8800gtx SLi Is it worth the money??? Or Is One Enuff???

One 8800gtx should be ample. Ive got mine permanently set at high quality, max aa and max iso. No slow down with any of the current games. This is on a monitor res of 1650x1050. The card is being pushed by a qx6700 and 4 gig of ram mind.

The performance increase of sli is not double. When you find the 8800gtx not cutting it, then the 400+quid you would have spent on the second card, will get you the latest geforce 9 or 10 series.

Paul

Well if you don't have any problem with the money then go for it. With 30" monitor it would be very very smooth at high settings. For games like Crysis and other good games to come it would be great to play it with ultra smooth visuals.

Im soo confused.....

they both make sense

but when i hear about people play as resolutions i do with a single 8800gtx solution i hear that they lag alot with all the settings maxed out

i lagged on my quad sli solution and a single gtx is only marginly faster at those resolutions.

im so lost =(

One GTX will meet all your present needs. There is no reason to buy SLI for anything you might run today. The only question is your comment that you don't wish to upgrade for "a while". While one will meet your current needs, it won't last forever. So when will one stop being "good enough"? Sorry... no crystal balls here. My best guess guess is that it will be fine for the next year. So, the question to be answered IMO is really up to you...

Is it worth spending an extra $600 now to keep you from opening your case up again for the next 18 months instead of the next 12 months?

I actually had the same question. I realize benchmarks show the SLI config being up to 1.9 better and I also realize that 20-40% is more common for games. I might still be willing to pay that, especially as I'm building from scratch but won't be buying for about 5 months when prices will be down some, as they will be for quadcore too.

For games like Crysis... seems like SLI might be worth it?

This is really simple. Buy one, if it is enough, then wait to buy any video upgrades until it isn't enough anymore. When the one 8800gtx doesn't work anymore, then, either buy another for SLI, OR, buy a single new gen card. Whatever is cheaper and gives the best bang for the buck. Got it?

wes

Yes it's worth it.  

Buy one for now and then the other later.A single 8800gtx outperforms any other video card to date.As for sli,well all I can say is that some games will benefit from sli where others will show minimal difference.But if money is the issue,then buy one now and get the other one later.Goodluck.

Dahak

AMD X2-4400+@2.6 S-939
EVGA NF4 SLI MB
2X EVGA 7800GT IN SLI
2X1GIG DDR IN DC MODE
WD300GIG HD
EXTREME 19IN.MONITOR 1280X1024
THERMALTAKE TOUGHPOWER 850WATT PSU
COOLERMASTER MINI R120

Lets not forget the cost of an nforce 680i chipset mobo...Yes it supports sli but is its performance double that of an intel chipset mobo. Simple answer is no.

My old crt graphics design monitor would go to over 2000 res. I regularly used to play games at 1600x1200 and higher on a prescot 3gig with a radeon 9800pro. One 8800gtx will sufice.
Paul

At 2560x1600, dual 8800GTXs would be useful if you wish to play F.E.A.R. and Oblivion smooth with 4xAA.

Dude he's got a 30" dell at 2560x1600.

1650x1050 =1732500 pixels
2560x1600 =4096000 pixels

He's got nearly 2.5 times the number of pixels you have, so yes he absolutely would benefit from sli.

I have a 24" 1920x1200 and 2 8800gtx's in SLI. SLI makes a good difference to me for sure.



Huh? so what? If he's got the money for a 30" dell and 2 8800 GTX's then another $100 for the diff. between an intel and an nvidia motherboard ain't an issue.

Also FYI, SLI can provide upto double the performance of a single GPU. It depends what you're playing/doing and at what resolution. The only reason it doesn't sometimes is when the rest of the system is the bottleneck because your res. or AA is down too low.

Baloney. Microsoft flight sim X and Oblivion are 2 perfect examples of games that are out today that benefit a lot from 8800GTX in SLI, especially if you play either of those with all the eyecandy settings maxxed, and especially on the monitor he's got.

WTF is so difficult about this people. The answer is very obvious. If he buys one this week, and it's not enough for him, he will still be able to buy one more next week. You guys need to give it a rest, the cards will be around long enough for him to buy another if one is not powrful enough for his needs. I don't beleive he has stated what games he will be playing, and if he has, sorry, I am not going back through the thread to look.

To the OP, you could have done this on your own. IF ONE CARD DOES NOT DO THE JOB, BUY ANOTHER ONE. CASE CLOSED, STOP BEING CLOWNS EVERYONE. :roll:

Thanks
wes

I have the same monitor and find 1 to be sufficient, even on oblivion. don't play mfs X, but I have heard it is a beast.

LOL yeah right :roll: not at 2560 x 1600 res anyways unless he plans to play his games with everything on the lowest possible settings.

I also own a 8800GTX and just purchased a new monitor with a native res of 1680X1050. If you want to play demanding games such as Oblivion etc... with all the eye candy cranked up then this is the sweet spot for this card. Anything much past that and you will be turning graphical settings down because your FPS will began to suffer.


