Gaming PC

[paulie]

Gday guys, Im building a new PC with an e8400 c2d chip, 750a mother board, 850 power supply and currently have one xfx 8800 gt which i have oc'd heavily..

My question is, Is it worthwhile running 2 8800 gt's in sli or upgrading to the 9 series of cards..

Im really after personal experiences rather than hearsay..

Thankyou..

[Toy-Yoda]

You'll be looking at a 10-20% (max) increase in performance running Sli, you're far better off saving the coin and getting an epic single card that utilizes dual GPU's on a single card.......

For reference, look into the Nvidia GeForce GTX 280, Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2 and the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2.

For better cost/performancethough, look into the ATI Radeon HD 4870. Best bang for buck in a high end environment.

See how you go anyway........ :2thumbs:

[rthy]

i got the 9600gt 512mb for a lark... and it totally rocks
e2180
2gig ram
9600gt

runs stalker 1680x1050 on max no probs
hl2, css, tf2, etc... 1680x1050 on max no probs
cnc3 1680x1050 on max no probs
only problem was warhammer online which kinda runs like shit because the game is shit

[paulie]

the funny thing is, i have 1 8800gt and i can max everygame at 1680 bar crysis...

I got stalker clear sky the other day, I cant quite max it, everything on max apart from enhanced dynamic lighting..

I did some research the other night to find that Nvidia claims a 50-60% increase with sli! This sounds significant to me..

Also found that a 8800 gt in sli beats most the 9 series gpu, a 9800 gx2 is essentially two 8800gt's, and 8800gt in sli beat a gtx 260..

I think Ill grab another 8800gt and oc the shit out of it again as they are quite cheap now, and upgrade to something newer when its necessary to..

Cheers for the input lads..

[rthy]

yea the 9600gt only cost $120
only went for the 9600gt cos it was $50 cheaper than the 8800gt at the time (few months ago)

how about getting the Q6600?
it still scores pretty high in alot of things

[paulie]

Yeah thought about getting a quad core. Did a lot of research only to find there are NO games out there that utilize the quad core. Games use a maximum of two cores.. Im sure this will change in the near future though..

[Toy-Yoda]

Nvidia's claims about performance increase under SLI are um, optimistic I've found. But whatever floats your boat.

There are about three games that natively support quad core, Supreme Commander, Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance, and I can't remember the third one, because it wasn't very good......... The main problem is that the technology in PC's is advancing faster than the games companys can write the games, by the time a decent number of games are available that utilise quad core, the technology will be in place to run Oct core systems.........

You can already get support to run dual quad processors with quad SLI, and it's pointless except for bragging rights........

[UGANGA]

im running dual 9800GT's and honestly i would go GTX280 if i had the chance

[Driftspec]

SLI = great improvements in HI RES GAMING only. And I'm talking 1900x1200+ resolutions only. Any less than that and, depending on the SLI strategy used by the driver, one card will sit there needlessly grabbing power and generating heat. So, the short answer is no

As you will be running a 750 chipset on your board, probably sticking with either a GTX 280 or a 9800GTX should be heaps for what you are doing. the money you save in not SLI'ing cards you can put towards one of those puppies. For reference, my 8800GTX more than handles every game available, including Crysis, which is playable at high res and medium to high quality levels. The 9800GTX is essentially on par in terms of performance with the 8800GTX, and the 280 is a fair bit ahead.

What power supply are you running? Brand and model? Thats more important than just the wattage, because any of those two cards will need the juice to work.

The reason I don't suggest the 4870 in this case is that you are running the 7xx-nVidia chipset. Its best practise in Performance PC design to never mix ATi and nVidia, as you can get driver conflicts, stability issues and performance issues. Any other chipset, and the ATI would be my recommendation.

[rthy]

the 9800gt 512mb only cost $155 these dyas, so tempted to upgrade
altho the 9800gtx 512mb is $255 hmmmmm