Fast CPU or SLI

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Duvie
As you might see I was typing my reply as you edited yours with that comment....hence why I dont have it in my quote. Rollo would be excellent reference for this point...

However I resent the fact you think a person has to own something to comment on it....Your comment was lame regardless if you tried to point him to more data later. Just say you disagree, dont invalidate his right in the forum to give advice as he sees it...

Please, please, please do not tell me how to post. I am too used to people shooting off their mouths about something they know nothing about nor had any experience with. Maybe my post was harsh and I apologize for that, but I like others become conditioned from time to time from all the trolling around here. Sometimes we have to snap out of it. But try never to explain to me the rights and wrongs of posting. I have been here long enough to know that everyone posts how and whatever they want. Regardless of what you say to them. Everybody.

 

[Lizzy729]

Hello keysplayr2003. Thanks for your input. For that matter thanks to all that have replied. How would I get in touch with Rollo? I don't know him/her so do I just PM or something?

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Lizzy729
Hello keysplayr2003. Thanks for your input. For that matter thanks to all that have replied. How would I get in touch with Rollo? I don't know him/her so do I just PM or something?

You are very welcome. Again I apologize for my forked tongue today. I know, I'm the devil. Anyways, just do a search in the video forum under "Author" and type "Rollo"
You will find several threads of his about SLI and his system specs.

Here is one of them.

 

[Cheesetogo]

If the price is the same, sli is a way better choice. BTW, sorry for not reading the thread.

 

[Lizzy729]

Cool thanks. For the help.

 

[Elfear]

I'd say go for the 6800GTs in SLI. I went from a single 6800GT to a X800XT PE to SLI'd 6800GTs and at high resolution SLI owns. If you plan on playing games at 1280x1024 or below, I'd say go for a 6800 Ultra or X850XT.

I wouldn't worry too much about needing an FX-55 to fully utilize SLI. I only gained 5-8 fps at 1600x1200 4AA/8AF going from 2.4GHz to 2.6GHz in HL2 which is fairly cpu dependant. You'll see less difference in FarCry or Doom3.

 

[Lizzy729]

Just wondering if my Neo Power 480 PS can handle 2X6800gt's. I only have one 300GB HD and a Plextor DVD-burner.

 

[Merovingian]

"I appreciate the responses so far. One problem I have is that in all the years that I have built PC's (around 13 years or so) I have never really felt great about OC'ing anything. Maybe I need to get with the times. In reference to the 3800+ and 3500+ I have had both and I felt I had a decent performance boost. I just don't know if that same boost is seen when you step up to the FX's. I'm alright with either choice: faster CPU or SLI I just don't know which one will offer me a better boost of performance. I generally don't last very long with any one computer (maybe 3-8 months). I'm just trying to build something that would kinda break that trend. BTW I just sold a rig with a 3800+, Asus a8n SLI, 1GB Corsair XMS 3200pro, dual 74GB raptors, x850xt, and a Pioneer 109. I'm just trying to improve a little on that with the profit I gained from the sale."

Silly set up. You buy a computer every 3-8 months I'd think you would get better at doing your research and perhaps you have. Raid 0 raptors is an easy way to tell that someone doesn't do their research, a SCSI 15K rpm drive is the high line and the single raptor is the more economic path to a fast app drive. Can you really tell the diff between 3500 and 3800? Ever hear of a placebo effect? Seriously, I'm running 2.6GHz on a winnie 3000+ although I do recommend venice if it oc's well. I personally think your a little obsessed about performance and with as much time as you have on your hands to build I'd be doing enough to make sure I do the next one correctly. You should not be having to sell your rig every 8 months. About every year and a half things can be rotated if you care that much. Again obsession with this stuff is not only a waste of money but a waste of time. Good luck with the build, I will help where I can. =)

'you plan on playing games at 1280x1024 or below, I'd say go for a 6800 Ultra or X850XT."

