IS SLI REALLY WORTH IT FOR GAMING?

[Jason_dez]

I would just like to know IS REALLY GOING SLI 2X7800 WORTH IT IN GAMIMNG? WILL IT BE BETTER VISSIAL EFFECTS OR just plain add fps could some1 plz tell me i play all the new games like fear,bf2,cod2,halflife,farcry

 

[chuckshissle]

SLI is great mainly for resolution 1280x1024 and over. Before I had my 7800 GTX sli, I was using 7800 GT on 1024x768 resolution and when I increase the resolution I notice decrease in performance. With lower resolution it is fine with just one card and on the other hand higher resolution looks pretty sweet and that's when SLI comes in.

So it really depends on what resolution your playing. But is SLI really worth for gaming, I'd say it is.

 

[Heyyou27]

Most of those games will run fine on a single 7800 GT or GTX, but F.E.A.R. is one of the games you'll notice an improvement with SLI.

 

[Heyyou27]

Although honestly a single 7800 GT would still play F.E.A.R. about 30FPS at 1280x960 4XAA 16XAF. (Near 40FPS if overclocked to 470 or higher)

 

[tenaciousleydead]

hmm really pull out one of your cards and bench it 4xaa is kinda stupid to have on and at an average of 30fps youll be droppin to atleast 15 fps frequently.

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

For the price.. SLI is not worth it. In the end it costs you less to get a single High performing X1900XT 512MB instead of two 7800GTX 256MB cards.

SLi adds at best a 30% performance increase for a 100% increase in price. Not worth it IMHO.

 

[ShortyNumber45]

SLI is like every gamers dream, who would not want it anyway. It will sure worth it for games but the prize is just not worth it.

 

[hashv2f16]

REALLY?. But I am using a 6600 128MB to run everyting on just above medium graphics settings fine. A monster gaming rig is only for the high speed eye candy.

(On FEAR, 1024x768 res.)

If you have all the money in the world to spend on your computer, take the SLI, if you don't then just one card will suffice but sacrificing a bit of your frames

 

[shata]

Only thing SLi is good for is High res gaming with all eye candy maxed.
If you want Eye candy but can live with 1024x768 or 1280x960 then a single 7800gt or x1800xl will do you lots of good.

 

[dizman]

I would just like to know IS REALLY GOING SLI 2X7800 WORTH IT IN GAMIMNG? WILL IT BE BETTER VISSIAL EFFECTS OR just plain add fps could some1 plz tell me i play all the new games like fear,bf2,cod2,halflife,farcry

I don't know if this will mean anything to you or not but on my new system and my roommate's new system running 3DMark03 with one 7800GT we got around 15000 score and with running SLI of two 7800GTs we got around 25000 for a score.

I leave whether or not that info means anything for you, up to you

 

[RichPLS]

I dont care about 03, but my X1800XT gets 9881 3DMarks05 and 4885 3DMarks06 while being run by my Opteron 175 at 2420MHz

 

[Sekeru]

Well playing fear with high settings wont "need" it unless your picky cause you will still get good frames.Although playing COD2 on high settings would proberbly make use of a sli setup.

 

[Snale]

I play COD2 on maxed out settings with a XFX 7800GT 450/1.05 and is really smooth

I suppose SLI is really nice if you have a +21" screen for resolutions of 1600x1200 or higher, but not for 17/19" LCD/CRT... and anyway, it's really expensive.

 

[apesoccer]

For online first person shooters, it's been nice for me. Some maps use more resources then others do. 75% of my kills in cs:s are from hs's, you can't make those running on a low resolution, too blocky to get one off repeatedly. I went from a 9800pro, to a 6800gt, to 2x6800gts with cs:s, and every single time i get lag i notice a big difference. I run at 1280x1028 in cs:s, and i still get lag on one or two maps. Everybody else bitches about it too, but they talk about 3fps while i'm sitting as low as 20fps in the same area. 20 looks like a slide show to me, i don't know how people deal with running slower systems.

With other games...It hasn't been as big a deal. I can run my 9800 system or my 6800 systems with no problem in something like EQ2 (so long as i have plenty of ram...), or WoW. Don't get me wrong, EQ2 has some seriously intensive graphics, but i can turn them all on, or leave 60% of them off, and barely notice a difference. It doesn't affect gameplay.

