Geforce GTX vs 2 X GTS 320

[xela]

Hello,

I have waited long enought for the launch of 2900 and now that we've finally seen some decent benchmarks I've decided to swap my line of ATI cards for Nvidia.

3 weeks ago I wouldn't be asking this questions but the prices for GTS 320 and 640 MBs have fallen while price for GTX remains the same. Prices for GTS have fallen to the point where 2 X GTS 320MB are cheaper/same then a single GTX and outpreform it under the res of 1280X1024 (only one I care about) by a healthy margin. I don't have the money to get a GTX now, so I will have to get my whole setup in 2 month if I go for it, I can get a rig with 1 GTS (saved enought to get 2900 but that is out the window ) in a week and get another one in 2 month. I've never ran a SLI/Crossfire setup and wondering if it has some hidden difficulties/bugs.

My current rig:

P4-C 3.0 @ 3.4Ghz
ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe
1024 MB OCZ PC-4000 Gold
Radeon X850 XT 256 MB
1 X 300 GB
2 X 160 GB Maxtor HD's
Thermaltake Damier V5000D (all wires neat)
Tacens Valeo 480 PSU
BenQ FP937S+ LCD

Getting:
C2D 2.4 @ hoping for 3.2 Ghz
ASUS P5N32-E SLI+
2 GB DDR2-800 OCZ XTC Titanium
GPU still under the ?...
2 X Barracuda 7200.10 (500 GB)
Thermaltake Damier V5000D (all wires neat)
Thermaltake Thoughtpower 750W CM
BenQ FP937S+ LCD


I really need some advice on this :?:

 

[blade85]

I still think getting a single powerfull card with more memory is better than getting two lower end cards with lower memories, even if they currently beat the high end card when sli'd. For all you know when games like crysis come out, the 768 meg memory on the GTX will come in more handy than the 320 on the GTS (sli does not double the memory, you will still only have 320 megs)

 

[xela]

I still think getting a single powerfull card with more memory is better than getting two lower end cards with lower memories, even if they currently beat the high end card when sli'd. For all you know when games like crysis come out, the 768 meg memory on the GTX will come in more handy than the 320 on the GTS (sli does not double the memory, you will still only have 320 megs)

Shows how little I know about SLI setups.. I just checked VGA charts and in heavy duty games like Oblivion SLI setup of GTS 320 doesn't suffer compared to 640 even under high res and AA? Same in Doom3 under Ultra Details and heavy res + AA. How would that be possible if only 320 MB were used?

How sure are you that SLI setups use just one card's memory???

 

[blade85]

Im 100% sure that your total available memroy remains the same. Even the so called high demanding games we currently have dont use all the available memory. What i said is more to do with the future games that will make use of DX10. We have no idea how much memory they will need to run smooth.

For current gaming even a single 8800gts 320 megs would be enough to run almost all games at your resolution.

 

[jingles98]

I have been running an SLi setup for the last year with 2 x 7900GTX's and recently i sold one to upgrade my AMD dual-core to buy a C2D rig. I still firmly believe that buying one big card now would be better only because further down the track buy a 2nd one to increase your performance. fair enough your not going to have as much performance until you get the second card but holy crap it's an 8800GTX. that one card outperforms my SLi rig. I never really grasped the entire concepts of how SLi works but IMO this is how i will be doing it when my last 7900GTX doesn't give me the power i want. at least that way i'm not going to be stuck with two lower end cards saying shit i knew i shoulda bought the GTX. Good luck with your choice either way.

 

[xela]

Oh well.. Comments overwelming towards GTX :roll: I'm going to wait till the end of the month to see what happence with GTX price now that 2900 is out.. but from the look of it nothing will happen to its price so I will have to drop one harddrive, get C2D 6420 instead of 6600 and use my old power supply for now but with GTX in the setup :twisted:

Thanks for replies

 

[sqqq]

under the res of 1280X1024 (only one I care about)

hello

if you think you will stay whith 1280x1024 for a long time take the gts , other way take the gtx

thanks

 

[xela]

under the res of 1280X1024 (only one I care about)

hello

if you think you will stay whith 1280x1024 for a long time take the gts , other way take the gtx

thanks

Err.. Yes, I am planning to stay with 1280X1024 for a long time while beeing VERY happy with the monitor I have but what does me playing under 1280X1024 have to do with the choice between GTX and 2 X GTS.. it's like blade85 said:

"Even the so called high demanding games we currently have dont use all the available memory."

In games like Oblivion (according to Tom's charts) GTX is way faster then GTS under all resolutions availible(and it doesn't seem to be much faster under 1920res then under 1280). I would agree with you 100% if the choice was between GTSs 320 and 640 where 320 fails under really high resolutions (while beeing the same under 1280) but GTX is plainly faster then either card in all scenarios. What my concern really is the choise between a


GTX
C2D 6420
1 X Barracuda HD

+ Upgrates later

or

GTS 320
C2D 6600
2 X Barracuda HDs (I red somewhere that they do wonder under RAID)
Thermaltake Thoughtpower 750W CM

+ 1 more GTS 320 later

And another thing I have not yet heard is how difficult it is to setup SLI and what drawbacks does it really have (like driver bugs/compability with Vista or some games)?

