Adding a second 7900GT KO (eVGA)

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Limp Gawd
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Sep 1, 2004
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So I did a major upgrade on my motherboard/CPU to a C2D and such, and now I realized video is my bottleneck. I simply can't afford to go the 8800 route right now, or even the 7950GX2 route. I decided instead to add a second 7900GT to my machine. Am I going to see some real world performance gains from this? I mostly play EQ2 and NWN currently, so I am hoping adding the second 7900 will smooth those games out a bit. I know I won't double my FPS or anything crazy like that, I am just hoping it smooths gameplay out a little bit at mid-high settings.
 
Just added one last week, did the really quick and easy volt mod tp 1.4 V on both. I currently have both GPU cores @ 640, memory @ 800.

I noticed some definite performance differences, I was able to bump F.E.A.R. from 1280x1024, 2X AA/16 AF to 1680x1050 with 4x AA/16x AF and average 72 FPS. I could bump Oblivion up to 1680x1050, good framerates both in inside and outside environments.

You'll definitely notice a difference. Newegg has the EVGA 7900 GT KO (what I bought) for $225 + $20 MIR last time I checked.
 
Yah, I have the second one in and it's quite the difference. What is this volt mod you are talking about? My GPU's already get in to the high 60's, low 70's, Celsius under load...I am not sure if I really want to OC them. My CPU is watercooled, so I have less standard airflow in my case. I may just want to leave them alone, as they are running like champs right now.
 
Here's a link to the voltmod- you just need a multimeter to measure voltage and a conductive pen to draw the lines on the video card. Took me 20 minutes to do both cards.

LINKY

Like I said, I'm running the GPU at 640, and it's completely stable with 1.4 V.

You can try the memory mod, but I didn't, seems that there is more risk to the RAM voltmod. I may up the GPU voltage from 1.4 to 1.5, though- my temps are good, and I'm liking the extra performance.
 
That's a bit much for me, hehe...I don't feel I have a good enough grasp of electrical engineering to go modifying the way my 7900GT's run. Honestly, they run pretty fast at the stock OC's EVGA has them at, at least fast enough for me. I don't really play things like fear, and I'm not really a benchmark cowboy. It's awesome you were able to get your GT's to OC like that though :)
 
Heh, I'm not much of an electrophile myself, but this was seriously easy, all you have to be careful is drawing the lines to the right points. The cores are meant to run with 1.4 or 1.5 V, so it's an easy performance gain, and more so for SLI'ed 7900's.

Total cost for me was the pen ($7), 2 VF-900-Cu coolers ($65), and the 2nd video card ($200); I know, I could have sold my current 7900 and bought an 8800 GTS for roughtly the same cost, but I want to keep this system for a while, and performance-wise I essentially have 2 7900 GTX's. That's definitely nice.

Heck, if you're brave enough to have liquid running around inside your case, you're brave enough to do this. It's cake compared to water cooling... :)
 
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