7600GT SLI or Save my money?

[travish82]

Core 2 Due e4300 (stock cooling and clocks)
Nvidia P5n SLI
EVGA 7600 GT 256
2 Gig OCZ DDR2 pc6600 (I think)
250 Gig 7200 rpm HD

Hi I'v got a bit of a dilemma on my hands. Should I invest in another 7600GT or should I save my money? It makes no sense to buy a 8600 GT given they have basically the same performance, and I'm not willing to spend $280 for the 8800. Im trying to decide if the performance advantages of setting up an SLI system would be worth it. From the research I've found, it looks like it would nearly double my frame rate. My other choice would be to hold out until a better performing card with DirectX 10 comes down in price, or a new line is introduced. ATI is not an option here, as I want to be able to set up SLI if I choose to in the future. Can anyone tell me of their performance gains in going to an SLI setup. please let me know about framerate and/or ability to turn on advanced graphics option or increased resolution. Also, based on past trends, when will a card comparable to the 8800 drop to around $150.

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[Maziar]

8600gt wont be a big boost from 7600gs , also for the price of 8600gt , go for X1950PRO or X1950XT

also dont get SLI unless u play @ 1920x1200 or higher

 

[Mousemonkey]

Core 2 Due e4300 (stock cooling and clocks)
Nvidia P5n SLI
EVGA 7600 GT 256
2 Gig OCZ DDR2 pc6600 (I think)
250 Gig 7200 rpm HD

Hi I'v got a bit of a dilemma on my hands. Should I invest in another 7600GT or should I save my money? It makes no sense to buy a 8600 GT given they have basically the same performance, and I'm not willing to spend $280 for the 8800. Im trying to decide if the performance advantages of setting up an SLI system would be worth it. From the research I've found, it looks like it would nearly double my frame rate. My other choice would be to hold out until a better performing card with DirectX 10 comes down in price, or a new line is introduced. ATI is not an option here, as I want to be able to set up SLI if I choose to in the future. Can anyone tell me of their performance gains in going to an SLI setup. please let me know about framerate and/or ability to turn on advanced graphics option or increased resolution. Also, based on past trends, when will a card comparable to the 8800 drop to around $150.

Thanks in advance for the help!

New cards should be with us in the next few months and a single 8700 may well be a better option than Sli'd 7600GT's. A pair of 7900GT's give smoother game play with higher minimum frame rates and usually a higher average frame rate @1280x1024.

 

[cleeve]

SLI will not give you a 100% performance boost by a long shot.

Sell your 7600 GT and buy a better card. If it must be Nvidia maybe a 7900 GS, or an 8600 GTS if you can find a cheap one.

Or wait for the rumored upcoming 8700 GTS...

 

[miahallen]

Or wait for the rumored upcoming 8700 GTS...

QFT!

 

[SpeedyVV]

Core 2 Due e4300 (stock cooling and clocks)
Nvidia P5n SLI
EVGA 7600 GT 256
... Im trying to decide if the performance advantages of setting up an SLI system would be worth it. From the research I've found, it looks like it would nearly double my frame rate....

Thanks in advance for the help!

travish82, I originally had one 7600GT, then I decided to buy a second one so that I could drive 3 monitors. The bright side of this is that when i want to play games I turn on SLI and gaming performance, is "significantly" better. I am not sure if it is close to 100% but significant nonetheless.

If you want, let me know and I'll run a FEAR comparison with and without SLI and post here.

There is one down side of SLI that cannot be understated... if 1 7600GT is obsolete in your case, SLI means investing twice in something that is obsolete . I had no choice cause I needed a 2nd GPU to drive 3 monitors, and I had no money left for a 8800 after buying a large display.

To be honest, 90% of my games run really well. But there is not a day that I dont go online to see what the prices of the 8800s are at. Do I need it? NO. Do I want one? YES and BAD!!!

So unless you need to drive more than 2 monitors, I would take the advice here and get a 7900GS. In Toronto you can get a 7900GS for the same price as a 7600GT. Go figure.

 

[royalcrown]

true, but what is the point of buying an SLI if you never use it ? Wait for a new budget card to come out and save up enough for 2 of em

 

[travish82]

Thanks for the great advice guys. Well, One thing for sure is that If I decide to upgrade a single card, I don't want to get a DirectX 9 card, that's why I was contemplating waiting until a more reasonbly priced DX10 card comes out. I just can't afford spending $280 for an upgrade right now (the 8800 I believe). A second 7600 would probably cost about $80-90 and I could probably recoupe about half of that when I finally decide to sell the card. so if there is signifigant improvement for a very modest investment, I'll go for it. As of yet my CPU doesn't seem to bottleneck any games, and I do have some space for an overclock in the future if I add a cooler, so I'm not concerned about that aspect yet.

SpeedyVV - you are running a system almost identicle to mine. That would be terrific if you did a comparison of Fear! I own that game and play it pereiodically at 1280x1024. I can't recall the graphics settings I use off hand, but I know they aren't cranked, and I still experience minor hiccups in framerates every once in a while

 

[SpeedyVV]

Travish, here are the results of my bechmarking of FEAR with and without SLI of 7600GT

The thing is, the 7600GTs are a great card for DX9 games. Off course, some people in this forum might not agree because they are into Super $$$ spent on graphics! But most games at resonable resolutions play just fine with 1 7600GT.

But there are games like DiRT, I can only paly at 800x600 with Low settings :-(

If you want to go to higher resolutions, and or must have all the eye candy turned on, an SLIed 7600GT will go a. long way!

By the way I see you have a EVGA card, if you buy a 2nd EVGA 7600GT, you can leverage the Step Up Program to upgrade if something really great shows up for X'mas.

So if you decide to go SLI, you can see below what to expect. Not 100% improvement, but a really nice "Boost".

Please let us know what ou decide. Good luck.

-------------------------------------------------------
E4300(Stock) + 7600GT (Stock) 3DMark06: 3607
E4300(Stock) + 2x 7600GT SLI (Stock) 3DMark06: 6191

Not quite 100% but pretty good ;-)
-------------------------------------------------------

For all the tests below
E4300(2.5GHz) | 7600GTs (Core 650MHz, Mem 1600Mhz)
FEAR VSync: On, Force Restart: On, HUD Text Scaling: small, HW Mixing\EAX: Off

SLI(2 7600GTs)/Non SLI(1 7600GT)
----------------------------------------------------------------
Test 1: Computer: Medium, Graphics: Medium, Resolution 2560x1600
FPS:
Min: 24/10
Avg: 29/18
Max: 49/29
FPS Distribution:
1/83% Below 25FPS
77/17% Between 25 and 40 FPS
22/0% Above 40 FPS

Test 2: Computer: Max, Graphics: Max, Resolution 1280x1024
FPS:
Min: 29/18
Avg: 37/29
Max: 59/59
FPS Distribution:
0/40% Below 25FPS
42/46% Between 25 and 40 FPS
58/14% Above 40 FPS

Test 3: Computer: High, Graphics: High, Resolution 1280x1024
FPS:
Min: 42/27
Avg: 54/40
Max: 61/59
FPS Distribution:
0% Below 25FPS
0/57% Between 25 and 40 FPS
100/43% Above 40 FPS

Test 4: Computer: Low, Graphics: Low, Resolution 1280x1024
FPS:
Min: 58/58
Avg: 59/59
Max: 66/66
FPS Distribution:
0/0% Below 25FPS
0/0% Between 25 and 40 FPS
100/100% Above 40 FPS