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Best bang for buck? -- SLI my 7600GS or new chip

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DuckVader

Junior Member
I'm running an Acer Athlon 3500+ AM2 with 2GB RAM and a 256MB GEForce 7600GS. Can't afford a new system but would like to push my graphics capabilities up (and I'm an upgrader; I buy new systems every 5 years only). I'd like to play some of the newer games (WIC, Supreme Commander, CoH, Orange Box and dare I say it, Crysis) at good framerates and better than what my system can do now.

What is the better option?

a) Buy another 7600GS and SLI them - $75

b) Buy an Athlon AM2 4800+ - $100

At some point I'll probably do the other as well, but which should go first?

I've got a spare PSU lying around, so I hope if need be I can swap it in in case the 2 7600GS's suck more power than my Acer PSU can handle.
 
Welcome to AT.

New video card first - x1950 Pro perhaps? Forget about SLI - it's not worth it unless you already have a top-end card. Spend a larger part of your cash on the video card compared to a new processor.

Follow up with a dual-core X2 as soon as you can. Of the games you listed, Orange Box is the only one you'll likely get away with decent performance using a single core.
 
don't worry about the 7600 on sli, a 7800 is generally faster than both of them combined and more efficient, more importantly.

FS/TR forum will get you something good for under a 150, in which case you can dump the 7600 card to get some money back.

gg
 
Not to thread jack, but can someone point me to a nice encompassing guide/article/whatever that explains where one would see the benefits of SLI, why one would want to SLI, what are the disadvantages of SLI, can SLI save my puppy from lymphoma?
 
For SLI propaganda, go to Nvidia.com. Otherwise, look at various reviews and benchmarks. Yes, SLI gives a real and measurable performance increase. No that performance increase is not 2x the single card, but more like 10-30% more performance, depending on the game. Thus, you may as well buy the faster single card instead of doing SLI... except for if you already have the fastest single card and there is nothing faster.
 
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