Buy another 8800GTS 512 and SLI them?

[tamaron]

The 8800GTS 512 is at 100? now. So it's a good idea to buy another one for my system and put them in SLI or is better to buy one GTX260-216? I play across three monitors with TH2Go at 5040x1050.
thx

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: tamaron
The 8800GTS 512 is at 100? now. So it's a good idea to buy another one for my system and put them in SLI or is better to buy one GTX260-216? I play across three monitors with TH2Go at 5040x1050.
thx

A GTX260-216 should be roughly equivalent to a GTS SLi rig and not have any of the downsides of multi GPU, so that is your clear path in this equation.

EDIT: My answer is in general, I have no familiarity with the idiosyncrasies of three monitors and TH2Go.

 

[tamaron]

Ok, thanks. But it's more expensive, so cost/performance ratio is favorable to SLI here... ALthough you are right about power consumption, heat, microstuttering...

 

[BDawg]

Don't forget that there are plenty of games that don't scale well with multiple GPUs. It really depends on what games you're playing specifically.

 

[Keysplayr]

So basically, each card has to handle 1680 by 1050 correct? 5040/3 = 1680.
I am also not familiar with triple screen ups and downs.

EDIT: That is a shedload of pixels that the cards have to push. How was your single 8800GTS handling it? And what games?

Oh, you'll also need a Dual-Link DVI connection according to Matrox to achieve 5040x1050.

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: tamaron
The 8800GTS 512 is at 100? now. So it's a good idea to buy another one for my system and put them in SLI or is better to buy one GTX260-216? I play across three monitors with TH2Go at 5040x1050.
thx

A GTX260-216 should be roughly equivalent to a GTS SLi rig and not have any of the downsides of multi GPU, so that is your clear path in this equation.

EDIT: My answer is in general, I have no familiarity with the idiosyncrasies of three monitors and TH2Go.

Ok, I'm going to call bullshit on this one. Check the benches: high resolution single versus multiGPU setups in various games (page 1, page 2). You will find that SLI 8800GT and SLI 9800GTX beat out the GTX 280 in nearly every case. SLI 8800GTS will fall directly between these setups (basically an 8800GTS is a lower clocked 9800GTX with lower power consumption) so if it will beat a GTX 280 I don't think it will exactly have problems with the GTX 260-216.

EDIT: So if you've already got an SLI motherboard, go for it!
EDIT2: Holy crap, that's a LOT of pixels you're pushing. Nearly 30% higher than the 2560x1600 used for those benchmarks.

 

[IcePickFreak]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
EDIT: That is a shedload of pixels that the cards have to push. How was your single 8800GTS handling it? And what games?

Originally posted by: Denithor
EDIT2: Holy crap, that's a LOT of pixels you're pushing. Nearly 30% higher than the 2560x1600 used for those benchmarks.

What's the matter? The CIA got you pushing too many pixels?

The voices, they never stop.

 

[tamaron]

Thanks for ur responses. I play IL2, LOMAC, HL2, CIV4 and Black Shark soon.
I'm not using AA, I prefer fps over antialiasing IMHO. Honestly I don't see the point of purchasing a GTX260 judging the benches that I have seen at the moment, and another 8800GTS512 is at 100?=130$...

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: tamaron
and another 8800GTS512 is at 100?=130$...

Best value right now, considering you've already got the SLI motherboard & one 8800GTS. I say go for it & post back here with how you like it.

 

[Extelleron]

If you actually intend on playing games at that resolution, then I wouldn't recommend either option - neither will be able to handle modern games at that res (at high settings).

The best option for that res would be the HD 4870 X2 but I don't know how much that costs where you live.

If I had to choose, at that res I would go with a single GTX 216; only 512MB of memory and low memory bandwidth are going to kill the GTS cards at that res.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Originally posted by: Denithor

EDIT: So if you've already got an SLI motherboard, go for it!
EDIT2: Holy crap, that's a LOT of pixels you're pushing. Nearly 30% higher than the 2560x1600 used for those benchmarks.

The Germans tell him what to do.

If I were him, I'd go for the second GTS card. In cases like that, the SLI board amortizes its costs beautifully. For $130 equivalent, he gets GTX260 performance and gets a longer life out of his system without a huge upgrade. The economic concept is called marginal utility. Seems like a no-brainer.

 

[Jax Omen]

Did SLI suddenly start supporting multimonitor setups or am I missing something here?

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Jax Omen
Did SLI suddenly start supporting multimonitor setups or am I missing something here?

180.xx (Big Bang) Drivers enable multimonitor SLI.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Jax Omen
Did SLI suddenly start supporting multimonitor setups or am I missing something here?

He's not really running multimonitor, he's running three monitors through a Matrox TripleHead2Go, which is a box that presents itself to Windows as a single monitor, much like RAID 0 does with hard drives. The box then splits the signal into either 2 or 3 outputs, after it has been rendered, so each monitor runs @ either 1/2 or 1/3 of the total resolution.

 

[faxon]

i just had an interesting idea tied to this. has anyone tried using this box with 3 projectors running at 1650x1080, using a curved viewing screen to project onto? it would eliminate the bar between the monitors making for an over all cleaner image. you would need expensive ass projectors to pull it off though, since they dont make projectors that run at 1650x1080. you would have to buy 1920x1080 projectors and run them at 1650x1080 instead, and there would probably be a lot of input lag somewhere in that chain. still, its a cool idea

 

[Denithor]

Anyone know what resolution the card has to run for this setup to work? Does 5040x1050 show up in the screen res choices or do you run at 1680x1050 and the box splits & extends it onto the other screens?