Uhh, okay. My 6600GT plays everything perfectly in 1280x1024. My advice is 6800GT is for users who want to 1600x1200 perfectly. I would say flash the bios to ultra. But if I wanted to waste cash I would get two ultras in sli even though you won't really be able to tell the difference. Fact is that the human eye cannot tell the diff between 40 and 100 FPS. So again this is for those who raid 0 raptors, sell 3500's for 3800's and cure themselves with herbal meds cause the placebo effect can be powerful. =)

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: TheMerovingian
"I appreciate the responses so far. One problem I have is that in all the years that I have built PC's (around 13 years or so) I have never really felt great about OC'ing anything. Maybe I need to get with the times. In reference to the 3800+ and 3500+ I have had both and I felt I had a decent performance boost. I just don't know if that same boost is seen when you step up to the FX's. I'm alright with either choice: faster CPU or SLI I just don't know which one will offer me a better boost of performance. I generally don't last very long with any one computer (maybe 3-8 months). I'm just trying to build something that would kinda break that trend. BTW I just sold a rig with a 3800+, Asus a8n SLI, 1GB Corsair XMS 3200pro, dual 74GB raptors, x850xt, and a Pioneer 109. I'm just trying to improve a little on that with the profit I gained from the sale."

Silly set up. You buy a computer every 3-8 months I'd think you would get better at doing your research and perhaps you have. Raid 0 raptors is an easy way to tell that someone doesn't do their research, a SCSI 15K rpm drive is the high line and the single raptor is the more economic path to a fast app drive. Can you really tell the diff between 3500 and 3800? Ever hear of a placebo effect? Seriously, I'm running 2.6GHz on a winnie 3000+ although I do recommend venice if it oc's well. I personally think your a little obsessed about performance and with as much time as you have on your hands to build I'd be doing enough to make sure I do the next one correctly. You should not be having to sell your rig every 8 months. About every year and a half things can be rotated if you care that much. Again obsession with this stuff is not only a waste of money but a waste of time. Good luck with the build, I will help where I can. =)

'you plan on playing games at 1280x1024 or below, I'd say go for a 6800 Ultra or X850XT."

Uhh, okay. My 6600GT plays everything perfectly in 1280x1024. My advice is 6800GT is for users who want to 1600x1200 perfectly. I would say flash the bios to ultra. But if I wanted to waste cash I would get two ultras in sli even though you won't really be able to tell the difference. Fact is that the human eye cannot tell the diff between 40 and 100 FPS. So again this is for those who raid 0 raptors, sell 3500's for 3800's and cure themselves with herbal meds cause the placebo effect can be powerful. =)

Nothing wrong with RAID0 raptors. I use it with onboard SATA RAID controller (not PCI controller card).
36GB raptor = 126.00 newegg X2 = 252.00
Onboard SATA RAID controller.........Free
Total for 72GB of fast storage..........252.00

a single SCSI 36GB 15000rpm drive = 204.00 newegg (has Ultra 320 interface)
Adaptec Ultra 320 controller card.........187.00 newegg
Total for 36GB of fast storage..............391.00 (ouch)

Onboard SATA RAID is very common on today's desktop motherboards. But you would be hard pressed buying a board with an Ultra 320 SCSI controller built in without looking into an entry level server board at least.

Tell us again how your SCSI solution is more highline solution?
Is it because it costs more and you get less? Is this what defines "highline"?

And as for not being able to tell the difference between 40fps and 100fps? Fact is, that's not a fact. Link? Everyone is different first of all so no amount of studies would apply to everyone. I CERTAINLY can tell the difference between 40fps (which is bare minimum for me and playability) and 100fps.

I will look through the rest of your odd post and make more comments later. Gotta run to work now and only had a few seconds to look over it.

