Should I bother with two 8800GT 512 SLI?

[guitarxe]

I'm just thinking, that buying an SLI mobo plus the second card, is almost as much as just buying a higher end card, like one of the 9x series. Wouldn't the 9x card still be better than two 8800GT 512 in SLI?

 

[ilovebarny]

yes but right know you can get the radion 4850 for 199$ which is cheaper than the 9x cards from nvidia and performs better. know if your a ati hater well then it depends on which 9x card you are thinking about getting. if your looking at the 9600gt, no that will perform worse than one 8800gt. if your looking at the 9800gtx ya that will perform better than the 8800gt. im not sure it might just be a little better than two 8800gt's but you might be able to save money if you stick with the 8800gt's. but like i said at the top of my post. stick with your mobo and get the radion 4850 which out performs the 9800gtx and you will be happy.

 

[ausch30]

2x8800GT in a lot of benchmarks out performs the GTX280 but the problem is with the Nvidia based motherboards. Intel chipsets are much more stable, overclock better and are cheaper than Nvidia chipsets so if you don't already have a SLI board you would be better off buying a Intel based board and going with ATI video cards.

Look at the benchmarks
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3334&p=1

 

[guitarxe]

No, I don't 'hate' ATI cards, I've just never used them because whenever I was upgrading there was always an Nvidia card that was better and cheaper than whaterver ATI could offer at the time.
I did not know about the 4850, I'll have to take a look at it.

Or you know, screw SLI and screw upgrading my VGA at this time. My factory-OCed 8800GT 512 should last me at least what, another half a year, right? It's a good card. I've read around some other sites and pretty much figured out that say 2 x 8800 in SLI will never outperform or even reach the same performance as an 9800. Or I guess it's the same for say 2 x 8600 and 9600. And buying a good SLI mobo will cost as much if not the same as just buying one better card.

 

[dagger]

No, I don't 'hate' ATI cards, I've just never used them because whenever I was upgrading there was always an Nvidia card that was better and cheaper than whaterver ATI could offer at the time.
I did not know about the 4850, I'll have to take a look at it.

Or you know, screw SLI and screw upgrading my VGA at this time. My factory-OCed 8800GT 512 should last me at least what, another half a year, right? It's a good card. I've read around some other sites and pretty much figured out that say 2 x 8800 in SLI will never outperform or even reach the same performance as an 9800. Or I guess it's the same for say 2 x 8600 and 9600. And buying a good SLI mobo will cost as much if not the same as just buying one better card.

Not sure where you got that information. But dual 8800gt is far faster than 9800gtx, on everything except 5+ years old games that do not support dual gpus. For those, fps would be so high it wouldn't matter anyway. 8800gt sli will outperform 9600gt sli by a fair margin, and 8600gt sli by a huge margin.

Here's benchmark comparasion of common single cards, including 8600, 9600, and 8800gt.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/HD_4850/10.html

 

[febtiger]

a 9800GX2 is basically 2 8800GTS's underclocked. You can also do quad sli for upgrade. You can only 3 way sli a 8800gts, but you can quad sli (sli with 2 gpus/card) a 9800gx2. 9800gx2 would be my choice, but it's kinda expensive now, so just get dual 8800gt's until the quad sli lowers its price.

 

[ausch30]

You can only 3 way sli a 8800gts, but you can quad sli (sli with 2 gpus/card) a 9800gx2. 9800gx2 would be my choice, but it's kinda expensive now, so just get dual 8800gt's until the quad sli lowers its price.

First of all you can only SLI a 8800GTS not 3 way due to there only being 1 SLI connector. Quad SLI with the 9800GX2 will never get much cheaper than it is due to the cost of producing the cards.

 

[febtiger]

First of all you can only SLI a 8800GTS not 3 way due to there only being 1 SLI connector. Quad SLI with the 9800GX2 will never get much cheaper than it is due to the cost of producing the cards.

Right lol I got that wrong thanks for spotting that. Anyways, the 9800GX2 just shaved 100$ off it's price. Used to be around 620$ now it's around 500$, maybe a little more. True, it uses a pretty large die, but it will get cheaper.

 

[monsta]

The 9800GX2 is a great card performs very well, wait abit longer and the prices will drop further

 

[a 6pack in]

id go 8800gt SLI

its a damn good card, just spring for some aftermarket cooling.

 

[guitarxe]

Do I really need some extra cooling for SLI? What would you recommend? I'm already over-extending my budget...

 

[guitarxe]

The 9800GX2 is a great card performs very well, wait abit longer and the prices will drop further

How long do you think it will be? I want to be able to play Age of Conan with this new system, and then SC2 and D3 when those come out. How long do you think my current 8800GT (OCed) will last me?

 

[a 6pack in]

my roommate and i both play AoC.

i have an ATI rig and he has nVidia rig.

i have a 4850 he has 9800gtx

both perform pretty well. but he gets the win due to it being a nvidia game.

in SLI that game is really good. but not so much in crossfire because again, it is an nvidia game.

 

[pauldh]

Nothing against the Intel chipset / HD48x0 series others have mentioned. But, a MSI P7N SLI platinum for $130-150 and a second 8800GT $130-150 is hard to beat for the money. It will beat out almost any single GPU in most games, and even trades blows with or edges out the top $600 GTX280. The mobo and second GT would cost you half that or less if you count rebates.

Don't worry about 8x/8x SLI, as you can see with GTS 512MB SLI it performs the same as 16x/16x:
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/evga_nforce_750i_sli_ftw_review/page11.asp

Also, while Intel chipsets generally hit the higher FSB, these mobos are no slouches in overclocking. Here, the MSI P7N hit 3.9GHz with a Q6600, the best OC they have got out of that CPU:
http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews.php?/cpu_mainboard/msi_p7n_sli_platinum_750i_based_motherboard/5

An HD4850 on a P35 mobo is outstanding bang for buck also. if you didn't have the 8800GT already. And crossfire HD48x0's is a beast of a solution if you buy a compatible mobo.