 

[blade85]

I think at your gaming esolution, getting a 8800GTS 320 + a E6600 would more than enough for atleast another year or two whithout much hassle. By the time you will want to upgrade again, your available finance may be good enough to buy something 3 times better. Who knows.

For now id just got for 1 card rather than sli.

 

[xela]

I think at your gaming esolution, getting a 8800GTS 320 + a E6600 would more than enough for atleast another year or two whithout much hassle. By the time you will want to upgrade again, your available finance may be good enough to buy something 3 times better. Who knows.

For now id just got for 1 card rather than sli.

Yeah well.. if Dx10 games require more then Oblivion does I'll be in trouble way sooner then that as 320 only gets 29 fps @1280+8AF outside.. You have no idea how appealing it is to get a good, strong setup with 320 but then the road to GTX is shut.. and once again:

Does anyone know if SLI has any compability issues with Vista/drivers/games ect.. ???

I need to know that if I go for GTS and get bullied into getting another one by Crysis,Halo2 or UT3 :!:

 

[geoffry]

You could always get an EVGA 8800 GTS 320, then after 90 days you can decide whether or not to go SLI GTS or use the EVGA step up program to get 1 GTX.

You said if you went the 320 route you'd be getting the 2nd in 2 months so this would be the perfect route for your situation I believe.

 

[Azurus]

I would not buy an Sli configuration at all.
Rather buy a high end card that supports your needs for the coming 2 years or so.

Prices for the GTX haven't gone down because Nvidia still wants to make money out of it. And since the 2900XT has come out today and will sell for +-330€, Nvidia will definitely bring down his prices.

A couple of months ago I followed the progress on the 8900 series.
The chip was to be made as we speak and the sales at the end of juli.
So when the 8900 series come out and replace the 8800, the GTX would definitely not cost 590+€ anymore.

The point of the whole story, build your rig like you said, but for the GFX module, wait until the 8800GTX will be priced down.
My supplier said to me that his retailprices for it will drop to 450€+- at the end of June.

End if you already bought your 2xGTS, your gone be sorry
Only gives you 25 to 30% performance increase anyway.
And if you can Buy the EVGA GTX , you will not regret it at all

 

[Wrinkly_Ninja]

No, demanding games do not require a lot of memory. Oblivion can be played fine on 256 cards. However, with more realsitic textures(aka bigger) used, memory really is an issue. With my rig, Oblivion and quarls texture pack three (incredibly photorealsitic) my memory used by oblivion alone sometimes reaches 690MB.

With games like crysis and alan wake coming, graphics memory really is important.

 

[jingles98]

If your worried about price think about this. When i bought my 2 7900GTX's this time last year i paid $990 each AUS. That's $1980 all up just on video cards. If i had have bought just i card (keep in mind they were the best at the time just before the release of the 7950GX2's) i could have only got one and still have had an awesome gaming rig. The money i would have saved not buying the second card means that a year later i could have sold my 79 bought another HDD (prob a 74gb Raptor to go with my current one and raid em) and used the rest to buy a 8800GTX and still have an awesome gaming rig. For the price SLi is over rated and your better off putting the money from your second card in a christmas club account at your bank and in a years time buying the latest and greatest.

 

[jingles98]

Azurus i agree when SLi benchmarks first came out everyone said that at "best" depending on the rest of your rig and the games you wanna play you can expect anywhere "between 4% and 80% increase" in gaming performance. Is it really worth the extra $$$??

 

[xela]

If your worried about price think about this. When i bought my 2 7900GTX's this time last year i paid $990 each AUS. That's $1980 all up just on video cards. If i had have bought just i card (keep in mind they were the best at the time just before the release of the 7950GX2's) i could have only got one and still have had an awesome gaming rig. The money i would have saved not buying the second card means that a year later i could have sold my 79 bought another HDD (prob a 74gb Raptor to go with my current one and raid em) and used the rest to buy a 8800GTX and still have an awesome gaming rig. For the price SLi is over rated and your better off putting the money from your second card in a christmas club account at your bank and in a years time buying the latest and greatest.

Jingles, can you please tell me if you had any problems with your SLI setup (like driver/game compability issues) or not?
I am sure that a joke of a country that I live in is not covered by Evga's stepup program. On the other hand I have finally found a shop in Spain that is willing to refund me IVA (16% EU sales tax) if I order it to Andorra (small country that I live in between France and Spain). It opened an option of me getting GTX and only dropping 1 harddrive. I only hope that GTX is powerfull enought to coop with all games in the upcoming year. After that I should be able to get a new card (hopefully it will still be PCI-E sockets by then )

Thank you for posts, I am pretty sure that's the right desicion

 

[brick88]

at 1280x1024 i doubt you'll see much of a performance advantage from sli. go with the single 8800gtx. you can overclock the e6420 to e6600 speeds to make up the difference.