 

[Merovingian]

Uhh, computer performance relating to the hard drive is access time limited generally. Raid 0 does not make you access times better. Anandtech has an artical on this that you should have read before you purchased those drives. Anyway, show me an artical that shows you can tell the diff between 40 and 100 fps. I'm not saying it's impossible to tell but that it should be rather difficult. Right now my raptor which is faster than yours at 4.7ms seek time is slower than the latest 15k rpm drives fromfujitsu I believe at 3.3ms. Yes it requires a $200 or less SCSI card.

Hah, you called my post odd?

Let me guess you have two 6800's in sli, right?

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: TheMerovingian
Uhh, computer performance relating to the hard drive is access time limited generally. Raid 0 does not make you access times better. Anandtech has an artical on this that you should have read before you purchased those drives. Anyway, show me an artical that shows you can tell the diff between 40 and 100 fps. I'm not saying it's impossible to tell but that it should be rather difficult. Right now my raptor which is faster than yours at 4.7ms seek time is slower than the latest 15k rpm drives fromfujitsu I believe at 3.3ms. Yes it requires a $200 or less SCSI card.

Hah, you called my post odd?

Let me guess you have two 6800's in sli, right?

Can you tell me why your raptor is faster than my raptor? Is it the same as the drives I have?

I can tell you that I do not have an SLI setup.

Anand is not the be all end all authority. I noticed that there was only UT game load times on the test suite in that article. My game loading times are cut in half with RAID0 as opposed to a single raptor. Think I'm dreaming? I bet you do. Why would I make this stuff up, because I'm bored?

Let's do something special. Maybe we can help each other out and really contribute to this subject. Lets put together a test suite of our own. You do your benches and I will do mine. Mine will be tested as a single 36GB raptor against my 2x36GB raptors in RAID0.
Your test will be the setup your touting. I'm not knocking SCSI, but its still far too expensive to implement for the avg. home user.

Are you up to this? There is no rush and maybe we should make a new thread in the proper forum for this.

Keys

 

[Merovingian]

Hey, chill! I believe I get better access times which is what game loading is dependent on, maybe I don't. I do know that raid 0 does not increase your access times and I'm telling you that you load times are not doubling. That much is for sure. Show me a test suite where it shows how fast an app loads and I'm in. Show me a test suite which copies one large file and I wouldn't bother, of course the raptors can copy large files in raid 0, but who needs that? Anyway, no need to be hostile, the 74GB raptors are slightly faster than the 36GB raptors. If the access times are faster at all, I would rather have a single 74 to a dual 36 for what I do which is not copying large files. Anyways, applogize if I have come off as a bit of an ass, I don't like to upset people on the board, cool?

 

[Elfear]

Originally posted by: TheMerovingian

'you plan on playing games at 1280x1024 or below, I'd say go for a 6800 Ultra or X850XT."

Uhh, okay. My 6600GT plays everything perfectly in 1280x1024. My advice is 6800GT is for users who want to 1600x1200 perfectly.

Okay, maybe my statement was a little ambiguous. If you play at 800x600 than you really don't need a powerful graphics card. I'm assuming the OP plays at either 1024x768, 1280x1024, or 1600x1200 with a lot of eye-candy or else he wouldn't be considering an SLI system. If he plays at the upper two resolutions (or higher) than he needs a top-of-the-line gpu.

I'm not sure which games you are playing at 1280x1024 but I'm calling bs on this one. Jump into FarCry at that res with 4AA/8AF and max detail and tell me if you have buttery smooth gameplay . A 6800GT will NOT play some modern games perfectly at 1600x1200. I know, I tried. I had to play at 1280x1024 4AA/8AF with both my 6800GT@Ultra speeds and my X800XT PE to get smooth gameplay. You must have some wicked phase-change cooled 6600GT to get the same.

 

[SNM]

Can you see the individual frames in a movie? Those run @ ~24 fps. If you're topping 100 fps, your monitor probably isn't displaying every frame. You do know what refresh rate means, right?

Oh, and if you look at reviews, SLI rigs top the high-end ATI card by maybe 10%.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: GML3G0
SLI is a waste of $800+ IMO. in 2-3 years there will be new vertex/pixel shaders, etc... it's like playing HL2 with DX 7.0.

