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Gigabyte's 3D1 brings SLI to a single card
An anonymous reader writes "Gigabyte have implemented nVidia's SLI on a single graphics board, dubbed the "3D1." The card features two GeForce 6600GT cores (I would imagine two 6800 cores would draw too much power and create too much heat for a single PCB.) Hexus.net have a review of the board, which in various tests was able to compete with a 6800GT, but will it be marketed at a favourable price? You may also want to read Hexus' article - 'An Introduction to SLI' - for a look at how SLI technology works."
I've got an FX 5900 non-ultra 128MB. Doom3 and Half-Life 2 are both my bitch.
Really? You can run both of those titles at maximum detail settings, at 1600x1200, with 16x oversampling and 8x full-screen anti-aliasing at 60fps+ on an FX5900? I've gotta get me one of those FX5900 cards, as my 6800GT basically turns into a thermonuclear device when I try those settings.
The point is that there are plenty of people out there who DO want to run their games at the maximum possible resolutions and image quality, and quite a few of those people are willing to spend the $500 plus necessary to get the performance they desire.
The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
This is an interesting post because a year or so ago most people would have been saying the same thing about your FX 5900.
The point is - most people do not have upper teir graphics cards. Just like most people do not run the absolute top of the line AMD & Intel processors. They are too expensive and all about marketing.
Myself with a laptop currently only have a Radeon 7500 onboard. My previous desktop had a Radeon 8500. YOU do not need an SLI or next-gen top teir card because you already have a last gen top teir card.
Those of us, and there are many, who don't do need an upgrade.
Why the SLI thing?
I buy one 6600GT for my motherboard. I'm happy, I like it. 2 years later my games start to suffer, I buy another one. Go look at the benchmarks comparing hte Single to Double... its a 50-100% boost in performance depending on the application. That is really significant and considering where the prices of those cards will be in a year or two - has a lot of bang for the buck.
Your comment about buying a "Monitor" is ridiculous. If you have a 17" and a crappy graphics card and then go buy a 19" and still have that crappy graphics card - you won't be able to take advantage of the higher resolutions availble on that monitor. Yes some monitors just have better picture quality, Mitsubishi Diamondtron comes to mind, but again your argument doesn't make sense.