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Should I go SLI?

Bobman_JCT

Bobman_JCT

Bobman_JCT

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Joined
17 Jan 2010
Posts
16
I'm looking to upgrade to a new graphics card, sine my current one is *terrible,* but I was wondering whether it's worth going SLI/Crossfire or not.

So, what are are the benefits currently to getting 2 cards, and what are the drawbacks? It seems to be cheaper, for a a higher framerate, but I assume this is only for SLI-optimised games. Are all games like this?

Also, do I need to upgrade my motherboard for this? I should have enough space for 2, with a nice gap between them (Asus P5B), but I don't know if they need anything special.

My PSU is also 580W (3 years old, so I assume it's putting out more like 500W.), so I'll probably have to replace it. With that in mind, I'm looking at paying £180-£220 for a single graphics card (likely a 5850), or a bit more for 2 cards and a new power supply (I would rather not chip into my extra cash, but if I'm getting a new PSU, I can probably spare a bit).

What kind of power supply should I be looking for, for this many cards, also?
 
I'd recommend just getting a 5850.

What PSU do you have? 500w is more than enough for a 5850.
 
I have a hyper modular Type-R.

It's 580W, but 3 years old. I was only going to upgrade it if I went for 2 cards though.

Can anyone give me some info on SLI then?
 
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Too late with the current nVidia generation to spend the kinda money for a 200 series SLI setup when you can get a comparable performance single card (5850-5870) for around the same price and with the next gen nVidia cards coming out in a couple of months or so.

Unless you have an i5/i7 board that supports SLI your limited to nForce chipsets or the hugely expensive skulltrail to use SLI and the nForce chipsets are generally a lot of hassle. There are unofficial hacks to get SLI working on intel LGA775 boards but theres no guarantee they will work for you.
 
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I might have missed it but I can't see what card you're running.

I've run 2 x 8800GT 520s in SLi for about 2 years now, first mounted on an ASUS P5N-T Deluxe with a Q6600, and now on a P6-T Deluxe V2 with i7 920. I can honestly say they have never failed to make a good fist of anything I have thrown at them, even Crysis. I'm using a 24" as per sig at 1920x1200.

On most games I can play with pretties turned up to 10.
 
Bobman_JCT said:
Thanks for the help.

One last question - I'm pretty sure of the HD5850, but my friend seems to think this is a better buy for roughly the same price:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-057-GI&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1410

Can't say I agree, but any thoughts?

Oh yeah, as for the PSU, I don't think I'll be changing it unless it dies, or I need a new one, but thanks for the info. I thought it had a pretty good reputation generally?
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5850 will blow that 275 away.
 
The gigabyte 275 SoC is a very fast card for a 200 series... but for that money it would be madness to buy it over the 5850 with DX11 and new cards just around the corner you'd be spending a lot of money for a very short lifespan.
 
Why wait, by all accounts NV's top card is roughly 30% better than 5870, but it will come with a 50% increase in price over the 5870. :eek:
 
RavenXXX2 said:
Why wait, by all accounts NV's top card is roughly 30% better than 5870, but it will come with a 50% increase in price over the 5870. :eek:
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Keep in mind the 5970 is a single card (he said "the current fastest Ati card") and no dual Fermi chip has even been shown meaning it is significantly slower ;)

Secondly the die size of Fermi is huge and the price of it with the same profit margins as ATI (traditionally Nvidia have always pushed for greater profit margins) will be priced comparably to the 5970.

Thirdly with the heat of the single chip (because of the die size) it will have to be downclocked massively resulting with, at best, on-par performance unless they release in Q3 on a smaller process.

Fourthly ATI have another revision waiting for Fermi's release and the 6xxx series is expected Q4 / Early next year.

Fifthly ATI have access to greater process technology than Nvidia now (see recently shown Globalfoundries 28nm wafers which they are trying to move to ASAP because of TSMC's 40nm yield issues.

I'd like Nvidia to make a comeback (we certainly don't need less competition), I just can't see it happening this generation looking at the facts.
 
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Hoodlum said:
Thirdly with the heat of the single chip (because of the die size) it will have to be downclocked massively resulting with, at best, on-par performance unless they release in Q3 on a smaller process.
Click to expand...

Bare in mind the source(s) for this information... while probably in the right ballpark, their bias means they play it for all its worth... so while its likely to be a bit warm, power hungry and somewhat below the clocks nVidia wanted - its likely to be quite a bit better than these sources make out.

Another thing to bare in mind is that most of the performance data if not all of it for the GF100 are taken from the "360" card which is using "simulated" specs as they apparently can't get the shader clocks they wanted (so running demo cards with more SPs but lower clocks than the target spec)... which means that currently the performance difference between the 360 and 380 is around 20-25% if they are stuck with these clocks - but if they do manage to get this sorted before release - we are looking at a much bigger performance increase going from the 360 to 380 - meaning the 380 is potentially capable of going up against the 5970.

EDIT: Infact IIRC the "360" results for crysis and farcry2 put it a couple of fps ahead of the 5970 alone.
 
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