You dont buy SLI to be the fastest in 3 years.

You buy it to be the fastest now.

Exactly... while there is a certain "futureproofness" to SLI, being able to add a 2nd video card later and nearly double your GPU power... SLI is aimed more at the person who wants to play HL2 or Doom 3 at 1600x1200 with 4XAA and 16XAF.

 

[jimp]

my noobie take on the issue is from a stand point of one who bought a single 6800 gt (not even an ultra) then 2 weeks later bought the second. my frame rates overall increased but actualy went down in counterstrike and halflife. when you fire up sli mode you lose the ability to use nvtweak to bump up your gpu and i know the ultra has to go way past what i was getting with my GT. me , if I had to do it again, I would buy the ultra and the best memory and cpu i could afford!
oh yes and if you get the sli rig , count on upgraiding your psu, I wound up getting the 565w enermax ps with support for SLI , unless you don't want to run anything but the video cards because you will need 4 connectors for them alone and not to many psu's come with that many rails.
that is if your even monitorng this thread anymore, it seems to have become an argument of a whole different animal!!!

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: SNM
Can you see the individual frames in a movie? Those run @ ~24 fps. If you're topping 100 fps, your monitor probably isn't displaying every frame. You do know what refresh rate means, right?

Oh, and if you look at reviews, SLI rigs top the high-end ATI card by maybe 10%.

Here's the old frame rate argument again...

Movies and TV use motion blur... pause a DVD during a fast action sequence, do you see a perfectly crisp image? No, edges are blurred which makes the transition between frames appear seamless.

Computers don't use motion blur. Limit a fast paced game like Unreal Tournament to 24 FPS and you'll see the difference motion blur makes.

As far as the highest frame rate the human eye can distinguish, there is no set limit. Your eyes are not digital, they don't capture the world frame by frame. Some people's eyes are more sensative to frame rates than others though. Navy watchmen are trained to identify ships that are shown to them for 1/200th of a second all the way down to 1/400th of a second. 1/200th of a second would equal 200 frames per second. So one could argue that the human eye has the capability to detect the difference between 200 frames per second and 150 frames per second.

You are right about one thing... you can't see frame rates higher than the refresh rate of your monitor because the monitor only redraws the screen so many times per second and your eye can't see something that isn't there.

 

[Merovingian]

Originally posted by: Elfear

Originally posted by: TheMerovingian

'you plan on playing games at 1280x1024 or below, I'd say go for a 6800 Ultra or X850XT."

Uhh, okay. My 6600GT plays everything perfectly in 1280x1024. My advice is 6800GT is for users who want to 1600x1200 perfectly.

Okay, maybe my statement was a little ambiguous. If you play at 800x600 than you really don't need a powerful graphics card. I'm assuming the OP plays at either 1024x768, 1280x1024, or 1600x1200 with a lot of eye-candy or else he wouldn't be considering an SLI system. If he plays at the upper two resolutions (or higher) than he needs a top-of-the-line gpu.

I'm not sure which games you are playing at 1280x1024 but I'm calling bs on this one. Jump into FarCry at that res with 4AA/8AF and max detail and tell me if you have buttery smooth gameplay . A 6800GT will NOT play some modern games perfectly at 1600x1200. I know, I tried. I had to play at 1280x1024 4AA/8AF with both my 6800GT@Ultra speeds and my X800XT PE to get smooth gameplay. You must have some wicked phase-change cooled 6600GT to get the same.

I don't have a 6800GT so I can't say for sure but from the benches I have seen, at least 50FPS are seen everywhere at full detail at 1600x1200 from what I remember. Anyway, my 6600GT plays 1280x1024 on full detail no problemo, honestly. However, before I downloaded the patch and the 6600GT update, the card was not drawing alot of the ground. After the patch everything ran smoothly, give it a try.

