Quick question for high priced cards

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Luzah

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 15, 2007
Messages
369
Hey everyone!

I have a quick question that might not be a quick answer. I currently have a QX9650, an eVGA 780i and a eVGA 8800Ultra. As everyone knows, the 8800Ultra is now discontinued, which kind of shocked me. I was wondering, would it be a better choice to sell off my 780i and my Ultra and maybe hit up a x38/x48 and perhaps a 3870x2? I am not exactly sure if SLI is going to be my thing anymore, since i did have it on my old 8800GTX's. I read alot of people's views and opinions on the Ultra vs 3870x2 dillema, but maybe someone can do an un-biased opinion??? Thanks in advance!

Don't Sign Your Posts - Kyle
 
Problem with that is if I am not mistaken, the 3870x2 doesn't work on the 780i board does it????
 
Luzah said:
Problem with that is if I am not mistaken, the 3870x2 doesn't work on the 780i board does it????
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I don't see why it wouldn't work. I can't imagine that a dual ATI solution would work with an nVidia board, but if your over SLI then who cares?

Personally, I would go X38.
 
See....i'm not sure the exact battle between the 3870x2 or the Ultra SLI .....i haven't been keeping up with the latest wars. So i am not exactly sure which would be the faster....that why i ask if i should dump the nvidia platform and pick up an x38 and the 3870x2.
 
i own two x2's, two 3870's, two ultra's, and two gtx's. if that doesn't say unbiased i don't know what does. the x38 is an exceptional platform. the problem is really with crossfire. some games work very well, some games produce good benchmark numbers but are glitchy during live play, some games don't improve at all, and some games run very bad. honestly, i've not experienced any problems with crossfire until this year, with the current crop of games and drivers. before ati's r600 technology, i didn't notice any unusual behavior with x18, x19, or x1950 cf. the x2, while intended to behave like a single gpu video card, still suffers from the same pitfalls of the cf platform. yes, the g80 tech is nearing end of life, but r600 tech has been in the market for 9 months and ati is still playing catch-up.
 
rennyf77 said:
i own two x2's, two 3870's, two ultra's, and two gtx's. if that doesn't say unbiased i don't know what does. the x38 is an exceptional platform. the problem is really with crossfire. some games work very well, some games produce good benchmark numbers but are glitchy during live play, some games don't improve at all, and some games run very bad. honestly, i've not experienced any problems with crossfire until this year, with the current crop of games and drivers. before ati's r600 technology, i didn't notice any unusual behavior with x18, x19, or x1950 cf. the x2, while intended to behave like a single gpu video card, still suffers from the same pitfalls of the cf platform. yes, the g80 tech is nearing end of life, but r600 tech has been in the market for 9 months and ati is still playing catch-up.
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Very nice opinion! Thanks for that. So maybe i should just ditch the 780 and pick up an x38 and just run the single Ultra? That sounds (from what you have said anyhow) to be the most logical solution. Maybe a more cost-effective solution down the road too?
 
Sell the Ultra, or don't. You won't get more than $450 or so for it, so you might just keep it for now unless you feel the 3870X2 will do better in the titles you're interested in.

Either way, sell the 780i and buy a P35 board for ~$90-$150. $90 Gigabyte P35-DS3L for no RAID, 4 SATA ports, $140 DFI P35-TR2S for better OCing settings, better power filtering, 6 SATA ports, RAID.

Should make you $100+ right there, no performance drop at all. No reason for the 780i unless you're running SLI. No reason for X38 unless you're running CrossfireX. PCIe 2.0 isn't actually used by anything yet, and Nehalem in a year or so will make LGA775 irrelevant.
 
Very very good point Silent! Does anyone have any comparable benchies for the 3870x2 vs the Ultra in say...Crysis and COD4? ....i really will look into this!
 
Luzah said:
See....i'm not sure the exact battle between the 3870x2 or the Ultra SLI
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Well the Ultra (and the whole 8x00 series) are being replaced by the 9x00 series. If your looking for the best of the best you should probably wait until the new series is released to see how they compare to the 3870x2 (and as always, how new drivers perform). If your not interested in SLI, I would get an X38 board. The games your playing contribute variables along with your ambitions to overclock.
 
Hell, i really don't think i need to OC this beast i have now! I'm too damn scared to...after all, it's not a cheap CPU. LOL. But i do understand that the games i play so make a difference, which i why i mentioned Crysis and COD4...the biggest ones i usually play. With the occasional Hellgate thrown in for good measure :)
 
Hurshai said:
Well the Ultra (and the whole 8x00 series) are being replaced by the 9x00 series. If your looking for the best of the best you should probably wait until the new series is released to see how they compare to the 3870x2 (and as always, how new drivers perform). If your not interested in SLI, I would get an X38 board. The games your playing contribute variables along with your ambitions to overclock.
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I'll reiterate. No reason for X38 unless you're planning to run CrossfireX, which is just ATI-flavored SLI, so if one is not interested in SLI (and are not brand-loyal, which is silly) chances are they are not interested in CrossfireX and should not waste money on an X38 based board. They do not OC any better than the P35s, they run hotter than the P35s, and they're more expensive.

P45 an X48 should be coming out shortly... though they're just refreshes. The P35s are solid.
 
So Silent...in your opinion ...what would be the best p35 board? I really don't want to take a chance on OC'in the 9650 ...and i honestly don't think i'll do SLI again....so what would you say?
 
i agree with silent. the p35's have a proven track record and are easily the best overclocking chipsets available.
 
Luzah said:
So Silent...in your opinion ...what would be the best p35 board? I really don't want to take a chance on OC'in the 9650 ...and i honestly don't think i'll do SLI again....so what would you say?
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OCing the current chips is dead stupid easy, and with proper cooling it's very low risk. Don't see why you'd be worried, considering many have now been running 50% OCs for over a year without issue. :) Still, that's a personal decision.

