The 3DFx design called for a 2D card, in addition to the two Voodoo 2 boards, that would take care of non-3D applications. The firepower came from the 3D cards since one rendered the odd lines of the scene and the other the even ones. Although a lot of time, money and effort went into that design, the concept never made it out of the 3DFx labs and was placed into stasis until the rest of PC technology could catch up.
Six years later and as the arrival of PCI Express meant that the bandwidth available to a video card could now accommodate incoming data from more than one board, nVidia decided to revive the plan, updated for 2004 and beyond. This time SLI means Scalable Link Interface but the concept remains very similar. SLI harnesses the power of two graphics cards on one system in an attempt to increase graphical processing capabilities and ultimately deliver extremely high-end gaming.
ATI did not have the background knowledge that rival nVidia had access to but in some ways that liberated the company from a few restrictions evident in the SLI setup. ATI also had the benefit of witnessing SLIs rising star, a turn of events which made the creation of a two card system a sound investment. Finally ATI decided to address the shortcomings it thought were evident in the SLI product.
So you get ready to spend a shedload of cash to get your hands on a setup that promises two graphics cards instead of one, you accept that you will be paying more than double for the privilege, what should you know before you dive-in? The most important fact that you should be aware of is that both companies have messed up…
