I have 'used' SLI for years and my personnal verdict is: it generally doesn't work.
If it did, it would almost double every FPS of every supported game and honestly, I have never seen that other than with a special indicator in ROF...And without the indicator, I would not have noticed...so that's hardly double the speed.
And I have all the good (real) flight sims...
Also you buy twice the memory but you don't get it, each card needs to hold the same thing in memory.
If one day I want 3 screens, I'll buy 3 cards and link the desktops, no need for SLI here either.
In short, buy a good almost top of the line card that would have cost the same as two crappy cards and sleep tight.
My two cents.
Lou
PS: What kind of experience do you have with other programs and SLI/Crossfire ?