The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
8800 GT SLI (worth it?)
Organichu
poopspeesRegistered User regular
poopspeesRegistered User regular
I was going to write up a huge introduction, but figured I'd just cut to the chase. I'm going to have a SLI-capable board, and I'm going to have a PSU capable of SLI.
Considering that I'm going to be rocking a 24" LCD (native resolution of 1920x1200), and I'm hoping to stay 'pretty good' with gaming, like I hope to play Crysis at 1920x1200 on at least medium-high settings... what would be my best option? I'm considering starting out with a single 8800 GT, and depending upon whether it satisfies my needs, or just when the future moves along, grabbing a second. However, if there's another card right now that's in a similar price range ($3-4 hundred) that 'clearly' outclasses a set of 8800 GT's at 1920x1200, I'd consider it.
Thanks.
Considering that I'm going to be rocking a 24" LCD (native resolution of 1920x1200), and I'm hoping to stay 'pretty good' with gaming, like I hope to play Crysis at 1920x1200 on at least medium-high settings... what would be my best option? I'm considering starting out with a single 8800 GT, and depending upon whether it satisfies my needs, or just when the future moves along, grabbing a second. However, if there's another card right now that's in a similar price range ($3-4 hundred) that 'clearly' outclasses a set of 8800 GT's at 1920x1200, I'd consider it.
Thanks.
Organichu on
0
Posts
So, if I'd like to play Crysis on high (very high is preferable but I'm definitely not willing to drop several thousand) I should definitely look to wait for the new line?
I also thought it was pretty well known that SLI doesn't help as much as people expect it to?
If you end up deciding on a single video card, I'd advise you to not bother with an SLI motherboard. In a few months time, nVidia's new lineup (the GTX 280 and 260) will be replaced by cards that perform the same but run cooler. The 280 and 260 will be hard to find and expensive to the point that SLI just won't be worth it. The nForce chipset is just plain less stable than the competition, so unless you're getting two GPUs right off the bat (or HybridPower is a really compelling feature to you) you should avoid nVidia-based motherboards.
Any idea of the price point for those new cards? Also, good to know that SLI isn't a necessary component of a high end gaming experience. I'll just stick with an Intel board, then.
Edit: A bit of a rumour round up can be found here.
Thanks. I link-sniffed from the page you linked and people are making it sound magnificent, but being a complete noob I think I'd like to actually see some real game benchmarks. I guess I'll be waiting a little while.
Also for Organichu, I'd go with a single 8800gt if anything for now SLI doesn't gie you twice the performance more like 80% and thats on a game that is properly coded to handle both cards. Ther eare many games that aren't like EA games for some reason. So yeah I use SLI but that is only because of the sick deal I got from a friend on some 8800 ultra's :P
Evga B-stock. 8800gtx-768mb memory. 279.99 + shipping
http://www.evga.com/products/bstock.asp
No cables or manuals come with it but thats what I can suggest. I've honestly been tempted by this very offer. I also hope you have a decent CPU and at least 2gb of memory. Hmm, This might not be sufficient for your needs. I don't think it will outdo a 8800gt SLi. It will run a bit slower but won't have any SLi issues.
Do you plan on over clocking like a mad man?
If the answer is no, then 1066 RAM is pretty much a waste of money.
I don't plan on over clocking at all. I wasn't aware of this waste. Since the motherboard says the "recommended" RAM is 800 anyway, I can just go with that if that's the case.
Yeah do that, get some 800mhz ram and save some cash.
Now I just await the video card which should push it to somewhere in the $900-1,100, depending on what I go with. Not a 'bleeding edge, everything on super max at 100 FPS' dream computer... but for me not having had a gaming computer in my life, it's definitely not what I'd consider a budget build. Should something like this keep me 'playable' (>30 FPS) on most games for the next couple of years? Also I guess if necessary I could turn down the resolution on my monitor to game at a smoother framerate. The main reason I'm going for a 24" monitor instead of something smaller is because I'll be using it to watch movies, too. I don't 'need' to game at 1920x1200.
edit: not trying to derail this into another computer build thread or anything. Just mentioning that stuff to complement knowledge of my build w.r.t. to which GPU I'll select.
In case you are still interested.
Crysis won't give you >30 fps at the res with that build. At least I don't think, so it's hard to say lol. Actually you should be ok I take it back.
I would get a quality PSU however, see the PSU's that come with cases are usually shitty. They say there 550 watts but that may be max output and it can't sustain that for very long. You don't want to skimp on that component when your getting high end parts like that. I suggest the Antec Quattro 850...I use the 1000 watt version and it kicks ass, also for case Antec 900...I like antec, they've been good to me lol.
If thats a bit to pricey, jsut say and I'll see if I can find something else to fit your needs
I always wondered with what happened with Bill Nye...
I get a blinking _ when I enable SLI. And then it makes my drivers just vanish. So awesome. I'm gonna go back to XP this evening and get SLI working on a real OS.
Fuck you Bill Gates.
"Was cursing, in broken english at his team, and at our team. made fun of dead family members and mentioned he had sex with a dog."
"Hope he dies tbh but a ban would do."
akbar.jpg
Seriously if you saw what that damned vista did to my sound card last night....
But that's ok, I'm sure people are starting a club on "Oh, I broke something on Vista, but rather than finding a solution I'll go back to XP, which really isn't superior nowadays, but I like being on a bandwagon." It just doesn't look like you tried very hard to solve your problem when this sounds entirely like a driver issue. Vista itself has never, in my experience, randomly deleted drivers.
Nice job being a douchebag. Check out the nvidia forums if you want. It's a very common problem with the 8 series cards.
Good for you that vista hasn't raped your drivers. /golf clap
Vista will literally wipe out the device drivers while trying to enable sli.
Which goes back to the point I was making. It is a very common problem with the 8 series cards? Again, sounds more like an nVidia problem. I'm sorry that your system had issues, but you're just pointing at Vista as the root of all problems, when this isn't necessarily the case. Vista plays very nicely with my drivers, but then again I don't use SLI. I do know someone who runs Vista and is running SLI on 8 series cards, and he never had an issue with vanishing drivers. That's my experience.
So you are trying to tell me that they wrote a driver that deletes itself upon activating the whole reason for its existence?
And the same thing with the other companies I named previously? Because I find it hilarious that such big name companies MUST have such incompetent programmers working for them that they can't seem to handle the OBVIOUSLY SUPERIOR OS, that is VISTA. Those bastards...
Let us bow our heads and pray to Billy that we haven't angered him...
On the flipside, you're telling me that Vista programmers were like "Heh, wouldn't it be funny that if someone tried to install SLI on their machine we would just delete all their drivers? Lets do it!"
What I'm saying is that Vista isn't nearly as bad or buggy or whatever as everyone sits around and claims. A lot of issues ARE faulty drivers, which is a possibility that you're ignoring. nVidia probably doesn't test their drivers on every single configuration around. It is most likely that your system (including vista and whatever other drivers you have) and the nVidia SLI drivers you were working with didn't want to play together. This happens. It isn't like XP is some magical OS that never has issues either. And I'm not saying Vista is perfect, because it isn't.
Welcome to the computer world, where not everything works perfectly with everything else.
However, drawing 1680x1050 on a 24" screen won't show a large difference.
o_O ... Fail....
Same resolution = same performance as long as refresh rate is the same no matter the size of screen... Sorry buddy.
Also, I really don't like the idea of having two super powered cards running with maybe an inch inbetween them.