Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSandman 
thats what im saying it shouldn't at all, the two GPU's should run independant but together. The 8800GTX runs at its normal stuff, the 8600GTS runs at its normals stuff, neither gets altered period the end, just the 8600GTS is only given 10% of the screen to work on with its lesser specs while the 8800GTX does the rest, you would see a boost here
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Except that practical application currently in use proves that this isn't the case.
Say Jimmy has an 8800 folding rig. He then slaps the 8600 in there and begins folding on it too. It's already been proven that this would hinder the total folding ability of the two cards combined. That's even without SLI.
One thing I forgot to mention is that it's a hardware impossibility. The 8600 and 8800 for example use two different GPU cores. If there is incompatibility in the hardware, no matter how well your software is, it simply will not be able to work.
Also, on your point about the GeForce 6 series card - it wouldn't be a boost, at all. In order for SLI to be possible the two cards
must be the same. As it is right now, you have to have the same model - I.E. 8800 with an 8800. But for discussion sake let's say that you could match and 8600 with an 8800. This would be overcoming the difference in the GPU cores (G90 vs. G80, if I'm not mistaken?). However, the difference between the 6 series and 8 series is profound. Not a single aspect of the card design is similar.
However, let's still take it a step further and say that you could conceivably match a 6 series and 8 series card. As with the fundamental design with SLI - the more powerful card would downclock to match the less powerful card. In this case, the 8 series would jump back 2 generations of cards to 6 series speeds. That is a profound loss of power.
As for the mention of PhysX - it's already been proven that PhysX only takes up about 10% of a GPU's power, and at that adding a dedicated PhysX card actually hinders performance by causing the more powerful cards to wait for the dedicated slower card to finish processing. So, no - there would be no gain at all from this.