Q: What would be better... To have say two cards that are 512 in SLI OR To have one Video Card but it would be 1 GB? This question does not take in concideration any brands, just comparison in performance on say monitors staring from 15 to 20 inches (for example resolution 1280 X 800 pixeles) Who would have a better performance? Efficiency? I do realize that SLI consumes more power :) Thanks
A: 1gb vram actually makes very little difference on cards like 8800 and 9600. they dont seem to utilise the extra 512 in most of the reviews Ive read. Seems to be more of a marketing gimick than anything else. it definitely doesnt lead to the sort of boost in performance you might expect from the numbers. You are better off with two cards because you are then running two gpu's. This assumes the cards are similarly specced, ie two 8800gt's @512 will trash a single 8800gt @ 1gb, etc.