2 8800GT or 2 8800GTX?

Magoo · 10 Mar 2008 at 13:26

2 8800GT or 2 8800GTX?

Will there be much difference between these 2 cards in SLI..
Will be playing games @ 11920 x 1200 on a BenQ FP241W...

Ignore spec below.. everything will be new ;-)

Secret_Window · 10 Mar 2008 at 13:32

2 GT > 2 GTX.

platinum87 · 10 Mar 2008 at 13:35

Magoo said:
2 8800GT or 2 8800GTX?

Will there be much difference between these 2 cards in SLI..
Will be playing games @ 11920 x 1200 on a BenQ FP241W...

people say the GTX gives advantages in 1920*1200, over the 8800GT, (should be similar story in SLI), but im not so sure, the benchmarks ive seen (with AA +AF) so extremely small difference with games like BF2, FEAR, BF2142, COD4.

considering:
2GTX = 440 pounds
2GT = 270 pounds

it would really not be worth it IMO.

OCOCOC · 10 Mar 2008 at 13:37

Secret_Window said:
2 GT > 2 GTX.

Agreed. Even 2x 9600GT beat the 2x 88GTX. I would say 9600GT SLI is very closed to 8800GT SLI with saving you a lot of money.

Please read here to see how 9600GT SLI beats 8800GTS G92 and the mighty 3870X2

9600GT SLI trumps HD3870X2

LoadsaMoney · 10 Mar 2008 at 13:46

You sure, so the 2x 8800 GT's, and the 2x 9600 GT's, beat the 2x GTX's when they have less Memory, smaller Bus's, and less streams. :confused:

OCOCOC · 10 Mar 2008 at 13:57

LoadsaMoney said:
You sure, so the 2x 8800 GT's, and the 2x 9600 GT's, beat the 2x GTX's when they have less Memory, smaller Bus's, and less streams.

Since I haven't got a SLI board, so I have no actual proofs.
However, this assumption is made from followings:

1. 8800GT is slightly better than 9600GT by around 10-15% in overall.(Proved)
2. 9600GT scale better in SLI than most cards in the past inc. 8800GT(Proved). So 9600GT SLI equals 8800GT SLI or just slightly slower.
3. 8800GT SLI > 8800GTX SLI (claimed by many people)
4. 9600GT SLI (much cheaper) = or > 8800GTX SLI in conclusion.

willhub · 10 Mar 2008 at 14:03

The 9600GT is only closer to the 8800GT in NV mobo's which you obviously need for SLi, in other mobo's the 9600GT is even slower.

I'd get the cheapest which is 2x 9600GT SLi and the best NV mobo for your cash.

OCOCOC · 10 Mar 2008 at 14:14

willhub said:
The 9600GT is only closer to the 8800GT in NV mobo's which you obviously need for SLi, in other mobo's the 9600GT is even slower.

I'd get the cheapest which is 2x 9600GT SLi and the best NV mobo for your cash.

First of all, The OP is talking about SLI and all discussions are based on that.
He has to have a SLI board.

Secondly, do you think 9600GT works much worse on Intel boards? And the gap bettwen 96GT and 88GT would be enlarged on non-NV boards? I've never heard about it. Any proofs would be appreciated.

Thirdly, we have the common sense and the same recommendations to the OP, anyway

willhub · 10 Mar 2008 at 14:19

OCOCOC said:
First of all, The OP is talking about SLI and all discussions are based on that.
He has to have a SLI board.

Secondly, do you think 9600GT works much worse on Intel boards? And the gap bettwen 96GT and 88GT would be enlarged on non-NV boards? I've never heard about it. Any proofs would be appreciated.

Thirdly, we have the common sense and the same recommendations to the OP, anyway

I know he's talking about SLi and there is nothing wrong with saying something that is not about SLi.

I have no proof, but there was some articles around here if you look around about NV's trick that boosts its performance, its something to do with PCI-E frequency at the same speed as the core clock, I dont know exactly how it works without reading it, but its along those lines.

OCOCOC · 10 Mar 2008 at 14:25

willhub said:
I know he's talking about SLi and there is nothing wrong with saying something that is not about SLi.

I have no proof, but there was some articles around here if you look around about NV's trick that boosts its performance, its something to do with PCI-E frequency at the same speed as the core clock, I dont know exactly how it works without reading it, but its along those lines.

