Other than the answer of "try em out and tell us" what set up do you think would be better.

I have a chance to pick up some stuff on the cheap, and one of the choices are either 2 (sli) BFG 7600 GT OC which 580/1450

, or run my current video card of a Sapphire Ultimate X1950 Pro which has a nice factory installed Zalman cooler and is OC'ed to 580/1600?

here are links to the cards

BFG http://www.tigerdirect.com/applica [...] CatId=1558

Sapphire Ultimate http://www.virtual-hideout.net/rev [...] ndex.shtml




specs will be
E6600 (no oc yet, but will be)
EVGA 680i mobo
4gigs of ram
all the cooling necessar

if you look at the top of the gfx card forum you will see a sticky on this topic, read it.

however, to answer your question, it has never been nor will it ever be advisable to waste money on sli'ing to 7600 class gfx cards especially when you have something that is far better at the moment.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/foru [...] sfire-faqs

I have already read the FAQ before I posted, and it is generic at best for my situation.

I do not know enough about vid cards to determine if SLI of the 2 7600's would be better or not.

The GPU speed is the same for both cards, but the memory is better on the Sapphire card. Does that make the one card better?

How about some educated guesses as opposed to cutting and pasting a link with generic info.

X1950 Pro for free (you already have it) or
$300 (including shipping) for two 7600GTs and wait 75 days for a $60 rebate? or
$250-265 for a single 8800GT?
(1) Good choice
(2) Bad choice
(3) Best choice

You can compare the X1950 and 7600GT SLI benchmarks yourself.
You'll need to use 2 different THG Video Charts but you'll get an how they compare.
THG Video Charts 1 GPU
THG Vidoe Charts Multi-GPU

I see I was not clear enough, my apologies.

I have a chance to pick up a system that is about 4mos old (verified with receipts) and these 2 vid cards are apart of that. These parts will go towards making a new system and taking the best pieces for my computer.

Total price for the 2 cards would be about $125.

Yes, I would rather have an 8800gt all day long..

In general, you are always better off with a single faster card.
The reason is that frequently SLI does not help at all in some games and may hurt. In other games, it can help quite a bit.

So, In general, Choose the single faster card.
If there is one particular game with which you are obsessed, you can try to find some SLI charts for that game to see the effects of SLI in that game.

IMO the x1950Pro and 7600GT OC SLI performance will be very close.
So close that I don't think spending $125 is worth the few FPS you'd gain.
A light OC on the X1950Pro should be a better overall option.
Much better to roll back the game quality settings or turn off AA/AF to get better performance if needed than sink $125 into a 7600GT.
Especially not with $199 8800GT/256MB video cards going on sale over the Holiday shopping season.

I say SLI for 7600GT

Alright it might not be totally worth it but if you can get the two cheap at least it earns you bragging points



I would for the novelty - we all know you can buy a single 8800GT and have it beat 2 SLI'd cards but hey... Or you could just wait 8800GTS REV.2 will be out soon