SLi fur dummies?
My weekend research into my dead compyootah reveals I need yets another motherboard.
So far, I've been working/playing/battling/screaming* (*delete as applicable) with an ASUS M2NSLi Deluxe motherboard - but am on my fourth board (about to become fifth) within 18 months.
The original board was chosen because it praised itself for being SLi ready - provided it was fed by two identical graphics chips.
That meant two video cards - which, having chosen the GeForce 8600GT (PCI-E) graphics card gave me 4 DVI outputs.
I use two digital monitors, a 21" for working and surfing, and a 19" for e-mail and any mini windows I need (calculator, skype, messenger etc) for a short time.
The SLi never did work - totally blank screens. I ended up running just one video card and operating both monitors from one card. Nice, neat, easy, efficient.
Never worked out if I should have bothered with SLi - as I didn't *really* understand its proposed benefits.
Now that I'm required to install another motherboard, I'm wondering if it's worth going down the SLi route for little other reason than "because I can"...although I do play a lot of "Second Life" - which is a very graphics resource hungry on-line environment.
Can anybody explain *IN LAYMANS TERMS* exactly what the pros and cons of SLi bridging are?
Conversations with ASUS when trying to make all this work suggested that if SLi bridged, the two video cards would only produce ONE video signal and the remaining three ports would be disused. I'm certainly not going that way.
I'll use my new, problem solving, lower quality PCI card to run a third monitor (HDTV set) - just because I can. Can monitor my radio station then - and play more youtubes, too.