Crossfire and SLi, is it worth it?

xknight2000 · 12 Mar 2006 at 20:25

Ok I am getting a new pc that comes with x2 6600LE's in SLi but I am selling them to get one big card like an x1800 or 7800. But I was wondering is it really worth maybe going for a smaller card and going crossfire or SLi, or would I be better sticking with the x1800 or 7800?

Havana_UK · 12 Mar 2006 at 20:32

xknight2000 said:
Ok I am getting a new pc that comes with x2 6600LE's in SLi but I am selling them to get one big card like an x1800 or 7800. But I was wondering is it really worth maybe going for a smaller card and going crossfire or SLi, or would I be better sticking with the x1800 or 7800?

You'd be much better with a high end single card.

SLi is great, but a high end next gen single card will almost always be faster than a previous gen SLi/Crossfire setup.

Hav

PinkPig · 12 Mar 2006 at 20:44

You'll get the best value from a single card most of the time, depending on how much you have the spend something like an X1800XT or X1900XT / 7900 GT or GTX would be lovely jubbley.

xknight2000 · 12 Mar 2006 at 21:15

Obviously the ATI cards have the speed and price advantage over the nVidia cards but is it worth the jump from the X1800 to the X1900?

HangTime · 12 Mar 2006 at 21:18

SLI isn't worth it for 'mainstream/value' users IMO, due to the increased power consumption, heat production, space in case, driver issues (not all games benefit fully from sli/xfire) etc etc.

I can see the attraction for people with a lot of money, who can pair up two high end cards and get some very nice performance and visuals, but for the majority a single card is the most cost-effective solution.

Exception would be of course people with large TFT monitors who have a very high native resolution. Games like FEAR really need SLI when you are using >1920x1200

chex · 12 Mar 2006 at 21:39

i wouldnt sacrifice getting a high end card for 2 mide range cards.

Get the high end card, and once the prices fall you can do a cheap upgrade to SLi.

xknight2000 · 13 Mar 2006 at 00:32

Is there a big jump from the 7800 to the 7900? I could afford a midrange 7800 no bother but the 7900 would be pushing it. I have an SLi board, thats why I want to stick with SLi rather than go crossfire and have to get a new board.

xknight2000 · 13 Mar 2006 at 00:34

Also what is the most important factor to take into acount before picking a card? Is 512kb over 256kb an advantage or is the core clock speed the main factor?

Sorry for asking all this, its just I havent a clue about these new cards.

easyrider · 13 Mar 2006 at 00:40

xknight2000 said:
Also what is the most important factor to take into acount before picking a card? Is 512kb over 256kb an advantage or is the core clock speed the main factor?

Sorry for asking all this, its just I havent a clue about these new cards.

It depends what resolution you play at.
I would get a 7900 GT 256 MB card and add another if you want down the line.

ACESHIGH · 13 Mar 2006 at 03:34

easyrider said:
It depends what resolution you play at.
I would get a 7900 GT 256 MB card and add another if you want down the line.

I wouldnt.

Better to get a 512MB card i would say, will be more important in upcoming games. Allows higher res & also more AA/AF.
ATI cards will work fine with you mobo.
SLI is usually not worth it. By the time your single faster card is getting slow you would be better off upgrading to the next best card than trying to find & buy a 2nd hand card to go SLI with.

This card is my recommendation. Bang per buck goodness...
PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-048-PC)
£252.57*Including VAT

easyrider · 13 Mar 2006 at 04:09

We can see from this that at this high resolution the 7900GT beats the x1800xt.

Two 7600's in SLI beat two x1800's in crossfire.

Two 7600's can be had for around £280 and perform on par with a 7900GTX.

If the 7600 cards drop in price then Two 7600GT's In SLI would offer good performance.

And consume less power and heat than one single x1800xt.

ACESHIGH · 13 Mar 2006 at 04:46

easyrider said:
We can see from this that at this high resolution the 7900GT beats the x1800xt.

Two 7600's in SLI beat two x1800's in crossfire.

Two 7600's can be had for around £280 and perform on par with a 7900GTX.

If the 7600 cards drop in price then Two 7600GT's In SLI would offer good performance.

And consume less power and heat than one single x1800xt.

Funny. Was going to post this in the 7600 thread where you aslo posted one pic from one game at one resolution to back up your statement.
Sorry but that is far from proof. I advise the OP to do a google search & read multiple reviews to see what i say.

There are many reviews that show the X1800XT ahead of the 7900GT.
Infact more that show the X1800XT is faster than the 7900GT - hence my opinion on this.

Anyway the X1800XT is cheaper & with 512MB memory which is going to be more & more important it is the card to get if you want performance, higher IQ & great value.

Also numerous reviws that show the 7600GT fair bit slower than the 7800GT / X1800XL (about same speed) & sitting comfortably in between 7800GTX & 6800GS.

easyrider · 13 Mar 2006 at 05:01

ACESHIGH said:
Funny. Was going to post this in the 7600 thread where you aslo posted one pic from one game at one resolution to back up your statement.
Sorry but that is far from proof. I advise the OP to do a google search & read multiple reviews to see what i say.

There are many reviews that show the X1800XT ahead of the 7900GT.
Infact more that show the X1800XT is faster than the 7900GT - hence my opinion on this.

Anyway the X1800XT is cheaper & with 512MB memory which is going to be more & more important it is the card to get if you want performance, higher IQ & great value.

Also numerous reviws that show the 7600GT fair bit slower than the 7800GT / X1800XL (about same speed) & sitting comfortably in between 7800GTX & 6800GS.

The OP asked :"But I was wondering is it really worth maybe going for a smaller card and going crossfire or SLi, or would I be better sticking with the x1800 or 7800?"

We can see that two 7600's offer far better performance than one x1800xt.
And would cost 30 quid more than the PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-048-PC)
£252.57*Including VAT

you suggested.

I am merely pointing out the available options

oweneades · 13 Mar 2006 at 07:14

Simple answer to this,

Sapphire X1800XT 256 available for £217 including VAT. Trumps anything else in its price range easily.

Also a less biased benchmark would have been better. And also whay does the graph above show the 7800GT SLI twice?

egt · 13 Mar 2006 at 07:19

I can't see how that benchmark is Nvidia biased as it shows the x1900 beating a 7900 (in that benchmark at least)

oweneades · 13 Mar 2006 at 07:31

Well the X1900XTX is on there twice.

So I take it the higher one is crossfire?!

The problem I have found with looking a benchmarks from different sites is that they vary so much (in favour or ATI and nvidia).

D.P. · 13 Mar 2006 at 09:09

Interesting ly a pair of 7900GTs in SLI uses hardly any more power than an X1900XT-X and destroys that card in every benchmark.

And 7600 SLI offers crazy price-performance.

ACESHIGH · 13 Mar 2006 at 09:57

That benchmarked does seem biased or wrong though.

-----

Besides at present if buying a topend card, ideally you should buy a card with 512MB ram (& SLI 7900GT do not a 512MB card make)

"I don't believe anyone reading this would disagree that 512MB cards will become a firm requirement of high end gaming very soon, but the key question here is do 512MB framebuffers offer anything to us now, other than future proofing? To answer this we first need to understand exactly what happens to a 256MB card when you max out its memory (VRAM).

Simply put, the data that cannot be stored locally in VRAM is transferred to system memory where you will incur large latency penalties across the board. Technically the only penalty incurred should be fps losses, but a typical symptom you'll probably encounter is stuttering caused by texture swapping from the system RAM to the VRAM, generally known as cache thrashing. This takes place because textures needing to be displayed on screen obtain absolute priority, so if a texture needing to go on screen is currently being held in system RAM it will need to be moved to the video card ram before it can be displayed. Like I said, technically this should not happen, but inefficient memory management in many game engines guarantees the stuttering issue a common one."

So a 512MB card is indeed preferred where high res & AA/AF are a requirement.

xknight2000 · 13 Mar 2006 at 10:29

Looking at the chart it looks like 2 7800GT 512's in SLI would be good value for money. I think I will go with that.

ACESHIGH · 13 Mar 2006 at 11:30

xknight2000 said:
Looking at the chart it looks like 2 7800GT 512's in SLI would be good value for money. I think I will go with that.

I wont say the 7800GT cards are not a good buy, but for heavens sake, youre actually going to buy a card based on one picture you have seen, for one game based on one specific resolution, which shows these cards are good performers. There is no link to any site. You probably dont even know where that pic came from. Do you know how the cards perform in any other games, or at other resolutions. You do realise often one card will perform better in one game & possibly worse in many others. At least go do some research yourself then. Thats a n00b decision in my books.