SLI on laptops

[rallynavvie]

No, it wasn't a question, it seems to be reality
http://www.sagernotebook.com/pages/go_np5950.html

Alienware will be coming out with one as well. Quad-SLI was bollocks, but this? This SLI nonsense is starting to get out of hand. To have two power-sucking GPUs in a single laptop is absurd. The whole point of a laptop is portability. What good is it when you always have to plug the damn thing in just to use it? Do they even come with batteries anymore? How hot do those GPUs get when you're using them both?

[ROF]

Most laptops equipped with either high end graphics cards or these dual GPU units also ship with an onboard graphics or a switch to turn off the combined SLI power which conserves battery power when you don't need the blistering power of these GPU(s). I say blistering because they get extremely hot extremely quick.

For what it's worth I usually have my laptop plugged in.

[TBoneit]

And yes it sort of makes sense, Not to me of course as I prefer a desktop for desktop purposes and a laptop for laptop uses and 1 of each.

Having said that, more and more of the laptops being sold never leave the desktop.

[SingSing]

I read that user should remove the battery, even you plug in the battery all the time. The battery may still cycling itself during power on/off, even it is plugged in. We rather not spend $99 for a new battery after the sixth years.

[Treebeard]

Quad SLI's will not be usefull till nvidia gets the proper drivers out. but it is a waste of $ IMO. So is an SLI laptop.


as I look at my pathetic 6600gt AGP.

[edDV]

If the game geeks fall for it, SLI is a marketing dream for the game card manufaturers. Imagine selling 4 cards per geek per machine!

[rallynavvie]

Most laptops equipped with either high end graphics cards or these dual GPU units also ship with an onboard graphics or a switch to turn off the combined SLI power which conserves battery power when you don't need the blistering power of these GPU(s).

Yeah, my new Vaio lapper has a switch to go between onboard and dedicated video, but you need to reboot as it disables the dedicated card at the BIOS level so no power goes to it. "Hot-swappable" GPUs aren't quite available yet, though switching graphics on the fly like that would be pretty cool and a handy feature for these upcoming power-hungry laptops.

However the Vaio may be the only one with this option of switching between cards, though I admit the only other model I was looking at was the new IBM ThinkPad T60. Sony and IBM seem to be at the top right now with laptop manufacture. Dell, though popular, is still using lots of plastic on theirs and almost every one I see has something cracked or broken on the chassis. I only have to worry about electric shocks through the magnesium chassis part of my Vaio

I totally agree that a lot of laptops never move from the desk they're installed to. I've seen this happen several times when friends had laptops for school. Heck I did this when I had to have a Dell laptop for school but that was back when wireless was just coming out as IR so you had to be within line of sight with your IR-equipped laptop to pick it up and it wasn't very fast so having something portable wasn't all that great. Plus the thing weighed a ton. But for the cost difference between a desktop and a laptop, not to mention the ability to upgrade a desktop, I don't see why people bother spend the cash for a machine they may use away from their desk only a few times, if ever.

The laptop I linked to is going for $3200 and they skimped in other places to get the price down. For instance when you're already using all that power-sucking video and want good performance why are they using the plain 5400rpm SATA drives? They should be using 7200rpm laptop drives. It also features plain-jane AC97 audio instead of nice EAX gaming card. And XP Home? Wow