Time to upgrade the ole 8800GT SLI cards?

Ninefingers

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System Specs:

Motherboard - XFX nForce 680i SLI - LGA775 Socket

Videocards - XFX GeForce 8800GT 512MB SLI

CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor

Memory - 4gb DDR2

PSU - OCZ-XS 700w


Here's the story. I have $700 burning a hole in my pocket. I saved up for the ATI HD5970 and now can purchase it.

A friend of mine told me I should spend the cash on a new Mobo/Memory/CPU combo instead. ($700)

I can't do both. =(

Which is the better choice? Is there an option C?

Ninefingers
 

D3LTA09

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For straight gaming bang for buck is nearly always on a new gpu. at the same time I do love my i7 so maybe an option c is get your new gpu now and then upgrade the rest at a later date?
 
Depends on the games you want to play. For the most part though, a more powerful GPU setup is going to be bottle necked by your CPU at it's stock speed. You may want to consider overclocking it, though 680i boards aren't exactly the best overclockers generally. If you like to play at a really high resolution, at least 1080p, and find that your current cards are choking a bit without lowering some graphic details, then I would say you may want to go ahead and get that 5970.

Option C would be to get a powerful single GPU card, like a 5870 or GTX480, a quad core CPU for your motherboard, a big air cooler or water cooler, and overclock the crap out of the CPU. Of course, if you're motherboard isn't a good overclocker then that's not really a good option :p.

 

Ninefingers

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Thanks!

I'm not an OCer really so I may just go for the card and rebuild the other parts when I have the cash. The 680i mobo has done me well, but I am not sure it makes sense (unless I do get the Q6600/Q6700 - but then that would be it I would think.)

I'll try to find a good deal on a 5970... if that is even possible at this point in time. 5870 will be my fall back.

Two last questions...

1) If I get a 5970 now... can I crossfire it with a 5870 in the future or do all XF systems have to have the same card models?

2) Say I get the 5970 and upgrade the mobo/cpu/mem at a later date. Will crossfiring 5970's really be a waste of money with the current gen games? Do games even recognize 4 GPUs?

Thanks all (4745454b)
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
You can tri fire if you want, not on that 680i board of course. You need a CF capable board.

The second question is harder to answer. Some games respond well to CF while others don't. The most famous game I can think of that didn't was GTA4, which did worse on the x2 cards then the single GPU cards. Hans is right though. You shouldn't need quad fire for 1080. A single 5970 should be fine.
 

Ninefingers

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Again, thanks so much. I'm getting closer to dropping the cash on the card. Still trying to justify spending $700 on a videocard, but I'll figure something out.

Gracias,

Ninefingers
 

mooman

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you still dont have to buy a 5970, you could just get a 5870 now then crpssfore it later when prices drop, and you need the performance, that way its not such a big initail investment, and you can use the rest of the money upgrading the other parts, id reccomend just getting an am3 crossfire board with a phenom 2, because they will be using that board for a while, and you have the option to upgrade when you need to, their boards also support ddr2 which you can use untill the latencies on ddr3 goes down, and there is a real performance differece in gaming, instead of the synthetic benchmarks that they use.
 

Ninefingers

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Thanks guys.

I made the huge investment of 5970. Overkill for my current system, but I found out that I would be coming into a bit of extra work in the coming month that will put me in line to get the other parts for my system.

I found the ASUS card for $609 (free shipping) and pulled the trigger. The lowest price for a 5970 prior to yesterday was $678 (with shipping). Once I found it for the 609 mark, I couldn't pass it up.

Since I will be getting the newer system parts soon-ish I felt pretty good about the decision. I almost paid $678 this weekend. Thank God I waited.

Again, thanks guys. It is great to find a place to ask questions! Now I have to make sure I install it correctly. These the right steps?

1a) Download ATI drivers and place them on desktop
1b) Uninstall NVIDIA drivers and shutdown PC.
2) Pull both 8800GTs and install 5970 into first PCIe slot. Make sure all power plugs are installed.
3) Boot that baby up and see if it will post. Once it starts, run the ATI drivers.
4) Fire up BFBC2 and weep at phat framerates!

Sound right?
 

weehamish

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The 5970 is way too bottlenecked on your setup why bother wasting your money? Even a 5850 is bottlenecked on that!

For $700 you may aswell save till $1000 and buy a new CPU, card and mobo in a package deal
 

sabot00

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He's got a E8500, it's not going to be that bottlenecked.
He said he'll upgrade the rest of his system too, and yes it is possible to use one of the 8800GT's as a dedicated PhysX card, if your running Win7 then just download the nvidia drivers too, if your using Vista use hacked nvidia drivers.
 

Ninefingers

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Next month I'll have enough for a new MOBO, Intel i7 930 CPU and 6gb DDR3 memory. :D (crosses fingers!)

I just pulled the trigger on the card because it was the simplest to install and use until I could get the rest of the parts in.

Rash purchase? Probably.
 

Ninefingers

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True sabot00. I have Win 7 so I'll probably keep one for PhysX and give one to my wife. Unless I could get enough on ebay for them, but I doubt it would be worth the hassle.
 

Ninefingers

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Any help is appreciated. Thanks weehamish.
 

Ninefingers

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Any suggestions on the type of cooling fan I would need to O/C the E8500. I have enough case room to put something fairly big.


I read the E8400 were pretty O/C-able. Never O/Ced but no time like the present eh?
 

4745454b

Titan
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if your using Vista use hacked nvidia drivers.

Actually, because he has the 5970 in his system he'll have to use the hacked drivers. Nvidia's official drivers won't work as soon as they see the 5970. Look around, I'd get the 217.xx(?) from a site. They are the most recent.

I'm with some on the 8400 causing a bottleneck. It wont' be with all games, and most FPS should be fine. But good luck getting GTA4, Metro2033, and probably most RTS games at 1080.