Someone asked me the other day if I thought SLI was just a marketing gimmick or a real technology that is actually worth considering. Well, SLI is a great upgrade option for a lot of people, especially now with a large amount of SLI motherboards available for the impressive Intel Core 2 Duo processor lineup. Generally unless you are buying top of the line graphics cards like the GeForce 8800 GTS or GTX, going out and buying a pair of lower-end cards for SLI is not really what we would consider good value for money. What the extra dollars equate to means that you could get a faster single card solution and not have to worry about some games not supporting SLI capability. - TweakTown

BFG GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB OC SLI Ready Review

The technology is best when implemented with someone buying a card like the new GeForce 8600 GTS today, and then three months down the track, when they have some extra dollars, add a second card into the mix. That is in theory though. The GeForce 8600 GTS in SLI might be sub-par, who knows? Well we do, and so will you by the end of this article or at least you should. Is the GeForce 8600 GTS in SLI worth looking at as an option for performance users who do not have a thick wallet at the moment or simply cannot find themselves saving? Then the SLI option might be your way to go...

BFG has already upped the ante on the core moving it from the stock 675MHz to 710MHz. We were able to then increase it further again and achieved a maximum core of 730MHz. While BFG has chosen to leave the memory at the default 2000MHz effective we are not too sure why as it hits in excess of 2200MHz with ease, 2256MHz effective to be exact. There are three groups of performance users, the dollars do not matter and I want the best group, the type that go out and buy the GeForce 8800 GTS or GTX in SLI operation. Of course that means you need to have quite some cash saved up.

Another is the performance user who knows what good performance is, but is a bit more realistic with their budget. This group generally buys the single GeForce 8800 GTS or GTX. Finally you have the people that do not have loads of money to spend, and by the time they save up for a single GeForce 8800 there is a new model coming. For a few reasons we would recommend the GeForce 8600 GTS with a planned upgrade to SLI later as the preferred combination for the latter group. Straight away you do not have to turn around and spend too much money. You can buy a card that is probably going to do you just fine for now.

By the time you get around to being able to afford another, there will be new games that need more power and the upgrade is going to really help increase your performance. The other thing is that by the time you buy a second accelerator, it should have dropped in price making SLI an even better option again. Then there is the added feature of DirectX 10 support. If you have a GeForce 7600 GT and find yourself buying a second one now for SLI at a pretty cheap price, you are going to get a nice speed bump, sure, but the problem is you are going to be completely missing out on DirectX 10.

With the GeForce 8600 series on the other hand, you do not have to worry about not having such a major feature when the next release of mid-range cards come out in the future. So, the SLI option with the GeForce 8600 GTS makes the most sense for users who do not want to spend large amounts of cash on a GeForce 8800 series, which may then mean they have to sacrifice other things. However, if you can afford a pair of GeForce 8600's now we would not recommend it. As SLI has never really been about buying a pair of cards at the same time in the mid-range sector, you would be better off buying a GeForce 8800 card.

But if you find yourself unable to save up money, yet want to dump that tired and boring card in your system right now, the GeForce 8600 GTS with the plan to buy a second in the near future is a great option as far as we are concerned and the BFG product is quite good offering further performance improvements when overclocked.