8800GT Sli vs 285GTX

You would actually probably see a performance drop. In short, no, dont do it.

^+1 I'm waiting to see what the second gen GT300 runs like.

What? A performance drop? Are you kidding me? 8800GT in SLI is comparable to the GTX 260 AT BEST. The 285 GTX will fry the 8800GT SLI. Is it worth it? That's a separate question, and I think the OP should wait until the next-generation Directx 11 <40nm cards come out in the near future, but saying that he'll have a performance loss? I call bullshit.

Edit: Unless we're talking about something silly like 1280 * 1024 res with no AA or something. Even then, the 285 will not suffer from a PERFORMANCE LOSS but just an insignificant performance boost.

Could you please provide some evidence for your claims?

Umm, OK...

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3334&p=11 for starters.

Granted, the 285 isnt on there, but it handly thrashes the 280. Looking at 280 vs 285, Id say the 285 might edge out the 8800GT SLi, but not by enuf to justify buying one.

It's called google, have a look and see what others are saying.

Nah, I'm runnin 1920x1080 on a 46" Sony Bravia, probably would run 4x AA to avoid bottlenecking.

I too would be curious to have supporting evidence as to where I would find a "performance drop" by running a single GPU.

Also if you all can suggests anything such as an alternative like buying 2x 260GTX's and run them in SLI?

Thanks again for the comments!

- Jon

Umm, what games are you not feeling the love in?

Ive got SLi 8800GT in my E8400 rig and it eats everything I throw at it alive @1920x1080.

Oh theres no games I'm not feelin the love in, its just I'm gunna build a second rig using the old parts from the first rig....So I'm just making sure that if I upgrade my box...I'm not actually 'downgrading'.

Screw you. You think I'm making unsubstantiated claim? Really, how dare you.

Of course I googled. Of course I did research. I really don't deserve that sort of snide comment.

But, as with everything, I wasn't 100% confident in the findings of my "research."

http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/458836-8800gt-sli-vs-gt...

And then there were mixed opinions over the other GTX series cards (did 275 beat... does 260 perform similarly... how does the 280 ...) but the thing that made me challenge B-unit was the fact that we're talking about a GTX 285 here, not some other lofty card.

Hmm, no offense but I trust Anand alot further than a bunch of random people on a forum.

new technology buy it

Admittedly. I even said I wasn't confident in that particular source, except that the 285 should not be losing out against the 8800 GT SLI.

My main point is though saying that there will be a performance loss with a GTX 285 just can't be true, and even Anandtech has not done the comparison between 8800 GT SLI and GTX 285. Is the performance boost worth it? Probably not. As I said before:

"Is it worth it? That's a separate question, and I think the OP should wait until the next-generation Directx 11 <40nm cards come out in the near future, but saying that he'll have a performance loss? I call bullshit."

and after thinking about the cards I even added this caveat:

"Edit: Unless we're talking about something silly like 1280 * 1024 res with no AA or something. Even then, the 285 will not suffer from a PERFORMANCE LOSS but just an insignificant performance boost."

Now here's the million dollar question: the OP states 1920 * 1080 with 4x AA. Do you still think the 8800 GT SLI will fare so well? A performance loss by the GTX 285?

If you have the 256MB 8800GTs (yeah people bought those) then you would see a pretty big increase moving up to a 285. On the other hand since I'm assuming you have the 512Mb version, so you could actually see a drop in your average frame rate moving towards a single 285. Of course some newer games make use of more than 512MB of RAM and that is where a 285 could develop a significant advantage over two 8800GTs in SLI, but I don't think the gap would be large enough to justify the expense of a 285 at all even if it was on sale. The only reason I see for you to switch to a 285 is if you are experiencing the micro stutter issue. If you don't know what that is then your obviously not  .

I say just wait for a DX11 card.

I'll leave with this... +1 megamanx00

Yay.

OK admittedly I was thinking GTX280 when I said he'd see a loss.

And yea, Anand ran the tests at 1920x1200, so I have no doubts the SLi setup will hang tough.

EDIT: Yes, Megaman did a vastly superior job of saying what I was thinking.

So to suggest that you gather a range of views rather than expect one person to provide all the answers is making a snide comment? you have some issues to work out IMO.  

I'm using 9600GT SLI and it runs like a GTX260
with E7200@3.4GHz 3dmark06 = 16k (default settings)
with i7 920@3.7GHz 3dmark06 = 21k
i know it doesn't really reflects real world performance but at least there's something
if the game runs good on SLI then it would be more or less the same with GTX260 unless the game is not optimized for SLI or dual graphic cards
i got my pair 9600GT at last year's July with sets me back with around USD195 which is a good deal i think while the GTX260 cost around 299 back then

You misunderstood the purpose behind my questioning of his sources. I wasn't expecting him to find all the sources, I was asking from what source he drew his conclusion from, simply because I drew a different conclusion from (presumably) different evidence. In this case, I was all of a sudden made out not as a person who was trying to ascertain how a person came to a different conclusion, but rather as a lazy and dangerously ignorant person who couldn't even use google properly.

You still think I'm being unfair in saying that you were making a snide comment?

Edit: I'm not here to make enemies mousemonkey. I apologize for my unreasonable reaction and statements before, but I don't want to believe that it was completely unprovoked.

Yes.

Sorry for missing out my point..
I'm now waiting for the GT300 series and see how it performs..seriously if u upgrade to GTX285 i don't think u will see a major increase for most titles..at 1920x1080 since my setup can run 1600x1200 (1.92MP) in most titles like the last remnant, devil may cry 4, GRID maxed out with 4xAA
1920x1080(2.07MP) should run fine with ur setup then

Please read edit.

Small gain (decent gain on min fps) but i would wait till next gen cards, like how some suggested.

No hard feelings here mate.

Awesome.

Edit: And man, sorry about derailing your topic, Jononomous. In conclusion, the 285 isn't a downgrade, but it really won't be an upgrade either (maybe a little bit at higher resolutions and higher settings), unless you want to SLI it later. It's hard to upgrade from that 8800 GT SLI simply because if you upgrade, you essentially throw away the money you spent on the 8800 GT's and so the cost of the new card is essentially the amount you paid for the IMPROVEMENT from your old build.

So with everything else, wait till the margin between old and new cards become slightly larger, or when the technical aspects of everything change (DX11! 40nm!!)

Ahh, sry missed the 'new rig' part. In that case, no a GTX285 wont be a 'downgrade' but dont expect it to be superior either (except in games that dont play nice with SLi, in those games you will see a huge gain.)