Right now I run Oblivion at 1680X1050 with all sliders and in game options maxed out plus 4XAA and 16XAF and there are a few places in the thickest parts of the forest where the FPS is in the low 40's which is still really good but as you can see if you go much higher than 1680X1050 you will be turning down some settings to maintain a decent FPS in the most graphical demanding games.


E6400@3.5ghz
4gb ddr2 1000 4 4 4 5
8800GTX 650core 2030mem
Asus P5b delux
Sound blaster audigy 4.

Again you dont know what your talking about and obviously have no exp with an 8800GTX. The GTX is an awesome card and everything and I should know as I own one, at the same time I am also well aware of its limitations in certain games and I know for a fact that he will have lots of problems with a few games maxed out at that res. And btw I have a stout system so dont even mention bottleneck to me.

You telling him that he will be fine for the next 2 years at that high of a res on a single 8800GTX is very very poor advice. Sure there are some games it will run fine at that res but games like Oblivion are a diff story altogether, dont even get me started on Crysis and Alan Wake.

Like I said, unless he wants to play games at low settings he either needs to go SLI or wait on a stronger single card solution.

Why is this thread still going?

Could it possibly be because you are still posting in it?

I don't think solitaire counts :roll:  

Bout time someone besides me with some sense in this thread.

I am not the only one, and, I am trying to bring some sense into it. You guys need to stop arguing, the problem has already been solved for the OP.

wes

I should buy one 8800gtx now and spare the money for future updates...

Bingo.

Buy one now. If it's not good enough for you, buy another one. If that doesn't make a big difference, send one back and wait for the next generation cards.

OR

Buy two. Install one and try it. If it's good enough send the second one back. If not, install the second one. If it's not much better, send the second one back.

:trophy: :trophy: :trophy:

Thank you

wes

Why is this thread still going on?

Why is this thread still going on?

I dunno, seems like people just keep posting. Any other thoughts?

I've been considering the GTX for my new build (Note above thread) and I'm amazed that people have the money to do SLI with these. They're like 600 bucks!! Still, I suppose if you can and don't want to put it into ING @ 4.5% then what the hell? God for it! Seems similar to buying high-end sports car. Total braggin rights and great performance.

Could it possibly be because you are still posting in it?

:wink:

I am not the only one, and, I am trying to bring some sense into it. You guys need to stop arguing, the problem has already been solved for the OP.

:wink:

Good one.... got me, since you didn't respond to me after that.... so, damnit, I shouldn't have responded..... got me again. :wink:

Ok, I am done with the thread, other than making absolutley usless posts such as this one.

wes

NO one is definately not enough at that resolution ..people when crysis comes out it is going to be utilising dirext x 10 hardware capabilities and IMHO i dont think a single gpu is gonna cut it at that resolution specialy with everything maxed out .

I am not gonna lecture on save money buy later ..because an average or even a hardcore gamer dosent game at that resolution ...you definately come in the Extreme gamer category 8) something like special operation unit hehehe

so definatly man sell the house kick the dog do whatever neceessary ..but that second cards gonna be sweeet QED infact buy 3 and mail me one ..ill be forever grateful

cheers

LOL just having fun with you bro :wink:

You might want to save up for two R600's in crossfire for Alan Wake and Crysis at that crazy resolution if you want to even THINK about playable framerates. I think G80 is going to chug at that resolution even in SLI. From what I hear R600 has much more shader horsepower. G80 has 128 simple shaders (FPUs) for fragment processing, while R600 although has half the "shaders" they are much more complex. Couple that with a 512-bit memory bus and I'm pretty much convinced nVidia will be behind until G86 (refresh) is out. But what is known for sure is this:

G80 8800GTX = 86.4GB/s, 128 simple floating point ALUs, 570M transistors

R600 XTX GDDR4 = 151GB/s, 64 4-way SIMD ALUs, 720M transistors

Look what adding 80M additional transistors to the GeForce 6800 series did for it and you do the math...

Everything is pure speculation and rumors at the moment. Lets wait for some news from a reliable source and some benchmarks first.

Ok, reality check here folks. I'm running a 7900GT on a mildly OC'd(2.67ghz) Core 2 E6400. I'm having zero issues running any game currently out. Nor do I believe I'll have any issues running games like"Crysis" or "C&C3" or anything. Then again, I'm only running 2X AA and 4X AF, but come on folks, tell me you can see the difference between what I'm running and higher settings at resolutions lower than 1600 X 1200...

So in short "die_for_me666", you could get a 8800GTS and it is going to be bleeding freaking edge for at least a year and most likely longer. You don't really need two or even a GTX. Save your money for an SSD, now theres something worth spending $600 on!!!

