Worth it to SLI 9800 GTX?

[natedawg]

Hi All,

Because the GTX 280 is rather underwhelming, I'm thinking about adding another 9800 GTX to my gaming rig for SLI purposes. I almost exclusively play Age of Conan (2-6 hours day) at 1900x1200 (or thereabouts) at reasonable high settings on a 26" samsung LCD I have a quad core CPU and 64 bit windows ultimate vista installed (4 gigs of DDR3 Ram). EVGA Nvidian 790i board (works great).

In the city I'm getting aboug 25-40 FPS. At night or simple zones getting 40-100 FPS. The gameplay is very nice and smooth for the most part, but I like to to have the best

Will I see noticeable difference if I SLI?

I assume SLI 9800 GTX is better than 1 GTX 280, but love to hear everyone's thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

 

[ilovebarny]

um well i would suggest sli'ing with an 8800gts g92 512mb.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048+106791921+1067924922+1068310557&name=512MB
ya two 9800 gtx's will be better but the 8800 gts 512mb is the same card just a little slower.

 

[ibuypower]

SLI SLI!!! Yes sli a 9800 GTX with your existing 9800. It will be much better.

 

[Mousemonkey]

um well i would suggest sli'ing with an 8800gts g92 512mb.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048+106791921+1067924922+1068310557&name=512MB
ya two 9800 gtx's will be better but the 8800 gts 512mb is the same card just a little slower.

Not bad advice, but I think the OP already has a 9800GTX so the logical (and possibly cheaper) choice would be to add another GTX to the mix. @ OP, you should see some improvement but results may vary.

 

[wacky7]

I would if I had the motherboard a Full 16x16 SLI for 9800GTX would do a nice job for that 26" might help to bost your video improvement for your game for that size for screen and might help the smoothness at 4AA on game at split screen rendering mode your might hit around 50 to 70FPS or better around city and others parts might 130 or better. but if u wait and try to get one 280 GTX and then your hit around 80 for city and no such thing floods the video cards, then put that one in SLI at full 16x PCI-E then your have some killer FPS screenrate, then your try out for 8AA on sli then it slow it down.for the money if i were u i get another 9800 GTX save my money. or wait and get two 280 GTX at the same time and then your end up buying a new power supplies thoes sucker take alota power.but when u end up doing that something eles will be better that comes out like a 380 GTX or something that hope they get into DDR4 at 512 bit at 2GB video card.

 

[Maziar]

Hi All,

Because the GTX 280 is rather underwhelming, I'm thinking about adding another 9800 GTX to my gaming rig for SLI purposes. I almost exclusively play Age of Conan (2-6 hours day) at 1900x1200 (or thereabouts) at reasonable high settings on a 26" samsung LCD I have a quad core CPU and 64 bit windows ultimate vista installed (4 gigs of DDR3 Ram). EVGA Nvidian 790i board (works great).

In the city I'm getting aboug 25-40 FPS. At night or simple zones getting 40-100 FPS. The gameplay is very nice and smooth for the most part, but I like to to have the best

Will I see noticeable difference if I SLI?

I assume SLI 9800 GTX is better than 1 GTX 280, but love to hear everyone's thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

Hello and welcome to the forums mate

Read the SLI/CF FAQ:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/245454-15-crossfire-faqs

You have a resolution that really benefits from SLI, so i say go for it
and yes 2 9800GTXs will beat 1 GTX 280 by a noticeable margin in almost every game,but if u only play Age of Conan and u don't have any problems with it,then i say u might want to keep your current card and don't SLI, but if u play other heavy games like Oblivion,Crysis,GRAW2.... then go for it

 

[swidd]

I'm somewhat n00b, but I've read every analysis I've found, and I'm getting 9800GTX SLI for myself, in my new build. They now cost about the same as 8800GT/GTS ($400-420 for two cards), yet in SLI they score almost top scores, better than 9800GX2 and GTX260, and very close to GTX280. In my opinion, giving the most bang:buck in the mid-range budget. With 9800GTX SLI I should be able to play Crysis and the upcoming Far Cry 2 at decent frame rates without sacrificing quality or resolution.

 

[monsta]

Yeah just add another 9800GTX, in SLI they perfrom very well

 

[febtiger]

Step Up program? Not sure if it ended, but only for eVGA.
The sli 9800Gtx is as powerful as a single gtx280, but cheaper by 100 or 200$. I suggest stepup to 9800gx2, since drivers for 280gtx aren't very good. You can also stepup to 280gtx and wait, or just get the sli now.

 

[Maziar]

NO!
2 9800GTX outperform every single card in the martket in almost all games, have u read some reviews? if so then u have seen that even 2 8800GT 512 in SLI beat the GTX 280 in almost all games, and 2 9800GTX are fater than 2 8800GT 512,so i say SLI it.

 

[Rubenov]

I have two 9800 GTXs in SLI and I while must say they work great, I haven't tried them in Age of Conan. When I was researching to decide if I was going to buy two of these or not I came accross the sli zone forums, and many people there mentioned that SLI is not working on Age of Conan as of yet.

Go there, read a little and make your decision. Be careful, those forums may scare you of going SLI forever. As I said it works great, but unfortunately AoC I think it is one of those few games where it doesn't work.

 

[dagger]

I'm somewhat n00b, but I've read every analysis I've found, and I'm getting 9800GTX SLI for myself, in my new build. They now cost about the same as 8800GT/GTS ($400-420 for two cards), yet in SLI they score almost top scores, better than 9800GX2 and GTX260, and very close to GTX280. In my opinion, giving the most bang:buck in the mid-range budget. With 9800GTX SLI I should be able to play Crysis and the upcoming Far Cry 2 at decent frame rates without sacrificing quality or resolution.

9800gtx and g92 8800gts do not cost the same.
http://fxvideocards.com/ZOTAC-GeForce-8800-GTS-G92-512MB-ZT-88SES2P-FSP-256-bit-GDDR3-PCI-Express-2.0-x16-HDCP-Ready-SLI-ZOTAC-Video-Card-p-16280.html
G92 8800gts is $120 ar, compared to $200 for 9800gtx. If you already have 9800gtx, it makes no sense to change it out. But if you're building a new rig, no reason to spend more for a card that perform the same.
http://en.expreview.com/2008/04/03/geforce-9800gtx-review/12/

 

[dagger]

As for Age of Conan, apparently, it has some quirks, which end up with
it looking better and drawing a heavier load on Nvidia cards compared
to ATI.

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6192732/p-5.html

The forum doesn't let me edit post for some reason "You must fill in all required fields"

 

[Guest]

I just finished my first build and used 2 9800 in SLI vs going with the newest available. My deciding factor was the fact I got a free games with them and they were only $100 each. I didn't want two of the same games so I got two different cards both with the 9800 gpu and they work great. I play far cry 2 on all high and get about 40fps. I'm running them on a 740i mb with a q6600 on vista 64bit and no overclocking. Also an advantage of two cards vs one card is the fact that I find monitors cheap (Garage sales) and I have plenty of video connections to run up to six monitors. (I have one on my giant hd tv and the others for applications I want to keep in constant view.)

 

[Mousemonkey]

You dug up a year old thread to share that with us, thanks for that.