To SLI or not

stu.artd · 6 Apr 2006 at 20:02

My current PC is a P4 2.8GHz/x800 Pro/16 pipes/X-Fi in a Soltek 3401 SFF, outputting to a Dell 2405 @ 1920x1200.
I might be upgrading soon and am considering 2 options, both of which will be based on an AMD 64X2 CPU.

1. Another SFF case. However the SN26P is too expensive and doesn't have standard PCI support for my X-Fi soundcard which I refuse to lose in the upgrade. This means I'd have to stick with a single card solution such as a 7900GTX or 1900XTX.

2. Midi-ATX case with SLI motherboard and 2 x 7900GT's.

What I'm looking for are opinions regarding gaming performance on my 2405 at high resolutions. Would I lose that much performance with a single card in an SFF system that I'm better just going for a normal size tower and SLI ?

NeptuneUK · 6 Apr 2006 at 20:05

high end single card > 2 lower end SLi cards

paradigm · 6 Apr 2006 at 20:06

NeptuneUK said:
high end single card > 2 lower end SLi cards

True, but since when were 7900GT's anywhere near "lower end" :confused:

The 2x7900GT's would be sublime in this case for the resolution you will be running on that monitor. Will be able to run a decent amount of AA and AF as well

wellibob · 6 Apr 2006 at 20:18

2x7900GT in sli mode is pretty good lamb chops

chaparral · 6 Apr 2006 at 20:22

Two 7900GT in SLI would walk all over a single 7900gtx.. but two 7900gt cost more and there going give out a lot more noise..

paradigm · 6 Apr 2006 at 20:23

Wellibob, i'd remove that swear-word if I were you.

wellibob · 6 Apr 2006 at 21:36

Opps, a thousand appolgies

young lad · 6 Apr 2006 at 22:28

Go crossfire on the x1800/x1900?

stu.artd · 6 Apr 2006 at 22:42

I was concerned about the noise from the X18/1900's.

If they're of a similar noise level to the 7900's then I'm happy to consider ATI as I've had very little trouble with my X800 in the 20 months I've had it.

young lad · 6 Apr 2006 at 23:00

Mine is a x1800xt and it is about the same noise as my 64bit cpu freezer (i think) but would replace for noise/heat.

Heat is ok but when i tryed to overclock its hard to do when it hits 81C at idle lol.

orangeman2003 · 6 Apr 2006 at 23:06

soz to jump on guys but i have a 6600 128mb pci-e and i was thinking of getting a new gfx card something like for £300 ish and wondered if it would be better to upgrade to sli 2x 6600pic-e?

can anyone give an opp?

thanks

Jonny ///M · 6 Apr 2006 at 23:41

orangeman2003 said:
soz to jump on guys but i have a 6600 128mb pci-e and i was thinking of getting a new gfx card something like for £300 ish and wondered if it would be better to upgrade to sli 2x 6600pic-e?

can anyone give an opp?

thanks

Get a X1900xt for £305 on this week only.............it would eat 6600sli for breakfast. Thats like......2 or 3 generations ago.

2 6600 gt's couldnt beat a single ultra........a 7900 or X1900 is twice as fast as an ultra.....you do the math.

ricky1981 · 6 Apr 2006 at 23:53

I'm running two 7900GTs in SLI and have a 2405 and its a lovely setup, havent even overclocked them yet but everything runs super smooth maxed out already. I'm going to replace the stock coolers with VF900's though cos the two of them make a fair amount of noise.

orangeman2003 · 6 Apr 2006 at 23:58

hi guys just added my rig to the sig, can u lmk the best upgrade i should get?

I seem to think ati seems the way then

also what would 2 x 6600gts = as to 1 card

would it be as fast as a 6800? or more?

soz im not up to speed on all this as yet thanks

Jonny ///M · 7 Apr 2006 at 00:39

orangeman2003 said:
hi guys just added my rig to the sig, can u lmk the best upgrade i should get?

I seem to think ati seems the way then

also what would 2 x 6600gts = as to 1 card

would it be as fast as a 6800? or more?

soz im not up to speed on all this as yet thanks

Loose that mahoosive sig,4 lines of text only i think.

2 x 6600Gt's could just keep up with a 6800Gt as far as i can remember.so Anything like a 6800Gs that you could overclock and upwards will eat it.

v-zero · 7 Apr 2006 at 00:44

Two 6600gts offer performance similar to the 6800 ultra and x850xtpe in low resolution situations (<1280x1024), but do not scale well to higher resolutions because of their very limited memory bandwidth. 2x128-bit, in this case, is not equal to the throughput of 1x256-bit... At higher resolutions memory throughput becomes much more important than core speed...

Jonny ///M · 7 Apr 2006 at 00:48

v-zero said:
Two 6600gts offer performance similar to the 6800 ultra and x850xtpe in low resolution situations (<1280x1024), but do not scale well to higher resolutions because of their very limited memory bandwidth. 2x128-bit, in this case, is not equal to the throughput of 1x256-bit... At higher resolutions memory throughput becomes much more important than core speed...

What he said^^

easyrider · 7 Apr 2006 at 11:35

young lad said:
Go crossfire on the x1800/x1900?

Why?

SLI is faster across the board.

I can just imagine how much power two x1900's would use in xfire and the heat produced.lol

so why?

Less heat, less power,less noise, and better performance with an SLI setup

Fact.

young lad · 8 Apr 2006 at 21:57

Well the x1800xt is better that the 7900 so crossfire them would beat sli 7900's? more power more noise BUT MORE PERFORMANCE.

Could easly change the coolers on them ?

go for it

paradigm · 8 Apr 2006 at 21:59

young lad said:
Well the x1800xt is better that the 7900 so crossfire them would beat sli 7900's? more power more noise BUT MORE PERFORMANCE.

That isn't true, the 7900GT isn't slower than the X1800XT in most scenarios, they also clock like the best of them

Secondly, SLI is far more mature, and at the moment is more efficient than crossfire