 

[Elfear]

When I was benching the two cards everything was patched up and I was using the best drivers at the time, 7x.xx series (Nvidia) and 5.xx (ATI) I believe. Some parts weren't too bad but others would bog down a bit, especially big outdoor maps. I just found that 1600x1200 was too much for smooth gameplay.

I linked to few articles that show how much gpu power some of the modern games take. The last article is particularly interesting as it show minimum frames as well as average. At max eye-candy even the top dogs chug a bit.

Anandtech #1
Anandtech #2
XbitLabs #1
XbitLabs #2

Not trying to be a donk, I'm just demonstrating why I made the recommendation I did.

 

[Lizzy729]

I am still monitoring this thread even if there are some arguments that are different than what I'm exactly looking for. I do enjoy reading the arguments because alot of times there are some good points being brought up. I have already purchase an Antec Neopower 480. After some more research I have finally come to the conclusion that I will purchase a processor a step above my previous 3800+ (Venice 3800+ or 4000+ san diego core, anything short of an FX, etc) and I plan on buying the best available Nvidia card I can find so that I have a short term upgrade path to adding a second card. Everyones input, whether negative or positive, has been noted and I'll try to use some of this advice within the next two weeks to make an informed decision on what to buy next. I tried to weigh both the negative and positive of each argument and came to the above decision. Anyway, thanks to all that responded and I hope I can help someone else like you all have helped me.

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: gobucks
honestly, they are both a waste of money. An FX-55 costs $800+, and performs maybe 33% faster than a 3000+, which costs $140. In fact, when you OC them both to their max, you end up with a difference of like 10% (FX hits 2.8ish with 1MB cache, 3000+ hits 2.6-2.7ish with 512MB cache). Is it worth more than a 500% markup for that performance boost? Hell no. FXs are worth it if you A) have tons of money to burn or B) just HAVE to impress your techie friends for 3 months until one of them gets something faster.

SLI is the same way. You pay an extra 100% for the extra card, plus an extra $50-100 for the SLI mobo versus a simple Ultra board, and the result is gains that range from 70% down to like 10% in some games. Plus, even those games with huge gains don't really need the gains to begin with. After all, if a single Ultra can play Doom3 or HL2 at 16x12 with 4xAA/8xAF at 50FPS, is your experience gonna be that much more enjoyable at 80FPS? By the time you need that performance, and games are out that really push it to the limit, then the cards that are out will be just as fast or faster, and will also have better features (R520 will be WGF 1.0 certified, as will G70, I imagine, and both will likely be 512MB cards). After all, you could spend $100 extra on an SLI mobo + 2x6800 Ultra for $500 each = $1100. Or, you could buy a single 6800GT for $400 (or X800XL for $300, since they perform almost the same), and then upgrade to an R520 or G70 for $500 in the future and sell your old card for like $200. That would save you $300-400 bucks, and you'd end up with a better single card than an SLI array.

But you cant buy G70 now, you can buy SLI now.

And you can SLI G70 later... I dont see whats so hard to understand.

If you want the fastest now, and lose the whole "bang for buck" mentality, then SLI is the way to go.

Yeah, if you have money growing on a tree in your back yard. Otherwise, "bang for the buck" mentality makes a lot more sense than sli. You can buy sli now, and have the fastest for what - 6 months at most? More like 3 months now. And then you have not one but 2 cards that are basically obsolete. So then you can either keep playing at 200fps using the now-equivalent DX8 technology, or spend another $800 on two newer cards. Then repeat the process on a annual basis. You pay for 2 cards, but you never get 2x the performance. If everything works, then maybe you'll get 90% more performance, and if it doesnt you basically have a $400 heater installed in your computer. Also, sli doesnt combine graphics memory, so you can forget about playing 1600*1200 + AA/AF if you have a 128mb 6600gt setup in sli, for example, you might as well get 1 6800gt for better performance. And this is comparing cards in the same generation. You can imagine how much a next gen card will wipe the floor with your best current sli setup.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: munky

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: gobucks
honestly, they are both a waste of money. An FX-55 costs $800+, and performs maybe 33% faster than a 3000+, which costs $140. In fact, when you OC them both to their max, you end up with a difference of like 10% (FX hits 2.8ish with 1MB cache, 3000+ hits 2.6-2.7ish with 512MB cache). Is it worth more than a 500% markup for that performance boost? Hell no. FXs are worth it if you A) have tons of money to burn or B) just HAVE to impress your techie friends for 3 months until one of them gets something faster.

