When I wrote my first Editorial on SLI ( Editorial: Taking the SLI Plunge ), I thought that would cure some of the questions and concerns people have about upgrading to SLI...but it hasn't. More talk and more easing of the woes is still needed.

   The two most common questions I get are:

• "how do you like your SLI setup?"

• "Is upgrading to SLI worth it?".

    Well, the answer for the first question above would be "Just fine, thank you". However answering the 2nd question about SLI being "worth it" or not is a bit more tricky. So tricky in fact that I was prompted to write this article about it. I will tackle these questions in this article and hopefully it will give you some insight into the enthusiasts (and minority) world of SLI. So if you've been thinking about upgrading to SLI lately, and it's (probably) driving you crazy, then relax, sit back and give this a read.

1) "How do you like your SLI Setup?"

  My answer to that is always a delayed answer. It seems most people need to hear something more exciting than "just fine", but honestly "just fine" sums it up pretty well. Maybe "it works" could be another un-exciting answer, but honestly SLI isn't blowing me away or anything.

  The reasoning for that is really pretty simple. Upgrading to SLI is not as jaw dropping of an experience as say upgrading from a 15" CRT monitor to a 20" widescreen LCD monitor. Speaking of which, ask me how I like my 20" widescreen Dell 2005FPW and I'll say "I LOVE IT! It's AWESOME!". You clearly see the difference there and really, you can CLEARLY see the difference between those two.

  Maybe the problem is I already had an Nvidia 7800GT, which I just bought and was a hair off the top of the line graphics card on the market, and then bought another 'exact match' 7800GT. So that's like going from a Mustang GT to a supercharged Mustang GT. Keep in mind, they look the same.

  After the installation of the 2nd card I was fool hearted enough to think something incredible was going to happen when I booted it up. Like maybe angels were going to fly out of my monitor and cover me in sparkly dust to make all my dreams come true. It didn't happen.

  I was greeted with a small popup in the system tray ( that set of icons on the lower right of your monitor) that said something about "your PC is now SLI-Ready" (or something similar to that) and pointed me to the graphics cards settings to officially enable it. Like I'm going to install the card, but not really use it.

  So after going into the options, checking a box to enable SLI, being forced to reboot the machine that I just booted up, I was in business...SLI style. I don't think I even got so much as a popup box on this second boot up. whoop-di-doo.

  So of course I played around with some settings really just begging to see something amazing, but once again, it didn't happen. Instead of one graphics cards, now I have two. That's about it.

  After getting in some games like Quake 4, Call of Duty 2, Unreal Tournament 2004, and F.E.A.R, I would start playing with settings and resolutions and try jacking stuff up. There really wasn't anything I could do to make it WOW me. I of course could jack up resolutions, but honestly I was already playing in high resolutions with all my normal settings in place with one graphics card so going to two didn't do much for me in the excitement department. I was craving to be blown away, and it simply didn't happen. I think Quake 4 gave me the toughest challenge by going to highest resolutions. Even SLI couldn't keep up with it. Typical Carmack programming, made for 5yrs from now ;)

  I won't talk too much more about that as I put all my gaming screenshots and benchmarks in my first article ( Editorial: Taking the SLI Plunge ).

  So here's my official answer to the question "How do you like your SLI setup?":

I like it, but I forget it's even there most of the time. To me it's like asking me how I like my dual core CPU. "It works just like my single core cpu did" sums it up pretty good. It takes a certain situation for you to even notice the difference from a single card, but then since you'd have SLI installed, you wouldn't really notice the difference at all would you? You get the point.