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Worth Upgrading My SLI 8800GT's?

Forum Graphic & Displays : Nvidia - Worth Upgrading My SLI 8800GT's?

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Offender_mullet   11-11-2008 at 07:12:41 PM

I have 2 XFX 8800GT's running in SLI.

I called a few places. The Tiger Direct tech told me to get 2 9800 GTX+ cards. The BFG guy told me to get 2 GTX260 cards. The eVGA guy told me to get 1 GTX280 card. Obviously those are very different opinions.

I'll be honest, I've pretty much ignored the video card market after I got my 8800's, so I'm confused here. Are any of those recommendations worth the cost-to-performance upgrade?????

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blackwidow_rsa   11-11-2008 at 07:34:38 PM
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Well 2 8800gt perform about the same as a 9800gx2 and most of the time it beats the gtx280, so upgrading is a bit unnecessary unless you have a f* high resolution screen or want the best regardless of cost or benefit

Reply to blackwidow_rsa
alvine   11-11-2008 at 07:34:44 PM
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two 8800gt are better than 280gtx so why upgrade?

just save up and wait when next series of cards come out

Reply to alvine
dirtmountain   11-11-2008 at 07:35:05 PM
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The 8800GT works great in SLI, i'd see no reason to upgrade unless you're having problems. Spending $400+ to get an extra few FPS just doesn't make any sense. This article shows quite a few different benchmarks including the 8800GT in SLI, it is a bit dated at 4 months so it doesn't include the newest drivers, but frankly i'd tell the tiger direct and evga guys to go spit up a rope. Yes, the SLI GTX260s would be an improvement, but would it be worth it?
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341


Message edited by dirtmountain on 11-11-2008 at 07:35:43 PM
Reply to dirtmountain
blackwidow_rsa   11-11-2008 at 07:35:32 PM
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O and a 4870x2 blows all of those cards away. Nvidia isnt as good as they were

Message quoted 1 times
Reply to blackwidow_rsa
Offender_mullet   11-11-2008 at 08:46:55 PM
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Thanks for the input guys. Even after looking at the latest vga charts on here, you're right.....there isn't a logical reason to blow $400+ on new cards. I just had the "must buy the newest card" bug.

Reply to Offender_mullet
malveaux   11-11-2008 at 10:19:23 PM
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Heya,

Keep your SLI'd 8800gt's. There's zero reason to upgrade beyond them yet. Not even for the 4870x2. Your 8800gt's are still one of the best cards you can get, years later. And at their lower cost, it's absolutely silly to get something that costs more than doesn't even perform as well (no single geforce card what so ever outperforms two 8800gt's in SLI). And frankly, ATI has one card that outperforms them, the 4870x2. Big whoop. Save your $500.

Cheers,

Reply to malveaux
Stove   11-11-2008 at 10:43:26 PM
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blackwidow_rsa wrote :

O and a 4870x2 blows all of those cards away. Nvidia isnt as good as they were





Looks to me like the GTX 280's are beating the 4870's here.......

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 61-11.html

Reply to Stove
B-Unit   11-11-2008 at 11:11:39 PM
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Unless your going for 2xGTX280 your wasting your time and money. 8800GT in SLI is the best bang for your buck nVidia multi-GPU setup out there.

Also, the moron at TigerDirect really wanted to rape you. The 9800s are 8800s with a new sticker and (in limited cases) a die shrink. You MIGHT have gained 2-5 FPS with the SLI 9800GTX cards. Thats part of why I dont like TigerDirect, while theyve never shafted me, everytime I visit the site I get the feeling I should be getting ready to grab my ankles.

Message quoted 1 times
------------------------------ http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3073/2578392638_2827857d10_o.png
 Reply to B-Unit
dagger   11-11-2008 at 11:59:04 PM
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B-Unit wrote :

Unless your going for 2xGTX280 your wasting your time and money. 8800GT in SLI is the best bang for your buck nVidia multi-GPU setup out there.

Also, the moron at TigerDirect really wanted to rape you. The 9800s are 8800s with a new sticker and (in limited cases) a die shrink. You MIGHT have gained 2-5 FPS with the SLI 9800GTX cards. Thats part of why I dont like TigerDirect, while theyve never shafted me, everytime I visit the site I get the feeling I should be getting ready to grab my ankles.



There's always quad sli 9800gx2, at $275 each for the factory oced version:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814133231

Performance of stock quad 9800gx2s:
http://www.guru3d.com/vga/vga-cod4.png
http://www.guru3d.com/category/call_duty_4_pc/

Mind the power consumption... and the heat... and the noise. :whistle:

Reply to dagger
Offender_mullet   11-15-2008 at 10:52:06 PM
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After reading around the net more & looking at the vga charts on here, I'm glad I didn't blow $$$ on a GTX 280. It looks like Nvidia will be pumping out even more new cards in the next couple months anyway.

Instead, I bought a 24" Sceptre X24WG-NAGA lcd (which looks beautiful btw!), Sony Optiarc blu-ray rom drive and an Antec 850W power supply.....all for a little over $500.00. Now that I think is more of a "real" upgrade for the money, rather than a getting few more fps out of games. :D

Reply to Offender_mullet
emp   11-15-2008 at 11:36:12 PM
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Nice cherry picking dagger :P COD4 is one of the very few games that actually scale on Quad GPUs. Anyway, don't upgrade, just wait until next gen if you must get something new.

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by emp on 11-15-2008 at 11:39:23 PM
------------------------------ Anxiously awaiting the Hydra 100 and the Hydra Engine...
www.lucidlogix.com
 Reply to emp
dagger   11-16-2008 at 01:23:19 AM
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emp wrote :

Nice cherry picking dagger :P COD4 is one of the very few games that actually scale on Quad GPUs. Anyway, don't upgrade, just wait until next gen if you must get something new.



It's from the guru3d chart, which was linked. Only a handful of charts includes the rare quad setup, here are the others.
http://www.guru3d.com/vga/vga-graw2.png
http://www.guru3d.com/vga/vga-crysis.png
http://www.guru3d.com/vga/vga-fear.png
http://www.guru3d.com/vga/vga-stalker-dynamic.png
http://www.guru3d.com/vga/vga-3dmark06.png
http://www.guru3d.com/vga/vga-3dmark-vantage.png

Reply to dagger
emp   11-16-2008 at 03:42:05 AM
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Aw come on, you and I know both that Quad GPU setups are just not there yet, even Tri-SLI are beyond that point of diminishing returns. At this stage I would only recommend a dual card/GPU setup to someone looking for high end performance without breaking the bank (too much).

To make myself clear, 9800GX2 is very good value, 2x 9800GX2... not so much.

Message quoted 1 times
------------------------------ Anxiously awaiting the Hydra 100 and the Hydra Engine...
www.lucidlogix.com
 Reply to emp
dagger   11-16-2008 at 03:58:20 AM
- 0 +

emp wrote :

Aw come on, you and I know both that Quad GPU setups are just not there yet, even Tri-SLI are beyond that point of diminishing returns. At this stage I would only recommend a dual card/GPU setup to someone looking for high end performance without breaking the bank (too much).

To make myself clear, 9800GX2 is very good value, 2x 9800GX2... not so much.



It's still far better value than getting 2 gtx280s for $800+. Gtx280 is bad value no matter how many you use. :p

Reply to dagger
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