SLI or not

I

ituggle

Gawd
Joined
Oct 7, 2005
Messages
528
Thinking about a new rig for gaming.

My monitor is the 37" Westy that does 1920 x 1080.

Will one 8800GTX keep me on top of the mountain for a while, or do I consider 2 of them for the next system crippler like Crysis? I keep reading that 2 only start to make a difference at 1980 x 1200 and above.

Looking to play mainly Quake Wars, COD4 and Halflife Orange Box type stuff. Some RTS.

IF I go SLI, then I will order the MSI P7N Diamond.
If not, then either the Gigabyte GA-EX38 DQ6 or DFI LP LT x38-T2R.

I plan on using either a Q6600, Q9450 or Q9650 for a processor.
4 or 8 Gb of Corsair Dominator 8500C5DF 1066 RAM.
Two Raptor 150's in raid 0 for main drive.
AuzenTech Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1 soundcard.
Vista Ultimate 64 bit.
Maybe watercool if noise level or heat make it necessary.

Also, is it true that on the 780i boards, I can go SLI with the first (blue) slot and the third (white) slot? I don't want to lose the only PCI slot on the MSI board. I wish it had 2 PCI slots and more SATA headers.

Thanks for any info/input.
 
On the reference boards you can do that I believe, I don't know about the P7N.

The GTX's main advantage (which you start to see at the higher resolutions) is that it is 384 bit compared to all the other cards worth mentioning (except the Ultra) that are 256 bit. So when you really need to start pushing textures, etc. it helps out alot more and doesn't bottleneck. The GTX itself isn't going to stay top dog for much longer so I would wait until the new cards come out to see how they bench compared to it and also so that the prices will drop. Also just buy one for now and upgrade to two later if you need it. Don't waste money on another card that you won't need.

The new Samsung HDs Spinpoint F1 32mb cache and also the new Seagate drives are faster than Raptors (they are outdated). The spinpoints are the fastest.

I would get the Q9450 if I was going to get one of those quad cores because it isn't as expensive as the Q9650 so you aren't wasting money too much if Nehalem is the Messiah like everyone thinks, but you really don't need a quad core for gaming right now unless you are playing Supreme Commander or are thinking of the future, but I don't see Quad cores being used for gaming for at least another year.

Also don't waste your money on Ultimate unless you are going to use the features that are specific to ultimate (look them up). You are probably fine wth Vista Premium.
 
A single 8800GTX card will do fine for that 37" Westy when AA and AF is not enabled or kept to minimum level. It is true that 2 cards in SLI will benefit those who push 1920+ resolutions with AA and AF enabled also. SLI helps alot when AA and AF setting are enabled. So, if you intend on running Hi res gaming with AA and AF enabled in most of the games you play, then SLI is for you. Quake Wars is an ideal game for SLI setup. It really shows a difference whether you have AA and AF enabled or not. Half Life 2 game shows a difference in SLI when you hit 1600 x 1200 res with AA and AF enabled.
 
Was in the same boat as you a little while back so I'll share my results.

I bought 2 8800 GTSs, and been very happy. I play 4x AA and max everything else at 1920x1600. (I might have HDR/bloom off, I really hate that stuff gives me headaches.) On the out door levels I'm running 60+ FPS, wih the occasional (rare) drop to 50 fps.

As far as Orange box goes, I was somewhere around 150-200 FPS (I stop really watching when that number goes into 3 digits) on portal. And thats with 16X AA and 16X AF again everything maxed.

I don't own crysis.

As far as my refrence 780i board, XFX if for some reason you care, the standard setup is one card in the first slot and one in the third.

I don't think you mentioned what case you are going to be using. So I'll make this FYI, There is barely enough room for a 2 slot card on the third slot on a XFX mobo in a P182 case. Keep this in mind. The S1s I show in my sig I havn't installed yet because I can't decide if i want to chop up my case for the fans or not.
 
To the OP,

Yes you can SLI with one card in a blue slot and one in the third white slot. I do this on my P7N w/o issue, so that I can use my PCI X-Fi Platinum.

I highly recommend the P7N. It's simply a better board than the evga and xfx reference boards. It OCs as well as them, yet employs superior materials in its construction (such as solid state capacitors,) which should provide for greatly enhanced reliability. Also, the eSATA and extra ports are a big plus.
 
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