8800 GTXs SLI; upgrade, or not to upgrade...that is the question

[TerminatorUK]

Hello peeps!

Just wondering if anyone's got an input on an upgrade dilemma I'm having...

I'm interested in upgraded my two 8800 GTXs in SLI @ 625/1405/1000 (2000 ddr) each with Thermalright HR-03 Plus heatsinks which are running most games fairly well but are starting to show their sign of age in the very latest games or things like Crysis @ DX10/Very High.

I recently got a 1920x1200 monitor which has tipped the balance in favour of upgrading but question is, to what?

I don't really want to spend too much more than £400 (including selling the existing two 8800 GTXs) at the moment but I'm looking for a solution that will make a significant difference.

Do ya recon a single GeForce GTX 295 would be a good upgrade or should I hold off for the GT300 towards the end of year (or possibly Intel's Larabee?).

I'm thinking it might be good to get one GeForce GTX 295 now and wait for the price to drop towards the end of the year or next year and SLI it with a second one.

Do GeForce GTX 295s overclock very well and are there any aftermarket heatsinks (non-water) available for them at the moment?

Cheers for any input

Hardware as in sig below....

 

[DeathTyrant]

With two of those cards, it's really only a couple of games that could do with more power. Crysis (and Warhead), STALKER (and Clear Sky), and Far Cry 2 are the main culprits.
Just bear in mind that you will want a GTX295 or a 4870X2 to play Crysis at your resolution. Two of them if you want a good bit of AA at very high settings.
If you play those games a lot, then maybe it is worth the money to you.
If not, wait it out.

 

[iamTakeo]

I dropped down from an 8800GT Sli because it wasnt used in most games, I'm waiting it out, focusing on Fast CPU, stable, efficient PC until something real comes out.

 

[gizmoy2k]

Just went from 8800GTX SLI to GTX280 and took a slight performance hit vs noise and heat!

GTX280 seems less jerky and picky in games though, I doubt i will wander from a single card solution again

 

[iamTakeo]

Thats another thing, I've got an aftermarket cooler and a 120mm fan on my 8800GT, Slient and the whole case is cooler as a result, Perfect

 

[HangTime]

could do with more power. Crysis (and Warhead), STALKER

STALKER won't see much gain from ditching 8800GTX-SLI I wouldn't have thought. That's more powerful than my GTX280 which runs it surprisingly well in high settings (compared to what it was like on my GTS320).

Personally I wouldn't bother upgrading yet, you still have a powerful setup.

 

[{SAS}TB]

I went from a pair of 8800GTX OC2s in SLI to a single 4870x2 and I must say im impressed, and as an added bonus I could get rid of the nFarce board I needed for SLI

 

[TerminatorUK]

Well it's only really Crysis and Stalker:Clear Sky that are causing crappy framerates at the moment and that's only with everything maxed out (with Crysis in Windows XP DX9 for example, I get a good 50-60 fps on High with Medium shadows).

I'm thinking it might be worth hanging on at the moment and see what's around the corner but I guess you can do that forever and never get anything

 

[jeffa123]

Quite frankly I am surprised that anyone is thinking of changing their GFX setup at the current ecconomic climate. Please do't get me wrong, Graphic selction is purely personal decision. You may seem to suffer at certain resolutions but at least you are able to play the latest games without any sufferance to your pocket.
Before upgrading to another Gpu you have to ask yourself one question. Did the last advert for the 8800 GTX or whatever card you brought fulfil the advertising threshold. I notice you are running XP still is this because of lack of driver support for SLI in Vista. The GFX support is no better for the other Nvidia or ATI cards. It seems that the drivers are still suffering from lack of SLI and API support and some systems cannot cope with the driver requirements and even your system ram falls over trying to support the Graphic drivers.
I have the 8800GTX but I have had that snce Vista was in Beta, it quite happily goes along in Vista and installs in Windows 7 Beta with no hassle. But I have not used it on any games in the environment, but a single 8800GTX scoring 7.9 in windows Aero is no mean feat. But when DX11 is introduced is a NVIDIA 280 or 295, or an ATI 4850X2 etc going to support the DX11 Api if that is what you are looking at. I have seen many on this and other forums looking to upgrade their GFX card when it is really not required especially when it costs between £500 and £700 to get another pair of GFX cards plus a new set of Ram and perhaps a new PSU on top. You may as well wait until the prices come down or decent bundles at lower costs to the user come out because as the market becomes flooded the more graphics support you will find. Nvidia's 260 and 280 models are now coming down in price, let us not for get the 9800 range which was a total flop and was poorly conceived. Not that it was a bad Idea but it had the wrong goals set on it and it was quite clear after the 3 main models were released that it was not really competing against anything except the 8800 and it only beat it in certain FSAA situations. But very little games supported PhysX so was self defeating.
Nvidia and ATI are still struggling to make good drivers for their GFX boards and more often than not you still have to OC the FSB to match up the Ram bus with GPU interrupt alignment.
You may initially get a good setup with a new GPU but after attempting a Game that requires the GPU to do some extra work then you have to tune it to you components also employed by the MB and CPU, like RAM and FSB.

