SLI? Can anyone explain what that means?

[Guest ledzzepplin]

My computer has a ASUS P5N-E SLI motherboard. What does SLI do? Does it improve anything?

[Guest UlfB]

Hi,Good info on wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Link_InterfaceAs far as I've seen on forums is that SLI don't contribute to better performance in FSX. So it seems that it's better to buy a single high end card than two cards.Ulf B

[BoeingGuy 0]

Hi Rick,SLI is an NVIDIA concept (Scalable Link Interface) which allows you to put two of the same card on 1 motherboard for more performance. It depends on how you use it. For FSX, SLI is only good at the highest resolutions with plenty of AA, otherwise FSX doesn't care about the second video card.

[Guest GabeThePilot]

I agree...only resolutions over 16x10 will really benefit from a card better than say a 8800GT......your CPU system is more likely to be limiting FSX.But a 4870 or 260 or even a 9800X2 can't hurt and will really speed up other...'normal' games ! And, it won't hurt FSX.......check out reviews and benchmarks at OverclockersClub and Tom's Hardware.

[Guest Jeffhew]

>Hi Rick,>SLI is an NVIDIA concept (Scalable Link Interface) which>allows you to put two of the same card on 1 motherboard for>more performance. It depends on how you use it. For FSX, SLI>is only good at the highest resolutions with plenty of AA,>otherwise FSX doesn't care about the second video card.Yup, and it only works properly on boards with the NVidia chipsets. This means either a 680I or 780I based MB. Your Asus board won't cut it. If you want something similar with that board, I'd look into the ATI products as you can use two of those in ATI' crossfire mode (their version of SLI). The newer X38 and X48 boards use a PCI-E 2.0 interface which, I think, will let two crossfired ATI cards both run at 16bit speed but, with your MB, I think you'd be limited to one card running @ 16 bit and the second @ 8 bit.SLI or Crossfire setups can benefit some games but, for FS, it's just not worth the cost of a second graphics card. It won't work with FS9 and it's value to FSX is arguable. And the money you don't spend there, you could upgrade to a faster CPU which will pay far greater dividends.The only benefit to a multi-GPU platform would be in running the two cards independently to run a multi-monitor setup. I hope this helps.Best Regards,Jeff

[BoeingGuy 0]

>The newer X38 and X48 boards use a PCI-E 2.0 interface which, I think, >will let two crossfired ATI cards both run at 16bit speed but, with >your MB, I think you'd be limited to one card running @ 16 bit and the >second @ 8 bit.It all depends on the motherboard. For instance, my motherboard has the ability to run two ATI cards in CrossFire--both will still remain at 16x, and it's also PCI-E 2.0.

[Guest Jeffhew]

Yes, as I said, you would need a pci-e 2.0 motherboard. And the board in question, the ASUS P5N-E SLI doesn't have it. I did err however, in failing to recognize that this board does in fact use an NVidia chipset, and when I said that it would allow one card to run on a 16 bit bus and one on an 8 bit bus. The fact is that this MB is based on the 650I chipset which, when used in SLI, restricts both cards to an 8 bit bus. Having said that, 8bit still provides enough bandwidth for both cards to run at their peak. There is no real difference in performance and I doubt you would ever notice it.Regards,Jeff