SLI is the same way. You pay an extra 100% for the extra card, plus an extra $50-100 for the SLI mobo versus a simple Ultra board, and the result is gains that range from 70% down to like 10% in some games. Plus, even those games with huge gains don't really need the gains to begin with. After all, if a single Ultra can play Doom3 or HL2 at 16x12 with 4xAA/8xAF at 50FPS, is your experience gonna be that much more enjoyable at 80FPS? By the time you need that performance, and games are out that really push it to the limit, then the cards that are out will be just as fast or faster, and will also have better features (R520 will be WGF 1.0 certified, as will G70, I imagine, and both will likely be 512MB cards). After all, you could spend $100 extra on an SLI mobo + 2x6800 Ultra for $500 each = $1100. Or, you could buy a single 6800GT for $400 (or X800XL for $300, since they perform almost the same), and then upgrade to an R520 or G70 for $500 in the future and sell your old card for like $200. That would save you $300-400 bucks, and you'd end up with a better single card than an SLI array.

But you cant buy G70 now, you can buy SLI now.

And you can SLI G70 later... I dont see whats so hard to understand.

If you want the fastest now, and lose the whole "bang for buck" mentality, then SLI is the way to go.

Yeah, if you have money growing on a tree in your back yard. Otherwise, "bang for the buck" mentality makes a lot more sense than sli. You can buy sli now, and have the fastest for what - 6 months at most? More like 3 months now. And then you have not one but 2 cards that are basically obsolete. So then you can either keep playing at 200fps using the now-equivalent DX8 technology, or spend another $800 on two newer cards. Then repeat the process on a annual basis. You pay for 2 cards, but you never get 2x the performance. If everything works, then maybe you'll get 90% more performance, and if it doesnt you basically have a $400 heater installed in your computer. Also, sli doesnt combine graphics memory, so you can forget about playing 1600*1200 + AA/AF if you have a 128mb 6600gt setup in sli, for example, you might as well get 1 6800gt for better performance. And this is comparing cards in the same generation. You can imagine how much a next gen card will wipe the floor with your best current sli setup.

About the whole money growing on trees bit. Those who have extra money will do whatever they want. Those without extra money, do whatever they can. Simple. Please stop trying to push the bang for buck thing because it only applies to a minority of PC users anyway. Most PC buyers get integrated graphics when they buy a new PC. And to a lot of people, bang for the buck doesn't mean much when they know they could have done better. I am one of those people without the extra money, but I try a little harder to get what I want and not settle for a bang for the buck card. It might be just me and a few choice others, but I feel like if I bought for example a 6600GT because everyone says its the best bang for the buck, I would know that someone else out there has a bigger bang for a little more patience and a little more buck. But that's just me. I waited a little extra for my 6800GT. I was all set to buy a 6800nu at the time, but I thought, "Why would I not be happy with this card?". Not that its a bad card by any stretch. It's because I was impatient and didn't save for something better.
SLI is out of my reach these days, but I still managed my 6800GT.

 

[jbh129]

I would wait for Intel NF4 SLI. Raid 5 is sure to be awesome

 

[SolMiester]

For a start I'd only have SLI if a had a 20"TFT or a 19" CRT, as you will only see benefits @ 1600x1200, 1280x1024 on a 17"TFT is all I got so no SLI for me, or even a 6800GT.
Save the money to buy the games dude..

 

[SolMiester]

How about a 3800+ Venice with a 512MB Ultra 6800, now that would push some serious pixels..