My setup:

Digitalcaveman

15901 3DMark06 1-21-2007
EVGA 680i Motherboard w/Zalman Copper Cooling
Intel QX6700 C2E Quad Core @3.3Ghz OC stable 12x mult
OCZ Flex HLC DDR 2 PC 9200 2 GB Ram 5-5-5-18
BFG 1KWatt SLi Power Supply
nVidia Dual 768Mb 8800 GTX x 2 in SLi Mode
Western Digital Raptor 150GB x 3 in Raid 0 or Raid 5 array
Dell 3007WFP 30" LCD TFT Display
Bose AM7 Surround w/Onkyo Receiver

15,901 - if you have the money it's worth it. My system cooks.

Well actually there is a big ass difference say at 1280X1024 with your settings of 2XAA and 4XAF vs 16XAA and 16XAF so I really dont know what it is you are talking about unless you are blind you will not be able to tell the diff in image quality going from a 7600GT to a 8800GTX or GTS. :roll:

I went from a X1900XT which btw smashes a 7600GT in both image quality and performance straight to my 8800GTX which does the same thing to my old X1900XT.

Nice build dude! Real nice!



My system:
3Dmark06 12,133
Asus P5b Delux
E6400@3.5ghz with Tuniq Tower
8800GTX 650core 2030mem
Soundblaster Audigy 4
PC Power and Cooling 750watt Silencer 60amps on single 12v rail
Dell 22"LCD

Umm, can you read? Or maybe I should be asking if you can count? Perhaps you should look over my post again before you start spouting nonsense. And for the record, @1440x900[native res of my LCD], the difference between 2xQAA 4xAF and 8xAA, 16xAF is hardly noticeable and not worth running that high considering the frame rate hit.

So know what you're talking about BEFORE you "blindly" make statements.

The only thing you said in your first post numbnuts was that your only running 2X AA and 4X AF at resolutions lower than 1600 X 1200 and you asked if anyone seriously thought they could tell the diff with settings higher than yours at what ever resolution it is that you game at which BTW you didnt mention anything about 1440X900 or 2XQAA or 8XAA in your original post you genius :roll:

Perhaps you should learn how to comprehend your own writing:roll: Anyway since when does a 7900GT support 8XAA???  


You are the only moron I know of who says that they cant tell much difference between 2XAA, 4XAF vs 8XAA and 16XAF.


Its not real hard to tell the diff between the decrease in jaggies with higher AA and with higher levels of AF you can clearly see that the textures are cleaner further out into the distance.

Another thing any card from a X850XT to 6800Ultra and up should be able to do 8XAF to 16XAF without much of a performance hit. AA is the performance killer, not AF.


Get your eyes checked, people like you cause accidents  

I love the irony of your statements... Once again learn how to read, or perhaps I'm asking too much?

First, I didn't NEED to say anything about 1440x900 because it was implied by my "at resolutions lower than 1600 X 1200" statement. Maybe I'm a little slow, but 1440x900 is a res that is just a bit lower than the 1600x1200 res I stated... Or do I need to re-learn how to count? Hmmm...

Second, Everything from the 6600gt up to and including the 7900gt can do 8xAA. Don't believe it, check some of the reviews in this very site, or better yet check with Nvidia themselves.

Third, I just did a screen shot test on both my system and my roommates system[he has an XFX 8800gts] using both Quake4 and Oblivion, testing the diff between 2xQ AA and 8x AA[both being set to your suggested 16x AF]. Imagine what we discovered... Very little. Your "Jaggies" just aren't there @ the 2xQ setting. We then bumped the AF down to 4x and what do you know!? It made a slight difference @ a 7% to 14% fps increase. What was that about AF not being a taxing effect?

Fourth, YOU have no room calling ANYONE a moron. A blind dolt, such as yourself, should be more concerned about getting his head out of his bum and less about spouting fact-less garbage at everyone.

Last, get a clue and a life.

Then why didnt you just say 1440X900 was your gaming res to begin with? :roll:

Claiming you game at resolutions lower than 1600X1200 was a vague statement and could have meant just about anything you fukin douchbag :roll:



Where in the hell is this 2XQAA coming from all of a sudden? :roll: in your first post you stated 2XAA and said nothing about 2XQAA :roll: there is a pretty big diff going from 2XAA to 2XQAA , and your telling me to learn how to read? MORON. :roll:

Sounds like to me both you and your roomate should get your EYES checked  

I play Oblivion all the time and know for a fact that the diff from 4XAF to 16XAF is damn big and your either to fukin stupid to know what it is that your looking for or your just blind like stated before. Same thing with the AA.

Keep in mind that with a 8800 you may have to upgrade your power supply as well.

I agree one GTX is enough for now as frame rates only drop to a minimum of about 26fps at max res and quality settings in Oblivion in outdoor scenes but if that is two slow for you a second might be worth it.

My opinion is that one does the job but if your a tight ass for perfection and performance then two is the way to go.

PS. Once Crysis and other DX10 games comes out it may struggle at those high settings with only one card but by then there will be even better cards out capable of handling it perfectly fine just using one card. For now I don't really see the point upgrading to that extent as there is no real use for it yet but for nice fps in current games like Oblivion one GTX does the job just fine.