For a low to mid-tier GPU buyer SLI is just a sad joke.
That's kind of the point. Obviously spending 2x the $ on a product isn't for the low or mid tier user.
Also, the story of AH and SLI is a well known and old one now. In fact, you can take 5 year old hardware, and with the environmental/reflections setting not being higher than one notch, have it perform up to the max fps most users can see due to their limited 60hz lcds.
AH, a very old game so far as most of the graphics go, isn't what SLI is for. Anyone who is a low to mid tier user, or primarily using their gaming PC for Aces High only would be wasting their money on an SLI setup. However, this story that "most games, "driver problems", and "bla bla" are nonsense. I can list over a dozen popular games, and just did in another thread, where SLI with older cards than the new 970 and 980 gave a huge performance increase. Users who are using the new 970 in SLI, let alone the 980 - massive increase in performance. In fact, if you're planning on running max detail with games like BF4, Crysis3, Rome2, and many others, on triple 1080p monitors, a 1440p 144hz monitor, or a 4k monitor, SLI is almost a requirement. Google it yourself, there are many gaming sites with brand new reviews and tests of the 970 in SLI vs a single 980, which costs only 100$ish more depending on the manufacturer. I'll let you guess which is performing better for the $, 2 970 in SLI or a single 980.
You can start here, there are many more reviews/tests telling the same story for most of the popular games out there - 970SLI is a far better option than a single 980 for only 100$ more, the performance gains are massive.
Notice the BF4 scores.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_970_SLI/5.htmlOr the Crysis3 scores.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_970_SLI/9.htmlFar Cry3
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_970_SLI/11.htmlThe conclusions of this very comprehensive test are that the 970 SLI is a huge winner over the single 980 option in the bang/$ category. The same story is being told at Tomshardware, Anandtech, and so on.
I don't think nVidia envisioned building the SLI system around 1900 guys who play a dated flight simulator. I'm sure with the new version there may be a chance that we'll get an updated SLI profile for AH, but I'm not sure what's involved so far as dealing with nVidia on this, but I'm confident if it can be done, HT can do it so far as that goes. Either way it doesn't matter, as if it stays status quo so far as SLI/AH goes, it won't make much difference to anyone. I do somehow doubt that most AH players only play AH, which sort of negates the whole "sli is useless" for the AH player, certainly a majority of them at least.
Therefore with the price and performance of the 970 SLI combo being such that it is, it would be prudent to ask those asking advice on video cards what their usage of other games is like, in addition to Aces High, prior to telling them "sli is crap, and here is a list of my nonsense reasons why". If AH is the only thing a player is using their system for gaming wise, it's a completely different story regarding SLI options compared to a player that is into many other products.