Hot Question: SLI 7800 GT's or single 7800 GTX?

[virus5877]

Ok, I've been a gaming fan for a long time, my current system is beyond upgradeability and I am in the process of newegg-ing my new system into existence. I am going with an Asus SLI mobo, Athlon 64 X2 4200+ cpu, and here's the next debate: SLI 7800 GT's or a single 7800 GTX?

I play almost exclusively MMORPGS (WoW, Star Wars Galaxies, EQ2). I have heard that SLI is not necessarily worth the extra money you'll pay for the extra card. It is my understanding that with a second SLI'd GPU I'd get between 50-75% improvement in frame rates, however that would cost another 100% of the price of a single 7800 GT . I know I can spend another roughly 50% the cost of a 7800 GT and get a 7800 GTX...In all of your [expert] opinions, would it be more worth it to go with a single 7800 GTX or with dual 7800 GT's in SLI config?

ps: I'm looking to spend 500-600 on video card(s)

 

[Heyyou27]

Well I own two 7800 GTs, and the difference between them and a single 7800 GTX is great. Even the Geforce 7800 GTX 512MB doesn't perform as well, unless the game does not support SLI.

 

[virus5877]

cool, that's one vote for the SLI config...anybody else have a say?

 

[shinigamiX]

I would recommend you get a GTX, as I doubt you will be able to notice a great difference. Also, you will be able to add another card for SLI later.

Or you could wait for the G71.

 

[livelouddiefast]

i also have dual 7800gt's. They are totally awesome and i'll be happy with them for a while, HOWEVER...

if i had to do it again i would've spent the same money on the 512 GTX... but you didn't list that as an option, so i would recommend the regular gtx unless you're looking to play at an uber-high resolution, then that's where the sli really comes in handy.

plus you could always buy another gtx later and get way awesome sli.

 

[jonno]

X1900XT

 

[RichPLS]

Do yourself a favor, invest in the X1900XT and easily overclock it to XTX and enjoy the fastest gaming of either choice, plus less heat and amperage than a SLI solution.
With my X1800XT, I get 9881 3DMarks05 and 4885 3DMarks06 on my Opteron 175 at 2420MHz

 

[gomerpile]

xt1900 is my vote

 

[jonno]

X1900xt all the way better then SLi 7800gt remember you dont get the power of two cards doing good if you get 1@1/4 of power. If you have allready have a SLi board get GTX then later you can SLi two GTX's. :twisted:

 

[rower30]

OK, here are my experiences with two eVGA 256-P2-N517-AX 7800GT cards in SLI. These card supposedly come slightly over-clocked with the core @470MHz and memory @ 1100MHz. I didn’t check the real clock’s because I don’t have an over clock utility.

My System at stock clock settings;
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium
2GB Corsair Value CAS3 RAM
AMD 3800 X2 3800+
2 x eVGA 7800GT 256-P2-N517-AX
Nvidia Driver version 81.98

I ran a series of FPS time demos on DOOM 3 from the console with “timedemo demo 1”.

I left the following in the 81.98 XP driver panel as shown;
Application Controlled;
Anisotropic Filtering
Antialiasing Setting
Vertical Sync.
Image setting;
High Quality.

I adjusted the Image Quality and the Antialiasing setting in the system advanced tab within Doom 3. There is no Anisotropic Filtering setting in the advanced panel in Doom 3, so I’m not sure what the, “Application controlled” in the XP driver panel was in the game. I ran one of the benchmarks over again with the setting at 4x / 4x in the driver panel (see the NOTE) and it seems to suggest that they track. I ran the time demo twice, and took the second FPS. The first run is a toss since it seems to cache to system memory (?) off the hard drive (?). The second run is stutter free.

1600 x 1200
High Quality // Ultra High Quality
AA off 103.8FPS // 97.3FPS
AA 2x 101.4 // 95.2
AA 4x 86.7 / *83 // 82.0 (sweet spot)
AA 8x 30.0 // 28.9
AA 16x 30.0 // 26.8
*Ran a second time with 4x set in the XP 81.98 driver panel. This is the “reference” setting for most Doom3 FPS reviews.

Conclusions and question;
1.0 Does anybody know what the Anisotropic Filtering tracks in Doom3?
2.0 Is a SLI set-up with 2 x 256 Meg cards like 1 x 512 Meg card?
3.0 Two 7800GT set-up in SLI is ~$110.00 cheaper (2 x $314.00 verses than a single 512Meg 7800GTX cards (1 x $750.00), and ~10FPS faster.
3.1 See the eVGA review in March 2006 MACIMUMPC Page 64.
4.0 The 8X and 16X seem to be CPU limited? I know that the cards FPS top out at lower resolutions based on your CPU, but does the 8x / 16x settings do so also at higher resolutions?

 

[someguyy]

if you are only playing MMOs then a single 7800gt will do you just fine.

but if having all that power really matter then go with an x1900xt