Continued:

NVIDIA has recently introduced a full-scale x16 PCIe graphics solution on its latest chipset. The bandwidth that x16 provides is simply immense but presently, apart from pure flaunt value, there’s no point. We don’t really need this much power to operate smoothly even in the most graphics intensive games.

To further clarify my point, lets take a look at the transition from AGP 4x (data transfer rate – 1GB/s) to AGP 8x (data transfer rate – 2GB/s). The difference between the gaming performances between the two is almost negligible. It’s only visible if you play games in ultra high quality mode with every single effect including AA and AF turned on to the fullest.

Similarly, the difference between, say, an NVIDIA 6800 Ultra PCIe and an NVIDIA 6800 Ultra AGP 8x is absolutely nothing; this is because of the way games handle data transfer. Game developers knew that AGP 8x could transfer no more than 2GB/s; therefore they designed games that are optimized for that amount of bandwidth. During game play, the bus is given only 2GB/s of data to transfer and not more (to avoid lag and framing).

Now let’s say, we double the lane, or even quadruple it with data transfer rate to 8GB/s – what’s the performance result? Nothing. You will not see any difference whatsoever in either speed (frame rate) or graphics quality because the software can’t allocate the excessive amount of bandwidth. It’s not optimized to work with more than 2GB/s of data throughout the entire operation.

What I’m trying to get at is that no matter what we do right now in terms of increasing the speed and bandwidth of the hardware, it’s completely wasted unless developers start writing software that can work with more bandwidth.

PCIe has been out for a year now and yet we have not seen anything developed, designed and optimized for it. Clearly the future holds promise, and we can expect great things from it but for now, it’s simply about clocking higher benchmark numbers in a game of one-upmanship between competitors.

NVIDIA has certainly scored market points with its x16 SLI technology, but as far as the usefulness is concerned, I don’t see the value behind it. At the moment, you are more than likely not going to see an increase in performance and for what it’s worth (x16 SLI motherboard costing upwards of $150.00), you are better off with the now "2nd generation" of SLI boards.