I'd say that the Gigabyte P35-DS3R is a solid board, or the DS4. That or the DFI P35-TR2S. The Abit IP35-Pro is nice, but it's having some issues with the 45nm chips, so I wouldn't go with it. Less popular but still solid options would be MSI's P35 Neo2-FR or FIR (a P35 Diamond with a couple of features dropped for cheap -- very solid board) and the Foxconn MARS and upcoming BLACK-OPS boards.
 
What about the DQ6 board from Gigabyte that i've heard good things about? Can't remember the full name of it, and i'm not positive if it's an x38 or p35 board. And one other thing, should i just scrap the board and keep the vid? I still run the dd2-8500 from Corsair ..so i most likely will have to get new ram either way :(
 
Luzah said:
What about the DQ6 board from Gigabyte that i've heard good things about? Can't remember the full name of it, and i'm not positive if it's an x38 or p35 board. And one other thing, should i just scrap the board and keep the vid? I still run the dd2-8500 from Corsair ..so i most likely will have to get new ram either way :(
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...DDR3 isn't worth the price hike. It offers almost no performance increase over nice DDR2 like you're already running. Zero reason for new RAM. The DQ6 is probably overkill -- no reason to spend more than you need to. Almost all the current boards are solid, so find one that has the featureset you want/need and post here just to confirm it's not a known troublemaker before you buy.
 
Ok. Point taken. I'll definitely look into those first two boards you mentioned. I haven't ran a gigabyte board for -years-! It might be a good old trip down memory lane to own another one :) Now..as far as the vid is concerned ....what do you *personally* think of the ultra compared to the x2? ...at this point in time i should say.
 
The Ultra is more reliable as you aren't worrying about SLI or CrossfireX support for a given title, and it's still quite fast.

In titles with good CrossfireX support the 3870X2 is going to be faster, but in titles with CrossfireX issues the Ultra will be faster, so you need to read quite a few reviews and see what titles both cards perform well in. With the latest beta drivers from ATI Crysis seems to be faster on the 3870X2, but I don't advocate anyone build specifically for Crysis, as Crytek is far from great at optimization.
 
Very good point again Silent! I may as well stick with my Ultra ...it seems to really go well with this QX9650. Ok, does both of those boards you mentioned earlier support both ddr2 AND ddr3? ..or -just- ddr2. That's one of the perks of having this 780i since it supports both the rams.
 
Luzah said:
Very good point again Silent! I may as well stick with my Ultra ...it seems to really go well with this QX9650. Ok, does both of those boards you mentioned earlier support both ddr2 AND ddr3? ..or -just- ddr2. That's one of the perks of having this 780i since it supports both the rams.
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...I'm reasonably sure the 780i is DDR2 only. All of them. And DDR3 is immature, overpriced, and for the moment useless for anyone not overclocking to absolutely insane levels -- as in, LN2 cooling for benching, or phase change.

There's a DDR2/DDR3 capable version of the DS3R -- the P35C-DS3R -- but I wouldn't suggest getting it, as it gives you only 2 RAM banks of either type, and you can't use DDR2 and DDR3 at the same time.

Wait on DDR3 until Nehalem. LGA775 is dead at the end of this year -- no reason to include support for it in a current board.
 
Damnit Silent...you're right, my bad. I was thinking of one of the x38 boards that is dual-support. I'm an idiot! LOL....I DO however own a phase changer, but i'm selling it because i just don't think i can dive into it like i wanted to :(
 
Luzah said:
Damnit Silent...you're right, my bad. I was thinking of one of the x38 boards that is dual-support. I'm an idiot! LOL....I DO however own a phase changer, but i'm selling it because i just don't think i can dive into it like i wanted to :(
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In truth, with a Quad, DDR2-1000 or 1066 is plenty for phase. Some of the upcoming duals might need more, but I doubt it. DDR2 should be enough for you for a long time yet.



How much you want for that phase unit? :cool:
 
Well..that's the thing. I got this change from a friend over at BPC...and paid around $350 for it cause he was desperate for money ...i'm not exactly sure how much these things go for used. I know new it was around 1g or something ....hit me up in PM ....we might be able to work somethin out :)
 
Just a thought... But.. Why not just keep your current setup... and save your money... Your 780i is a nice board... your ultra is a great card and you already own the stuff.. I would wait for the new chips to come out (which as silent says-- will render the 775 boards useless)... By that point the g100 gpu's will be out-- the new chips will be out and I'm sure a new board will out by then.. Right now your going to spend money to end up no faster then you are right now..

Also=- for the love of god man-- OC that bitch... you can OC it 40-50% with your eyes shut and zero reliability sacrafice... crank that quad honey up and lets gooooo ...
 
LMFAO! Thanks for the aupport Slideways! You just gotta understand tho...i paid about $1100 for JUST this cpu......that's serious money no matter who ya are :) ....my old e6600 i would crank that bitch up to god aweful levels JUST to see if it would boot ......but never actually -ran- it passed 3.6 ...:)
 
If I were you I would keep the Ultra and 780i, the increase in performance you might see is not worth the expense you will incur selling all your stuff and starting over. If you were starting fresh i'd say get an x48 board and an x2 so you can CrossfireX come March but if you already own all that stuff I would hold tight and wait maybe get an 9800x2 or 9800gxt next month and you can SLi them on the 780i board. At the very least wait to see how Nvidias upcoming releases perform and then if you would still rather have the x2 and can afford to do it, go for it.

Cheers
 
Thanks Bluehaze! I just might hold off for a bit like everyone is saying. It seems the logical choice. Money is not a huge issue either ....but i usually do what's logical compared to what's cost effective most times :)
 
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