All elementary to the average tweaker but not so to your average layman.

Personally I am fed up with all this trend lark and only now buy when it suites my needs and not those of the manufacturer. So far all I have found from most GPU's is that they are introduced not to suite the market but to compete in the market share. They are no longer interested in yesterdays buyers, just today's and tomorrows deals.
There I have had my say, I just hope you make a decision based on your personal needs and not on keeping up with games which should also cater for your needs. I don't see any hassles with a game console for gaming because the games console has the same GPU sync clock and the same GPU and CPU in each, online gaming and offline gaming is better because the code writer has stricter bounderies. These are tried to the extreme sometimes and if one game is different from another they cannot match-up online for playing. So today the Network -Live factor comes into gaming.
For more info see all the progress made with the i7 CPU from Intel.

 

[PCZ]

I am still using 8800GTX's in SLI.
Still seem to be cutting the mustard.

I have considered going X58/i7 and then upgrade the cards.
Can't really justify the cost though given the current financial climate and the lack of new games for the PC.

 

[{SAS}TB]

But if you have the money .......

 

[Big.Wayne]

I'm interested in upgraded my two 8800 GTXs in SLI @ 625/1405/1000 (2000 ddr) each with Thermalright HR-03 Plus heatsinks

Quite frankly I am surprised that anyone is thinking of changing their GFX setup at the current ecconomic climate.

Running costs mean anything!

175watts on two idle graphics cards is flippen ridiculous!

430watts just on the loaded cards in SLI, that's basically as power inefficient as you can get!



GeForce 8800 Ultra SLI (768 MB)

175W > 430W (idle/load cards only)

2D Operation Cost in Dollars 365 Days x 24 Hours $307

3D Operation Cost in Dollars 365 Days x 8 Hours $251



Radeon HD 4870 (512 MB)

83W > 184W (idle/load card only)

2D Operation Cost in Dollars 365 Days x 24 Hours $145

3D Operation Cost in Dollars 365 Days x 8 Hours $107


Power Consumption--Graphics Cards And Electricity Costs

 

[TerminatorUK]

Hi guys...thanks for all the replies and input (especially jeffa123...what a post - thank you!); really put things in perspective for me!

My 8800 GTXs have been a resounding success overall. I bought my first 8800 GTX (for £320...ouch!) in Jan 07 when I shifted over to a Core2Duo system and I was blown away by the performance....it was outstanding!

When the prices of the 8800 GTXs dropped last year, I bought another one in April last year and, again, it was a nice performance boost for £150 and allowed me to comfortably play games with x4 AA / x8 AF enabled as well which I really enjoy now!

I think I may just hold fire for now....from what I can see, I don't see that a single GeForce GTX 295 will be leaps and bounds better than x2 8800 GTXs in SLI....especially with 'only' a Core 2 Duo system.

Really my dream rig would be a Core i7 @ 4ghz, EVGA X58, x2 GeForce 295s SLI, 6GB DDR3....*drool* but I really, really couldn't justify that cost!

Instead, I think I'll put a little aside into a savings fund each month and see how the GT300's pan out towards the end of the year; doesn't really make much sense to consider a DX10 card at this time with DX11 approaching soon.

Thanks again for the reality check peeps