I say nay to the naysayers! SLI is just a more powerful system... I would just buy the highest end single card you can afford... then add a second before it goes out of stock. Now it doesn't matter which brand you use, so long as they're the same gpu. Of course it may make more sense to wait until next Dec, and purchase a new m2 system (am2 whatever...prices will have dropped a little by then from June).

 

[Heyyou27]

hmm really pull out one of your cards and bench it 4xaa is kinda stupid to have on and at an average of 30fps youll be droppin to atleast 15 fps frequently.

Or I could disable SLI.

 

[Jason_dez]

I get greats FPS in F.E.A.R. BF2 CS2,HF2 i get notting and i mean nothing lower than 40 fps with everything cranked and 1280x1024 rez i average about 60 fps in cs, bf2 and higher.

I have
7800gt evga
370064 amd @2.4
550watt antec 2.0
sound audgy 2
200 s ata 16mb cache
2gb corsair ram 2.5-3-3-5
14,668 3d 03
7,007 3d 05
3988 pc mark 05

 

[apesoccer]

Oops sorry i meant 1280x1024...will edit it.

The 20fps is what i'm running with 1 card in...i have a second system now, and have had my 6800s split up. They'll be together again soon...perhaps tonight. I have another gpu otw.

 

[hotzak]

Consider SLI if you plan to stick with both of your cards for a long time. Otherwise it is always better to buy the latest Graphics card and keep it in a single configuration. And you'll have to just buy one card when you want to upgrade to a a newer card.
So, it's upto you to decide! If you have enough moolah to spare and buy 2 cards at a time (now and later), Then Go for SLI.

Happy Gaming.


WHATEVER YOU DO> MAKE SURE IT'S ON AMD!!

 

[deweycd]

SLI will definatly give you the eye candy but it doesn't mean that not having SLI will make your gamming bad.

I use a singe 6800GT AGP for playing BF2. I have res at 1280x1024 and the details set to high. I get an average frame rate of 60 FPS and a minimum of 40 FPS. I also play games like NFSMW with high settings and a min of 30 FPS. I know that in some games SLI would definatly make the difference but I am also using a AMD64 3000+ at 2.2GHz and I find that this tends to be the main bottleneck.

Anyway, thats my input, if you have the money and don't care where it goes, buy SLI, otherwise, save it for something else.

 

[virus5877]

think of SLI this way:

1+1 = 2 usually, right?

well, with SLI:

1 vid card + 1 vid card = 1.3 ~ 1.5 times performance...

doesn't sound like a good price/performance ratio to me...


I mean, if you're using the 2 baddest cards on the planet ( 7800 GTX 512 or x1900xtx 512) then you will get the best performance possible with SLI/crossfire setup, but otherwise, just get one faster card and you'll be happier with your price/performance ratio!

8)

 

[Heyyou27]

God damn. You know nothing about computers; you're not doubling your PC hardware, just your videocard. Take out your processor and tell me how well your games run.

 

[Danger-KeepAway]

Alot of people here say SLI is not worth, yes its worth it if you go the cash, no if its not. Now, alot of people also don't understand what SLI is used for, when new graphics cards come out, they useally beat 2 old cards in SLI, but not by much, in some cases the SLI cards win, but not alot. Now when the new cards come out, they are fairly expensive, and alot of people dont have 500 bucks to drop down on a new card, maybe even more doe than that. So what you do is you buy the same old card you have, for lesser money, and SLI em. You should get close to the same performance. This is what SLI is used for, now before your start flaming me, think about this philosophy.

 

[blader8901]

No you are absolutly right it gives the user a little more use out of their hardware, if you look at 2 6800's in sli your talking about the same as a 7800, and ACTUALLY i would prefer SLI if you consider higher resolutions i think running an sli rig is all about the resolution if your gona get sli you better have a 21"er running 1600x1200 because thats where your going to notice the performance

 

[Heyyou27]

How can you prove this? Two 6800 Ultras in SLI will destroy a 7800 GTX. Your statement makes no sense, because it's all guessing. We've never had two card setups like this to compare with.

 

[Jay_Kay]

Yeah i follow the cheap upgrade philosophy.
the 30% increase for ~$200 is betta than 40% on a new card for $600.

And eye candy isn't going to improve that quickly, is it???
You ahve SM3 on 7800gt, and i don't think there is going to be anything between dx9c and dx10?? and dx10 is still a long way away??

So im about to get a 7800, and prob drop a second in a years time - and i should still have all the detail as a brand new card, i think??