OK, I got it now. But I'm a very heavy clocker and I overclocked my 96GT to 740/1050MHz, so NV's PCIE trick doesn't harm me

And I think OP is a similar kind of OCer like me

Edit, I'm using a P35 board to test the 96GT and get 12400 on 3DM06. So I'm very sure 96GT is only 10-15% slower than 88GT on any mobos

Linky has been posted in this forum.

willhub · 10 Mar 2008 at 14:27

I'm a heavy overclocker, I push my stuff as far as it will go, well I havent pushed the ram to the max yet, but my CPU is almost to the max and I bios modded my 88GT to get an extra 20Mhz out of it and 50Mhz on the shaders.

Go search for the thing about the trick on the 96GT, it sheds some light on its odd performance.

Richdog · 10 Mar 2008 at 14:31

It's called LinkBoost, and it's been an advertise feature of NV boards for about 1.5 years now.

willhub · 10 Mar 2008 at 14:33

Richdog said:
It's called LinkBoost, and it's been an advertise feature of NV boards for about 1.5 years now.

But it appears the 96GT's actually are sped up quite abit from this yet using 8800's the difference on intel mobo's compared to NV ones are no different usually.

OCOCOC · 10 Mar 2008 at 14:38

willhub said:
I'm a heavy overclocker, I push my stuff as far as it will go, well I havent pushed the ram to the max yet, but my CPU is almost to the max and I bios modded my 88GT to get an extra 20Mhz out of it and 50Mhz on the shaders.

Go search for the thing about the trick on the 96GT, it sheds some light on its odd performance.

I know exactly how it works and it's out there since GF6. NV is an unfair player as it always be. But it still doesn't harm me at all because my PCIE freq is always locked to 100MHz and my FSB is all the way up to 465MHz.
As soon as its stable, it's good enough for me. I'd quote the max. oced performance as its performance, anway

Btw, My 8800GT max. performance at 725/1050 is 14000 on 3DM06. 10% faster is confirmed.

willhub · 10 Mar 2008 at 14:46

What is your shaders clocked at on the GT? 8800GT @ 700/1800/1000 here gives me 13296 in 3dmark with a dual at 3.4.

jigger · 10 Mar 2008 at 14:50

Magoo said:
2 8800GT or 2 8800GTX?

Will there be much difference between these 2 cards in SLI..
Will be playing games @ 11920 x 1200 on a BenQ FP241W...

Ignore spec below.. everything will be new

If its a simple choice between 2 8800GT or 2 8800GTX then would save the money and go for the 8800gt's and take a small performace hit, but if you want to squeze all the perfomance you can from a game @ 1920x1200 regardless of the cost then the gtx's are the cards to go for.

IMO SLI is for insane poeple, as it dosnt really work, single fastest card i can afford for me.

If you go for the cheaper route again with 9600gt's you need to know that nvidia are not throwing striaght dice, and the OMFG benchmarks are on NVIDIA chipsets with LinkBoost and these boards can be buggy b***** to work with.

Have a good read on this start here,

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17847583

Perfect_Chaos · 10 Mar 2008 at 14:52

9600 GT in SLI is close to 8800 GT in SLI for about 60% of the time, but the minimum fps can be 10 or more better over the 9600's. I think its mainly to do with the stream processors, i guess some games like more rather than less.

Coming from someone with experience these cards are better than my old 8800GTX

which should make you feel better about the purchase.

nikebee · 10 Mar 2008 at 14:55

I can't at all understand how people are claiming two 8800GT's in SLI are faster than two 8800GTX's in SLI?

I haven't seen this myself, but my mind simply wont comprehend why... or how... two GT's could be faster than two GTX's :confused:

OCOCOC · 10 Mar 2008 at 14:55

willhub said:
What is your shaders clocked at on the GT? 8800GT @ 700/1800/1000 here gives me 13296 in 3dmark with a dual at 3.4.

Here are the screenies with all info

Perfect_Chaos · 10 Mar 2008 at 15:00

nikebee said:
I can't at all understand how people are claiming two 8800GT's in SLI are faster than two 8800GTX's in SLI?

They are not, whoever says so is full of bs

but they are damn close.