2 6600 gts vs 6800?

arnold873

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i`m looking a dual sli board am i better off getting 2 6600 gts or a single 6800
and am i better off waiting a while?
i heard nvidia is releasing a new card soon?
 

Spitfire_x86

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A sigle GeForce 6800GT is faster than 2 SLI'ed 6600GTs. Single 6800GT also costs less, and non-SLI mobos are much cheaper than SLI mobos.

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RX8

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LOL even a plain 6800 is better than 6600gt sli`s.

why?

not many games support sli, most games will be using one of your 6600gt, compare that to a 6800 which could be unlocked to a gt6800 core without OC.

plus non sli boards are cheaper.

one 6800 is better than 6600gt sli for the money and value of gaming.
 

BigMac

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I'm considering the following strategy: go with a 6800GT SLI, and when the price of the 6800GT comes down enough, add another one to my setup. According to some tests I've read, it would give me between 50% and 80% speed increase.

Can i top that off by not going with SLI, but buy another card in 1 tot 2 years, which will be as much faster than that?

The thing that is bothering me with SLI is that the NVidia driver will have to support it for every game I play, and I have no idea how extensive NVidia will support all the games worth playing out there.


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RX8

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well sli has been out for what 3 to 4 months, there driver support is still small.

in 1 to 2 years time there will be grf cards which will be double the power. and driver support of sli at this current rate will sorry to say still will be sh1t knowing how slow nvidia do some things.

i would go for a 6800gt sli if cheap and buy another =when or if they ever get cheaper which will never happen look at the 9800xt or 5900 ultra prices as age with depriciantion or just go for the power of a x800xl, and upgrade to a better card in 2 years time which i would think will be better for value/performance, sli yes good for 1 or 2 games but will be shitty in 2years time compared to new technology.
 

BigMac

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I hear ya. My reasoning is that in 2 years time, sure there's going to be new hot cards out but I will have to pay the big bucks again, while I can also get a 80% speed increase by buying another 6800GT, if depreciation has indeed done its job, but it looks like that has become a rather slow process indeed. Maybe also something to do with limited availability of newer cards (and limited stock of the old cards)?

The most worrying is indeed the driver support for SLI, but if NV wants SLI to become a success then they'll have to do proper support for lots of games, no? Will they really leave it dangling?


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RX8

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I totally understand the situation you two are saying man, i was thinking one time sli this is the good sh1t, but i have been bummed out by driver support for sli, this ticks me off, that why i will not be going the sli route.

also depriciation on high end gfx cards is unheard of with 6800 range, i bet in 2 years down the line there still be worth £130 from the £220 price tag at the moment in the uk.

also the power of 6600gt x2 in sli is equal to the power of one 6800gt approx in most sli available games, so in 2 years time you dont want the power of a 6800gt it still will be half decent.

But buying another cheap 6600gt to make your sli work in 2years will NOT give you much benefit when direct x 10 or 11 comes out for newer cards with shaders 4.0 enabled and may be they will have double or triple the power of todays 6800gt or even more in one card blah blah blah you guys get the point.

todays prices for new cards will be the prices of next years new generations, with the old top cards still at the same high prices like the 9800xt-gef5950ultra.

is sli worth it may be, may be not only if you have the money and play a small amount of sli enabled games.

go for a x800XL buy a single PCIE motherboard with all the extras and enjoy the power of sli 2 x 6600gt with just one card today, have braging rights, and save money on a sli board and save money on electricity bills, dont worry about heat issues, dont worry about drivers, play all games at highest fps. and you will be the KING.

But remember SLI is good if you have sh1t loads of money to burn on 2 6800gtsli`s, and can wait for driver.
 
most games do not support sli?
Only the major titles are seeing benifit from SLI right now, and even then the list is limited.

so should i even bother buying a sli MB?
Sure, the best reason to buy SLI right now is upgrading potential. If you get the single GF6800/GT right now, and then your upgrade later, likely/hopefully by the time you get that second card there will be far greater support/benifit with SLI.

Buy and SLI capable MoBo, but a single GOOD card for now. It's the safest way to guarantee you get the full GF6800+ performance now with or without widespread support, and it also opens the window for future benifit from adding the second card. Which may at that point be very cheap and make it a very good money choice.


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cleeve

Illustrious
Ditto.

If you can afford the 6800GT, then get the 6800GT. If you can afford SLI, get it, it certainly won't hurt.

But if you can't afford two 6800GT's, a single 6600GT and SLI board is a nice solution with future upgradability.

Buying two 6600GT's is kind of silly though, because a single 6800GT is cheaper and faster. So if you can afford both at the time of purchase, there's no reason not to choose the 6800GT. (unless you're considering an X800-based card also)

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cleeve

Illustrious
X800XL's are great but I'll recommend them when people can actually buy them at their suggested retail price...

6800GT's are great cards and available right now.

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RichPLS

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The X800XL's are going for msrp, and ATI has them 10% off.

BTW, I got my X800XT PE in July of 2004 for $469US which was $31 below MSRP...
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cleeve

Illustrious
Preorders maybe. but ATI has just cancelled the X850 preorders.

Like I said, when people have the card in their hands, I'll recommend heartily...

