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Is it worth going SLI ?

Odin

Odin

Odin

Associate
Joined
2 Aug 2006
Posts
313
Hi all another quick question I was wondering if it was worthwhile going SLI and which graphics card u would recommend to purchase to do so

This is my current setup

Intel Core Duo E6600 LGA775 Conroe 2.40Ghz
Abit IP35 Pro
OCZ 4GB PC2-6400C4 800MHz Reaper HPC
Enermax Galaxy 850W
Antec Nine Hundred Gamers Case
BFG GeForce 8800 GTS OC 320MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI
3x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache

Big thanks in advance
 
I would like to try SLI but I'm lacking a high-end SLI compatible motherboard. Got a ASUS A8N-SLI Premium (X2 3800, socket 939) in storage so may drag that out, however the results wouldn't be as good as a more modern Core2 Dup/Quad SLI compatible mobo.
 
a lot of people say no without ever trying it. You can get up to 90% bonus with sli, espeicaly at the higher resolutions. Some games arn't coded as well though and you may only get 20-40%.

What resolution do you run games at also I would suggest two GT's but i see you already have a GTS. But its only a 320mb. I wouldn't suggest slinng something with such a lower memory.

Also you can crossfire the 3870s. They are a slower then the GT but cheaper.
 
8igdave said:
you can crossfire the 3870s. They are a slower then the GT but cheaper.
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And they would work in his present motherboard.

If the cooler on the new AMD cards is anything like the one on the HD2900XT's then I wouldn't fancy two of them in my system! (well maybe for a couple of days benching but not as a permanent set-up).
 
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They are cooler and quieter and moer power efficent. But personally id rather pay tyhe extra for the GT's extra power. Plus i beleive crossfire will take a while to work in crysis as crysis are helping nvida do sli and saying its their number one priority.
 
I noticed that Crysis was very friendly towards nVidia GPU's, I am still seeing slight graphic corruptions in this game using ATI, almost makes me wonder if the benchies I have done are accurate because it seems the ATI cards are not fully rendering everything like nVidia?

nVidia + Crysis = Best choice atm!
 
How oftern do you see a game saying "runs best on ATi". I would go nvida just because of the extra support. Plus the fact they are the fastest gpus currently means its more likely big game titles will be aimed at them.
 
i run most of my games at 1280x1024 and normally have high/top settings but i wouldnt want to buy two new cards as i couldnt really afford it. Im just looking at getting one so i can run sli and enchance performance
 
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If I was going SLI I'd be wanting 2x 8800 GT at the moment from what's out. If it's Crossfire, then dual 3870's. Both of them are relatively cheap compared to last generation, albeit they are hard to get at the moment. SLI probably isn't worth it either for lower resolutions (1280x1024 / 1440x900) I would think?
 
Direct SLI Comparisons

As you can see, at 1280x1024 it offers little performance improvement - perhaps 5FPS; certainly not worth spending another £180 for.
However, if you look at it once you start adding AA, the SLI system performs a lot better. (may only be 10FPS but thats 33% better).

I have 2x 8800GTs in my system now and my max native resolution is 1280x1024. I don't think there's any noticable difference if I disable SLI to be honest, apart from in Crysis. But I am planning on getting a higher resolution monitor soon where it should make a bigger difference.
 
I would not bother getting a second card, flog the GTS and get one GT or just wait as your card should last you untill the new cards whenever they may be.
 
Odin said:
well if sli was not worth it would perhaps purchasing a graphics card around 200 pounds be more worthwhile ?
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You can get 8800GT's for cheaper than that and they would easilly do the job for your res, the GTS 320 should be tbh, no need for you to upgrade just yet unless you want to sell it now to get as much value from it as possible and no let it go down anymore.
 
In crysis after they have patched it so its better optimized for sli at 1280x1024 do you recon you will see a good boost. I think so as the game seems like its not usign the cpu enough and they claim its because the graphics cards arn't powerfukl enough.
 
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Odin said:
Hi all another quick question I was wondering if it was worthwhile going SLI and which graphics card u would recommend to purchase to do so

This is my current setup

Intel Core Duo E6600 LGA775 Conroe 2.40Ghz
Abit IP35 Pro
OCZ 4GB PC2-6400C4 800MHz Reaper HPC
Enermax Galaxy 850W
Antec Nine Hundred Gamers Case
BFG GeForce 8800 GTS OC 320MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI
3x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache

Big thanks in advance
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You can't run SLI on that mobo so you will new a new mobo.
 
i run crossfire with 2 1900s and crysis, i get a nice big performance increase, from 30-35fps to 60-70fps with crossfire enabled. thats at 1680x1050, altho it only works on the 32-bit version, the 64-bit version has a performance drop with crossfire enabled.
 
RaiderX said:
i run crossfire with 2 1900s and crysis, i get a nice big performance increase, from 30-35fps to 60-70fps with crossfire enabled. thats at 1680x1050, altho it only works on the 32-bit version, the 64-bit version has a performance drop with crossfire enabled.
Click to expand...

I guess thats at low settings?
 
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