[Thunderer]

Hi, I was just wondering whether is it worthed buying an 8800GTX or 2*8800GT and put them in SLi mode. I mean would the SLi ones be by far better than the GTX alone and what would be the benefits of have SLi?? Also, by the end of Jan beginning of Feb, would there be the newest SLi motherboards and the 9Series??

[Spencer2004]

it isnt that hard to google the question you know, but 2 GT cards in sli is slightyly faster than a gtx by about 10%-30%. i think i would be better to get a GTX and then save up for another GTX and put them in sli which means it will be future proof.

hope that helps

[Krlll]

SLi is a waste of time unless you are playing games at crazy high resolutions.
Also the 8800GTX whilst being a great card is now looking seriously overpriced since the GT came along.
As for release dates of new hardware,who knows.

[mrdaveyk]

aye there arent many games that can optimize the use of two cards or so ive read, nearly all threads like this its end up being recommended that you just buy one good card rather than two

[Spencer2004]

most games benifit from sli actually but you have to configure it in the nvidia control pannel first.

[serverguy]

I would go with just a GT and then get another one at a later date if necessary. They are exceptional cards and will run all of todays games at high resolutions.

[cheesepuff]

Originally Posted by Krlll SLi is a waste of time unless you are playing games at crazy high resolutions. Also the 8800GTX whilst being a great card is now looking seriously overpriced since the GT came along. As for release dates of new hardware,who knows.

Why would it make it better at high res? when in SLI you only use 1 cards memory. it dont combine both up sadly... but i read that in SLI for 8800GT's can increase the strength by as much as 60% more than just a single GT by alone. and with newer and more demanding games like Crysis, it might not be such a bad idea.

[alex]

You're all forgetting one thing: The resolution of the monitor.

Lets say you have a 19" screen, a single 8800GT is massive overkill for the 1280x1024 or 1440x900 a monitor of this size display's. So you'll see extremely high frame rates using a single card.

Adding a second card (should it be a SLI encoded game) will make near as dammit no difference to your eyes because you'll already have the ability to use high aa and af and all details settings turned to full. And you'll also have superb frames rates.

So lets say you have this single card setup and are seeing a 100 frames per second, and you then add a second card and get 150 frames per second. Frankly, so what? The extra fps are going to make no difference to your eye, it's not going to improve the look of the game as you've already got all details sliders to full anyway.

Taking this to a 20-22" screen (1680x1050):

Same story really, but future proofing comes into it. As games get more and more dependent on the gpu (and physics affects become more mainstream-Don't get an Aegia, its got support for around 3 games...wow) games are going to need that much more oomph from the card. But none of us can fortell the future so you have to make a best guess.

A 320mb GTS games happily at this resolution (get an oc'd version and you can see decent frame rates at 1920x1200) A 640mb GTS games happily at this resolution. A 8800GT games happily at this resolution and, obviously, a 8800GTX games happily at this resolution but is also overkill for it.

So how do you choose for this resolution? Frankly, by your budget. There's so many pre-oc'd cards on the market nowadays that the lines are blurred for a card buyer. You can get a high oc'd 320mb GTS that is only a few quid short of the price of a vanilla 640mb GTS. You can list (try it) 10 320mb GTS's all within 100mhz on the gpu and 100mhz on the ram and you'll see each one is a slightly higher price than the last, slightly slower, one you looked at. These incremental overclocks over and above the last one generally make no difference to frame rates. It's only when you compare a vanilla version to an oc'd version that you see any definitive increase in performance on your display.

Then you've got 24-27" screens (without getting silly) that display 1920x1200 pixels. You need a high end card for this kind of resolution and once again, especially when you're spending the kind of wedge you need to spend to game well at this resolution, future proofing comes into it.

As it stands, if I was going single card at this res, and didn't really care about the price of the card I'd be looking at a 8800GTX or Ultra. But as I refuse to spend that kind of money (I could get a PS3 instead) on a graphics card. But I'm not so much a gamer anymore....

If I was looking for bang for buck I'd be looking at a 8800GT (which I've ordered), but as I'm not a massive gamer anymore and only play older titles (LOMAC etc) I don't have to worry so much about keeping up with new releases.

For those of you that do, and are buying a gpu now, it has to be the GTX or Ultra. For performance and for future proofing. Getting 2 8800GT's won't make any difference to your gaming experience over and above a GTX at this resolution unless you're playing SLI encoded games, and even then you generally only see around a 30% increase in performance, so does that make the cost of a second card worth it? The need for a more powerful psu worth it? (with the added cost), the need for a SLI motherboard worth it? (with, generally, the added cost). It doesn't in my book. Also, at this resolution, a single GTX will give you around the same performance against 2 8800GT's anyway in a dual-card encoded game.

And don't forget, comparatively speaking, there are very few dual-card games on the market.

[cheesepuff]

true alex, but you forget. when playing Crysis people often have to play it a low res even when using a big monitor such as me with my 22 inch. when is comes to super hi end games, its no longer a matter of res processing power, its much more so graphics processing power. kinda get what i mean? :D

[alex]

Originally Posted by cheesepuff true alex, but you forget. when playing Crysis people often have to play it a low res even when using a big monitor such as me with my 22 inch. when is comes to super hi end games, its no longer a matter of res processing power, its much more so graphics processing power. kinda get what i mean? :D

Err, no.

Graphics power dictates how many pixels you can power, and how quickly, and at what detail.

Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying?

[cheesepuff]

i mean when hi end gaming, people often dont play at there native resolution. instead of doing that people prefer to lower the res a bit and playing the other settings higher. so in the end, playing at hi res in games like Crysis while playing at all hi settings, just makes it lag, so naturally, most lower the res to a point where all the extra V ram isnt really needed. thus a GTX or 640MB GTS isnt truly needed for this cuz the V ram wont be all used. plus, i was also told 512MB of V ram was only beneficial when gaming at resolutions 1600x1200 or more. so if that's true, a bit higher res may not be too much of a difference.

[Spencer2004]

Originally Posted by cheesepuff Why would it make it better at high res? when in SLI you only use 1 cards memory. it dont combine both up sadly... but i read that in SLI for 8800GT's can increase the strength by as much as 60% more than just a single GT by alone. and with newer and more demanding games like Crysis, it might not be such a bad idea.

renember 60% is the highest outcome, the actual figure is 10-60% and its usually at the lower end of that in sli.

[cheesepuff]

true.