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pauldh

Illustrious
<i>"With issues on nForce4 starting to surface, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense right now to throw all of your eggs into the SLI basket. ...we don't recommend investing in an SLI setup until some of the more mature motherboards and chipsets hit the retail market."</i>

Believe it or not, that quote is from <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=2352&p=2" target="_new">Anandtech</A> from a couple days ago! Have any idea what NF4 issues would cause them to go against NV so blatently?

Some <A HREF="http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=29&threadid=1524103&enterthread=y" target="_new">talks in their forums, but little info really.</A> I wonder if Kinney goes by the name Trip17 over there? :eek:





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<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Pauldh on 02/21/05 07:56 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
Not sure what THEY found, I found some unsubstantiated stuff about their NCQ at AMDZone or somehwere like that a while back. I sent it to Eden as a Heads'-up. Didn't see anyone else mentioning it so I thought, ahh must be an anomaly. I wouldn't be surprised if that were one of the issues, but who knows, with these things there could be any number of them, just look at how the RS480 got stalled because of it's USB2.0 issues, now they're 're-launching' the RS482 (without calling it that too widely [relying on the X200 side of things]) with the fix. It'd suck to have that many boards out there with deep issues. Considering to them it's big enough to 'reconsider buying the nF4', it does make me wonder, what is it?

Kinney's definitely not Trip, kinney's got the Dell LCD and IIRC he hates Creative SoundBlasters (or maybe it was just mine versus soundstorm solution?).

Also notice that the venerable SLI owners, like <i>ohnnyj</i> , also think: <i>"I agree. Two 6600GTs = Single 6800GT + More Heat + More Noise. "</i>

And he's talking as a "Proud to be an SLI beta tester."

Interesting that when deadseasquirrel re-runs his test with the OC'd CPU he didn't bother to run it with the OC'd CPU with and without profile, so the 0%s before seem to benifit more from CPU OCs like I mentioned before.

In any case, I'm not sure what the problems are that Anand is experiencing, but it does make you wonder, the NCQ stuff already had me pause, but really it's a question of minor hiccup or BIG hiccup (like an ALI hiccup), that's what I want to know.


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pauldh

Illustrious
Yeah, just surprised to see AT caution on NF4 and SLi like that. makes me wonder too.

I was joking about Game=trip, as trip didn't seem nearly as thrilled about his 2-6800GT's in SLI. And we were blamed here at THGC for being SLI haters?


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<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Pauldh on 02/21/05 09:02 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
Well exactly, that was my point about the heat and sound. I'm not the only one concerned, even the SLI-337 denizens of AT have similar thoughts. And none seem like kinney/game, but then again maybe he's more restrained there when not feeling put-upon by the hordes of 'fanATIcs'. :evil:

Sure I'm overly sensitive, just ask Eden or Phial about my power consumption concerns about the R9700/9800 vs R9600 while having an Enermax 365. I likes what I likes, and while I'm waiting a bit of a while to move to the next gen, it's still better than Eden and Phial. :lol:

Anywhoo, I was surprised when you mentioned that nF4 item to kinney, and this thread doesn't seem to offer any light on their stance though. And considering that parts are finally arriving at local retailers here, and e-tailers I frequent, I'm getting near finalization time for me. Heck I was thinking it might make sense to start piecing it together and even working off the AIW PCI until the card came in, and maybe sticking with just a single stick of 512 until the memory I want appears. This just offers another freakin' pause. Hope they get more answers soon, but now I'll have to start looking for answers on my own too (hate doing extra credit work for nothing! :mad: ).


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pauldh

Illustrious
Well, I appreciate the work you do. Why do you think I linked this to you. Get to work :tongue:



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LOL!

Ok, until I find the answer, look at this tempting morsel (went from in stock to shipping 2-4 weeks to backordered today):

<A HREF="http://www.compusabusiness.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=50881768&pfp=BROWSE" target="_new">http://www.compusabusiness.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=50881768&pfp=BROWSE</A>


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arnold873

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very good points
thank you

i`m just wondering why video cards are geting so crazy expensive
several years ago the voodoo`s and riva tnt`s
were top of the line and only like 100-180$
 

arnold873

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in the same line then do you think they will offer MB`s with multiple`s of 2 video card`s in the future
like 4, 6, 8 video cards?
i`m just wondering if i should even buy i new computer right now
i think the tech is going to go ape poop any second
with the advent of the new intel chips, the next gen consoles coming out soon

hear me now, believe me later, trust me in between
 
I don't expect multiples for some time. Right now the lanes limit the MoBos, and the power draw would be quite large for 4 cards.

While it may be possible (ALX has hinted at it for a while), it's not really going to go mainstream until they get the last kinks out of the 2 cards setups. Technically you could already do this with a tumwater board if it were to have 4 4X PCIe slots, but really there's not enough momentum yet.

Should you consider this in your purchase? IMO, NO!

It'll be at least 6-12 months before they start doing this let alone perfect it, and whatever solution they use it will likely use current CPUs, Memory, HDs, etc, so buy now, and then when it happens spend the $200 and buy that next gen MoBo, but for now don't worry about it. If you can afford 4x X800XLs even, then you can afford the MoBo upgrade then.

Intel getting dual core is interesting, but AMD's dual core will support 939 and 940 sockets so you're still safe with that route, going with an Intel solution now would leave the only questions, so if you MUST go Intel maybe you should wait.

Next big step for AMD requiring a rethink IMO, will be DDR2 and that's not until 2006, and really not as big a deal.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK :evil: