SLI or better CPU?

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Ruachta

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Nov 14, 2006
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I currently play mostly WoW, AoC, and CoD4.

Still running on an old 21" trinitron monitor which works great for me so the resolution I wanna play in is 1600x1200 which I can easily do atm (CoD4 at 1280x1024). What I want though is to be able to turn up the quality of the rendering.

5000+ BE at 3.2Ghz.
8800GT
M2N32-SLI Deluxe
2GB Ballistic kit
SPI 700W PS

In order to run with higher AA and AF should I get another 8800GT and SLI it? Or would getting the quad core 9850 from AMD be a better option to get the results I want? Also running CoD4 at 1600x1200 would also be something I'd love.

I can't afford to replace the whole rig to jump on the Intel band wagon like I'm sure a few of you will suggest. The price performance of AMD is still pretty good and I like to see competition.
 
The "smart" choice would be to go SLI, because that can be moved to a new rig in the future.. If you buy the 9850, you'll get the Quad-core, but your memory will be limited by the motherboard's memory architecture.. So, essentially, you're not going to get the full bang from the CPU, whereas with SLI, you will.. I went SLI with 2 MSI 8800GT OC 512MB cards on my ASUS Crosshair, and wouldn't hesitate to do it again..
 
Thanks guys just ordered a BFG 8800GT OC from Ncix. Has the same overclock settings as my XFX. mmm finally get to play with SLI goodness.

700W should be sufficient eh? It says on the box it has like 83% efficiency or something. I'm hoping that'll cover it.
 
So when setting up SLI, doesn't the 2nd vid card have to match the first one exactly?
Or can they just be the same model, but different manufacturer?
I have a PNY 8800GTS G92 reference card, and want to SLI at some point, but PNY isnt sold in very many places and doesnt go on sale as much as eVGA and the other popular brands.
 
The 2nd card does not have to match the 1st card exactly for SLI in clock speed, memory speed, manufacturer or amount of memory. When SLI is enabled, both cards will be slowed down to the specs of the slowest card. So if you have one card that is clocked at 700Mhz and the other is clocked at 650Mhz, in SLI, both cards will run at 650Mhz.
 
sprtnbsblplya said:
So when setting up SLI, doesn't the 2nd vid card have to match the first one exactly?
Or can they just be the same model, but different manufacturer?
I have a PNY 8800GTS G92 reference card, and want to SLI at some point, but PNY isnt sold in very many places and doesnt go on sale as much as eVGA and the other popular brands.
Click to expand...

The only thing that needs to be the same is the GPU core.
 
Oh [H]ell yeah, that is gonna save me some cash then.
This is my first card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133215

And I was gonna add something like this for the 2nd in SLI:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814134037
Since its $160 after rebate, or whatever happens to be on sale like that or used on the [H] classifieds at the time.
I think they're both just plain reference cards with different stickers.
Since they're both reference, would these two be a good pair? I game at 1920x1200 so I hear SLI performs best when you're really pushing the limits like that.
 
Ruachta said:
...(CoD4 at 1280x1024)...
Click to expand...
That's surprising... I can just about max it out at around the same res, and I'm only running a x1950pro and a lowly A64 3000+. I would've thought your PC could handle it at 1600x1200 without breaking a sweat (2048x1536 even, since you can probably do without AA at that res on a 21'' monitor :D ).

BTW, when you're after a resolution at around that point, you should be running it at 1280x960. 1280x1024 isn't the same shape as your screen. It's subtle, but the picture gets distorted.
 
I have to run CoD4 at a lower res cause if I use 1600x1200 during multiplayer I notice it's not as smooth gameplay as when I use 1280x1024. During the single player game I can crank it up but not multiplayer.
 
Ruachta said:
I have to run CoD4 at a lower res cause if I use 1600x1200 during multiplayer I notice it's not as smooth gameplay as when I use 1280x1024. During the single player game I can crank it up but not multiplayer.
Click to expand...

Does bandwidth affect that at all or is it purely GPU limited even in multiplayer?
 
I don't think bandwidth is affecting the CoD4 issue. I have 5mb down and 1mb up and it's nice and reliable. Other games have no issues for me, but CoD4 requires a lower res for me to play multiplayer effectively. I even notice a chop when there are airstrikes in a game with 16+ players.

No longer seems to be an issue with the 8800GT's in SLI
 
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