Double the Trouble or Double Your Fun?

Nvidia's SLI technology has made quite a splash, at least among the community of elite gamers - or those gamers who have large bank accounts. The allure of doubling your performance by simply adding a second graphics card is a powerful one for gamers who play a lot of 3D action titles, in which frame rate is king. In fact, SLI has gotten so much public attention that ATI has jumped into the fray, announcing its CrossFire dual graphics card technology back during the Computex Trade Show.

The sales pitch is seductive: Get one graphics card today, and add another in the future to either double your current performance or as a form of future-proofing. Alternatively, you could buy two cheap cards, and get the performance of one really, really expensive one. But are SLI and CrossFire really a boon for high end gamers? Let's consider a few points:

- I'm sitting here looking at five different SLI power supplies: one from OCZ, another from Thermaltake, a third from Silverstone and a pair from PC Power and cooling, including an 850 watt monster. The lowest-power unit is the PC Power and Cooling TurboCool 510 SLI, but you could argue it's the equivalent of some 600W-plus power supplies, because of its robust current delivery. All cost more than standard power supplies, even pretty good ones.

- SLI motherboards cost $20 to $60 more than equivalent motherboards that support single graphics cards.

- Of course, you need two graphics cards.

- Your PC case needs to be chosen more carefully. I've shoehorned SLI rigs into standard mid-tower cases, one example being the Thermaltake Tsunami Dream. But it's a real chore, especially if you're also adding more than one hard drive. You really need a somewhat larger case, or at least one that mounts the hard drive cage away from the back of the motherboard, like the Silverstone TJ06.

- You'll really want to match up a pair of fast graphics cards with a beefy CPU.

- The net result: You really need one of those hefty power supplies. I'm sure you'll feel warm and fuzzy subsidizing your local power company.

I generally dig high performance systems. But the recent arms race in systems targeting gamers is bordering on the ludicrous. The processor and GPU companies are trying their best to wring out additional margin from the last bastion of high-spending PC users-gamers. As PCs have become increasingly commoditized, the rarefied air inhabited by systems like our own Killer Gaming Rig has become too pricey for most users.

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