New Card or SLI?

sepulchre · 1 Mar 2006 at 15:30

I've been pretty happy with the PC I built at xmas, but now I'm begining to wonder if I could do better in the gfx area.

The 7800GT I have is no slouch, but its certainly no competition for a X1900XTX. I'm wondering though if I would be better selling the 7800GT in my sig and buying a X1900XT/XTX or picking up a cheap 2nd hand 7800GT for about £160 and SLI'ing them? (I play at 1280x1024)

Cheers

semi-pro waster · 1 Mar 2006 at 15:47

Do you want to experiment with SLi and secondly can you afford the extra for an X1900XT? The X1900XT will demolish even your SLi'd 7800gt's and won't cost that much more than buying the additional 7800gt when you factor in the money you could get for your 7800gt(maybe £140-150ish at a guess).

sepulchre · 1 Mar 2006 at 18:12

You have hit the nail on the head there, I have an SLI main board, bought with the intention of using SLI gfx cards, but now the performance of a single X1900 surpasses 2 7800GT's (the same way one 7800GTX did with 2 6800GT's) it makes it hard to go for SLI. Even though I am tempted to play with an SLI setup.

I suppose the main question is would 2 x 7800GT be noticeably better than 1, and for the money would it just be better to go X1900 route?

Ahh...decisions

man_from_uncle · 1 Mar 2006 at 18:54

I am sort of in the same boat, but I am not thinking of upgrading just yet. I think i'll leave it a month or two now and see what happens to the prices. A 7800gt SLi set up, as far as I understand, can certainly compete with and even surpass the X1900s in benchmarks and I've seen conflicting reports about comparative performance between SLi and single card solutions in games. The X1900 is a single card though and that's better for heat and power which is something to consider when you're overclocking. I think the jury is still out which road is better.

But i'm happy with a single 7800gt for now so I am in no rush.

sepulchre · 1 Mar 2006 at 22:04

Agreed the 7800GT is certainly a good card, and far better than my last 9800 Pro, its just the upgrade bug is a tough one to beat.

I'll probably do the same and hold off purchasing a 2nd for a while, I think once the 7900's are launched there should be a flurry of 7800's on the 2nd harnd market, so hopefully the prices will drop substantially.

pastymuncher · 2 Mar 2006 at 13:39

How on earth does anyone think a single X1900XT-X will beat a pair of 7800gt's in SLI? It just does'nt happen! In all cases the pair of GT's will beat a single card. Check out the 3Dmark06 thread. There is only one X1900XT-X above me in the single core table and thats only by 8 marks and he has a hugely higher overclock on his cpu and gpu than me as well as having dual channel memory support which i do not with Skt 754. See for yourselves here . There's only five above me in the combined table and thats by less than 360 marks with four of those having dual core cpu's which 06 favours anyway.

On top of that every single review/benchmark i have seen puts a pair of 7800gt's above a single X1900XT-X.

chaparral · 2 Mar 2006 at 13:55

pastymuncher said:
How on earth does anyone think a single X1900XT-X will beat a pair of 7800gt's in SLI? It just does'nt happen! In all cases the pair of GT's will beat a single card. Check out the 3Dmark06 thread. There is only one X1900XT-X above me in the single core table and thats only by 8 marks and he has a hugely higher overclock on his cpu and gpu than me as well as having dual channel memory support which i do not with Skt 754. See for yourselves here . There's only five above me in the combined table and thats by less than 360 marks with four of those having dual core cpu's which 06 favours anyway.

On top of that every single review/benchmark i have seen puts a pair of 7800gt's above a single X1900XT-X.

Try testing in games and you will see that a single xt1900xt-x will be about the same speed as your two 7800gt and the xt1900xt-x will be even faster then your two sli 7800gt cards in some games..

pastymuncher · 2 Mar 2006 at 13:57

Not at higher resolutions it will not. Lets face it, if you have SLI you should be running at a minimum of 1600x1200 with all the details turned up or else it is a waste of time.

man_from_uncle · 2 Mar 2006 at 13:58

No arguement there mate. In 3dmark benchmarks the 7800gts beat the single X1900s pretty soundly. In games though it's not quite the same story. There are still a good number of demanding games that don't support dual card options as well as 3Dmark does. I am waiting for someone to do a full blown comparison of SLi options vs single super cards in games like FEAR, Quake 4 and X3.

sepulchre · 2 Mar 2006 at 14:00

So at 1280x1024 I will see no benefit? Or will I be able to max out all settings and keep a frame rate sustainably higher than with 1 card? Thinking about Fear and the like here.

man_from_uncle · 2 Mar 2006 at 14:02

In theory it'll help at all levels of play. But as a single 7800gt can nearly max out fear at 1280x1024, it'll only give you a minor boost. At 1600x1200 though when a 7800gt really starts to stuggle a second one will make all the difference.

sepulchre · 2 Mar 2006 at 14:06

man_from_uncle said:
as a single 7800gt can nearly max out fear at 1280x1024, it'll only give you a minor boost.

