better to go 8800gt sli or upgrade ram, cpu and mobo?

[poohbear]

Hey all, i just installed Vista 64 on the rig in my sig and while i must say its a stable and clean OS, some games stutter a little due to my only having 2gb ram. The biggest offender is CoH Opposing Fronts which also happens to be my fav. The stuttering occurs when i scroll the screen & its pretty significant. This never happened in XP 32bit but i understand a 64bit OS has a bigger memory footprint so 2gb isnt 2gb anymore. This is all in DX9 btw, DX10 is not even playable.

So, im debating getting another 8800gt for a cheap $100 and run em in SLI, or do a complete overhaul and spend $450 for a new, 4gb, C2D system.

Money's a bit tight what w/ X-mas here, so i'd MUCH prefer the 1st option. Will that get rid of the stuttering though? I understand load times won't change, need more system ram for that, but it should eliminate ingame stuttering as i've seen the 8800gt in SLI w/ very high FPS in COH.

Is that a correct assumption? Thanks in advance!

 

[nosfe]

look at the hdd led while playing, if its blinking while the game is stuttering then it means that you don't have enough ram. If it doesn't then it means that your problem is likely elsewhere.
Multiple graphics cards are imo only worthwhile at resolutions of minimum 1920. What resolution are you playing at?

 

[error8]

An 8800 GT should be enough for COH, since I played it on this card and VIsta and it worked like a charm. The problem is your lack of ram. Two gigabytes doesn't cut it for Vista, X64 or not, especially when COH adores lots of ram. You need at least 4 gb, to fully take advantage of Vista and games. SLI-ing your 8800 GT won't take away the stuttering. The cheapest thing to do, would be to get 2 gb of your DDR1, but that is a bit to difficult to find. That will buy you some time, until the complete overhaul.

 

[daveybrat]

Adding another 8800GT will do absolutely nothing for your stuttering. You need more ram. Try to pick up another 2gb of ram and throw it in there. No reason to upgrade your whole system when all you really need is some more ram.

OCZ Platinum 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

$67 for the kit and only $37 after rebate. This is your best option.

 

[poohbear]

thanks guys those are good points. I play @ 1680x1050 (22" widescreen), so not sure if the 8800gt sli would benefit alot at that resolution? i saw some great benchmarks of it @ that resolution, but it was on a C2D rig.:/

Yea i understand about the system ram, but 4x1gb sticks of DDR will probably mess up my overclock and take away dual channel correct? The DFI expert is an awesome mobo (the best s939 mob), so i'll do some research to see if it can handle 4x1gb ok.

Now, if the 8800gt sli adds another 20fps, then wouldnt that reduce the stuttering? Or is it not even an fps issue? sorry im a bit confused about that.

 

[daveybrat]

Originally posted by: poohbear
thanks guys those are good points. I play @ 1680x1050 (22" widescreen), so not sure if the 8800gt sli would benefit alot at that resolution? i saw some great benchmarks of it @ that resolution, but it was on a C2D rig.:/

Yea i understand about the system ram, but 4x1gb sticks of DDR will probably mess up my overclock and take away dual channel correct? The DFI expert is an awesome mobo (the best s939 mob), so i'll do some research to see if it can handle 4x1gb ok.

Now, if the 8800gt sli adds another 20fps, then wouldnt that reduce the stuttering? Or is it not even an fps issue? sorry im a bit confused about that.

No, it won't fix the stuttering issue because you already confirmed it using windows xp. You said you had no issues with XP because xp is not as ram hungry as Vista64 is.

The stuttering you are getting is from the operating system caching to the hard drive for virtual memory and will not be fixed by adding another video card. 4GB of ram should definitely be possible and you will not lose dual-channel.

It may affect your overclock however, so do some research first.

 

[poohbear]

thanks daveybrat. I've been googling for "dfi expert 4x1gb" but nothing's coming up. seems DIY street (old site for DFI owners) shutdown.

sorry to pester about the stuttering, but wouldnt an increase of 20fps due to SLI offset the stuttering? so, even if i had 280gtx in SLI it'd still stutter cause i have 2gb of system ram? Is it that much of a bottleneck?

 

[poohbear]

Originally posted by: daveybrat


OCZ Platinum 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

thanks alot for the link davybrat, i found some folks w/ similar setups stating i'll hafta loosen my timings to 3-3-3-11 to get it to run w/ 4 dimms. u rock.