Geforce 9800GX2 issues

K so I recently got an alienware with this card and I am really confused. They advertise 1Gb dedicated memory but my computer tells me it only has 512Mb. Is this right? I also read that the 9800GX2 does not perform well with antialiasing turned on. Is that true or have they fixed that now? and if so do you need to download drivers or would they do that at the factory? last thing is that the multi GPU is "recommended" for this card I think. Why? and for some reason I can't seem to access it sometimes in my Nvidia control panel. Sometimes its there and sometimes its not it doesnt seem to be picking up the 2nd part of the graphics card sometimes

Thanks for any replys

also sometimes in the device manager, under display adapters I'll see 2 Geforce 9800GX2 and sometimes only 1. This also coincides with sometimes not being able to choose the multi-GPU configuration...the optiion isn't even there. I just don't understnad what to do...Could the card not be attached well or is this normal for the 9800GX2?

Thanks again

With sli, 512mb of vram + 512mb of vram = ... 512mb of vram. Look what SLI does on google you will see how much of a ripoff it can be though in some games it could be beneficial.