 

[rodney_ws]

How sure are you that SLI setups use just one card's memory???

A better question would be to ask... how sure are you that the games being tested would benefit from over 320 MB of RAM? The moment some game recommends a 512 MB video card, an 8800 GTS 320 MB SLI setup will show its true colors.

By the sound of it you REALLY want everyone here to be wrong... have you already bought the the two 320 cards? Buyer's regret?

 

[xela]

How sure are you that SLI setups use just one card's memory???

A better question would be to ask... how sure are you that the games being tested would benefit from over 320 MB of RAM? The moment some game recommends a 512 MB video card, an 8800 GTS 320 MB SLI setup will show its true colors.

By the sound of it you REALLY want everyone here to be wrong... have you already bought the the two 320 cards? Buyer's regret?

LoL That would be a waste of our time. No, I haven't bought anything yet but already set my mind on:

C2D 6600 @ hoping for 3.2 Ghz
ASUS P5N32-E SLI+
G.E.I.L. DIMM 2 GB DDR2-800 Kit
Geforce 8800 GTX
1 X Barracuda 7200.10 (500 GB)
Thermaltake Damier V5000D (all wires neat)
Tacens Valeo 480 PSU
BenQ FP937S+ LCD
(last 3 I already have)

I thought GTS 320 SLI setup would kill GTX for the same price but reading from the replies now understand that SLI might be more trouble then it's worth and a single 320 was never really an option. I will have to wait for a month untill I can get another harddrive and without SLI I will not need a PSU upgrate so thermaltake 750 falls out of picture

 

[dsidious]

Does anyone know if SLI has any compability issues with Vista/drivers/games ect.. ???

I'd go for the GTX, this way you avoid SLI issues for now (until they are fixed by nVidia and you can download good drivers) and you can add power to your system later when you need it by buying another gTX.

I just answered the question about nVidia's Vista drivers yesterday in another thread. Here's the idea:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x64_158.18.html

- one 8800 card on Vista - works in either DX9 or DX10; some bugs, but it's under development and should get better whenever they upload new versions of the drivers

- SLI on Vista - not supported at all for DX10, promised to be added, no date specified. Supported for DX9, but in "beta" version i.e. (I'm guessing) more bugs than the single-card version.

Personally I'll buy a GTX and XP sometime in Q3 after the price cuts to Q6600. A year later I'll get another GTX and Vista. I'm sure they'll have great SLI drivers for Vista by then

Edit: forgot to mention, I've seen a few places where the 8900 GTX is promised for June. In the last paragraph above I'm talking about the 8900 GTX. The 8800 GTX is the best card ever, but I have this feeling that that's about to end very soon.

 

[Ananan]

What VGA charts are you using that include a 320 GTS? I couldn't find it on Tom's.

With cards like a 1900 XTX ($209)or even 640 GTS ($320) down pretty low pricewise by now I'd love to be able to directly compare the performance at higher resolutions before I make my final purchase decision.

 

[xela]

Well, I don't have a zillion Euros to buy 8900 right after it's release anyway, it bound to cost more then 8800 Ultra does now so i'll stick to my setup and hope that it will last me for an year or two

Ananan wrote:

What VGA charts are you using that include a 320 GTS? I couldn't find it on Tom's.
With cards like a 1900 XTX ($209)or even 640 GTS ($320) down pretty low pricewise by now I'd love to be able to directly compare the performance at higher resolutions before I make my final purchase decision.

320 is included in Dual/Quad setups in Tom's VGA charts and then I just compare it with a single GTX. Two 320 win all over but according to advice pll gave me going for GTX leaves an option for upgrate later and extra VRAM might come in handy when Dx10 arrives.

As for 640 GTS you are planning to get.. 320 GTS preforms the same exept for the highest resolutions but even in those cases the clock speed fails to keep fps up so gameplay wouldn't be that enjoyble. In my opinion GTS 640 was Nvidia's mistake from the start but the amount of people on this forum who have them in thier setups sure shuts me up. Between GTS 320/640 I would go for 320 (preferably overclocked) any day

 

[rodney_ws]

That'll be one hell of a rig... hell, anything with an 8800 GTX (that boots!) is one hell of a rig.

 

[rodney_ws]

Well, I don't have a zillion Euros to buy 8900 right after it's release anyway, it bound to cost more then 8800 Ultra does now so i'll stick to my setup and hope that it will last me for an year or two

Not true... not true at all. Anyone remember the 7900 GTX and how it compared in terms of cost to a 7800 GTX? I'm IN NO WAY SAYING that the 8900 GTX will be cheap... I'd just bet money that it's the same price as the ultra or even lower... definitely not higher.

 

[xela]

I hope it will score a decent framerate on Crysis and UT3 when those come out. Don't really care about the rest that much.

To Ananan:

GTS 320 AC3 vs Calibre 640

Check this review where GTS 320 OC whipes the floor with 640 even on the highest of resolutions. Get a good overclocked 320 and make it worth your while

(1900 XTX is not even Dx10 so buying it right before Dx10 games come out makes you a hypocrite, right ???)