Good Single vs. SLI

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GreatestOne

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 15, 2005
Messages
488
Hey all, I know most people support a good modern card over SLI... however hear me out. First my current specs:

Core2Duo 2.66 (OC 3.2)
2x2GB Corsair Dominators
800GT 512MB (OC 700mhz)
Abit IP35Pro (no SLI)
(For high end gaming and graphic/video rendering/editing)

So I am looking to upgrade to the Quad core (any suggestions that are better than the Q6600 as far as the best price/performance ratio? I know they are all supposed to be good overclockers anyways...)... now if I had SLI capability, I think it would be a no brainer to just add another 8800GT for now with my budget for probably about $100. However I dont have SLI and the crossfire thing seems useless. So..... do I disregard any future SLI as well and just sell my 8800GT and get a 9800GTX or is the GTX260 worth the extra $60-$80 in real world game performance?

Of course the other option would be to get another MB with SLI and another 8800GT, but now I talk like that, that seems very silly, dont you think? My thinking there is, next year I can get 2xGTZ260's or something for like $200 instead of the next GTX380 or something for $250. Does anyone have a real numbers idea of how much better a new single card is than a last gen SLI setup?
 
Without a SLI capable MOBO there is no point contemplating this. If money is a concern, sell your 8800 GT and get a good single card.
 
And if i had an SLI, then u saying just getting another 8800GT is comparable in performance to say the GTX260? How do you calculate SLI when you know each card's specs, is there a rough formula, like you will see a 50% increase in performance, or 35% or some ball park figure?
 
not really. 8800GT in sli are good but not as good as a 4870. and they can be had for 210 (on special) GTX260 is in the same range and both provide a better game play experience then the two 8800GT s. If you already had a SLI board, yes it would be a good upgrade option for you. I can't say that its worth getting a Nvidia board for that option though (exception is EVGA 750i board)

In short if your building a system a single card is going to be better solution then SLI unless your going high end. If your looking at upgrading then the issue becomes fuzzier. for instance dual 8800GTX is still a good solution but take more power and perform less then a GTX280 in some the newer games. but if I had an SLI board I would have gone that route. it would have been cheaper and worked well.

Right now the best value is ATI. you can use an intel chip set (P45) and still crossfire nicely. A pair of 4850 are faster then a GTX280 (waiting for the H review to check game playing) and are considerably less. I opted for the GTX280 because I like max settings when possible.
 
My build before last, I went to great pains to make sure I had SLI capability. I got a 7800GTX - high end at the time - and figured when I wanted to upgrade, I could add another one. Then when I upgraded, I just got an 8800GTS.

At some point, I guess the thought was they can only do so much with one card or something like that. But 'they' keep proving that theory wrong except in the most extreme circumstances (2560x1600 type circumstances.)

IMHO, SLI is currently not worth much trouble vs just getting any one of a number of great value single card solutions. Definitely not worth dumping a good mobo like the IP35 Pro.

I say keep the IP35 Pro, get a Q6600 and save up for whatever video card you can afford. Around $200 - less with rebates - buys a lot of video card power today.
 
I had a similar decision to make recently, except I already had an SLI board (Abit IN9).

I chose to go the SLI way (to try it) and got my 8800GT a sister, SLIed them and added 2 GB of ram, for a total of 4.

Here are my findings. In SLI the benefits you will see are VERY game dependent. In some cases I see almost double the performance (like Crysis). In some (like TDU) I see virtually no improvement, other than the benefit of higher resolution with similar performance (1680x1050->1980x1200 bump).

The system is generating considerably more heat and is a bit louder, and I have some sort of USB bug with the second card put in. Not sure what it is, have not had time to solve it yet.

If I had to make the decision again, I would have probably waited and gotten an upscale single GPU solution.

Hope this helps.

DK
 
LanceDiamond said:
My build before last, I went to great pains to make sure I had SLI capability. I got a 7800GTX - high end at the time - and figured when I wanted to upgrade, I could add another one. Then when I upgraded, I just got an 8800GTS.

At some point, I guess the thought was they can only do so much with one card or something like that. But 'they' keep proving that theory wrong except in the most extreme circumstances (2560x1600 type circumstances.)

IMHO, SLI is currently not worth much trouble vs just getting any one of a number of great value single card solutions. Definitely not worth dumping a good mobo like the IP35 Pro.

I say keep the IP35 Pro, get a Q6600 and save up for whatever video card you can afford. Around $200 - less with rebates - buys a lot of video card power today.
Click to expand...

Ya understood... that 4870 might be a good value around 200 and get 100 for mine, so a nice upgrade for ~$100 net.... it seems that ati card really blows the 260 out in some tests.... wonder how accurate that is. I guess thats another new post!

Btw, I know the quads are still expensive but is it worth the extra few to get a 6700 or any of the QX's? Isnt the 6600 still the first gen quad?
 
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