I find I get some noticable slow downs in the more intense fire fights in fear, its eradicating these combined with an increase in AA/AF that I would like to see.

chaparral · 2 Mar 2006 at 14:07

man_from_uncle said:
I am waiting for someone to do a full blown comparison of SLi options vs single super cards in games like FEAR, Quake 4 and X3.

Note this test was done with two overclocked 7800gtx in sli not 7800gt.

These tests were done in my shuttle sn26p with amd 4400 x2 cpu clocked at (2400mhz) and 2GB of ram with my two 7800gtx 256mb in sli and single xt1900xt-x..

Half-life 2 lost coast =
98fps at 1920x1200 4xaa 16xaf Two 7800gtx in sli (485/1300)
72fps at 1920x1200 4xaa 16xaf xt1900xt-x (690/795)

X3-reunion =
52fps at 1920x1200 4xaa 8xaf Two 7800gtx in sli (485/1300)
54fps at 1920x1200 4xaa 8xaf xt1900xt-x (690/795)

Trackmania Sunrise
135fps at 1920x1200 4xaa 16xaf Two 7800gtx in sli (485/1300)
115fps at 1920x1200 4xaa 16xaf xt1900xt-x (690/795)

King Kong
about 60fps two 7800gtx 256mb in sli
about 120fps single xt1900xt-x

touring cars3 demo
200fps at 1920x1200 4xaa 8xaf Two 7800gtx in sli (485/1300)
135fps at 1600x1200 4xaa 8xaf xt1900xt-x (690/795)

Fear =
50fps at 1920x1200 4xaa 8xaf Two 7800gtx in sli (485/1300)
48fps at 1920x1200 4xaa 8xaf xt1900xt-x (690/795)

Call of Duty 2 = about 5 to 10fps slower on the xt1900xt-x at 1920x1200

12650 3dmark 05 Two 7800gtx in sli (485/1300)
11315 3dmark 05 xt1900xt-x (690/795)

pastymuncher · 2 Mar 2006 at 14:10

I would say that at that res you would maybe be better off sticking with your single gt and waiting a few days to see what the 7900 series is like or probably going for a single X1900 series. Either way wait until we see what the 7900's are like in performance and price.

Sli seems to come into it's own at high res with all the eye candy turned on. You will probably see a difference at your res and definately be able to turn everything on but there are few games that a single 7800gt will not handle at that res. On top of that alledgedly the 7900gt is supposed to be as fast, if not faster than a 7800gtx and also is supposedly competetively priced. A 7800gt is not that far off a 7800gtx though.

oweneades · 2 Mar 2006 at 14:11

I would say as you already have a SLI motherboard that a 7800GT would be a more cost effective upgrade.

However it depends heavily on the resolution you play at. It its above 1280x1024 then SLI will be more beneficial.

sepulchre · 2 Mar 2006 at 14:19

I'm still leaning towards another 7800GT then, especially with some nice price drops when the 7900's come out, seems a waste having an SLI board with an empty gfx card slot

man_from_uncle · 2 Mar 2006 at 14:22

I think that's a win for the GTXs. Assuming that the GTs are no more than 5-10% slower they should be about on the a par with a single x1900xtx. Thanks for that.

pastymuncher · 2 Mar 2006 at 14:29

Here's another X1900XT-X comparison from the tech report. Compares it with loads of other cards, both single and SLI/Crossfire. As you can see the Sli'd 7800gt's beat a single X1900XT-X in just about every test at 1600x1200 and above. The only exception is HL2 Lost Coast at 1600x1200 where they get beaten by 0.9fps.

man_from_uncle · 2 Mar 2006 at 17:41

That's a very nice review. I don't think there's much question where i'll spend my money next time I am doing a graphics card upgrade. A second 7800gt it is!

sepulchre · 2 Mar 2006 at 18:16

Nice revierw you have found there pastymuncher. According to it the 7800GT's in SLI perform far better than I had expected, and it looks as though I will see a nice perfomance increase from a second one at the 1280x1024 resolution.

The Quake 4 test is impressive, where a 7800GT SLI rig outperforms the X1900 crossfire set up :eek:

OK its not at uber high resolution, but still.