Gaming and the confusion of sli

[melchoir55]

I'm building a new gaming rig. I've read enough benchmarks to make my eyes bleed and I'm just not getting anywhere.

Here is what I'm after:
I have about 1100 to spend on the whole rig. Im going for an e6400 OC'd to 2.8ghz with 2gb of firestix 6400 RAM.
320GB hdd
p5B delux mobo

What I'm confused about is whether or not I should take advantage of the sli option on this motherboard. I am up to 800 bucks in parts and my target was 1100 (case and cooling are taken care of). This means I have roughly 300 bucks lying around for vid card(s). Keep in mind this machine is FOR gaming.

I was thinking of getting a single x1900xt http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102004R
Which would be about the price im looking to spend. The problem? Reviews I'm reading suggest it doesn't hold a candle to sli'd nvidia cards.

So then I go look at the 7900GTX and /boggle at the 469 pricetag. That means sli at... what.. 1K?? That's a big hell no, I'd buy the 8800 first.

Should I be worried about the performance of the x1900xt? Is it even compatible with my hardware? Will I see a serious difference in performance if I spend 500 on sli'd nvidia's?

 

[brikis98]

SLI offers benefits primarily at high resolutions (1600x1200 & above) and is typically only worth it for the enthusiast, as it means double the price, double the power consumption, and double the heat (and often driver issues to boot). since you only have $300 to spend, SLI is not an option for you, so don't bother with it. if you wanted to get it in the future, you could buy one nvidia card now and then add a second one later. in general though, by that point, a new card will have come out that beats all the previous SLI/CF solutions (e.g. 8800gtx), so you usually just want to get the best single card (ati or nvidia) that you can afford.

the x1950xt is a solid card that fits well within your budget. if you wanted to stretch that budget a bit, you could grab an 8800gts, giving you awesome performance, dx10 support, fantastic image quality and (for the future) an SLI option. dell has had deals on them for as low as ~$385, although that deal is dead, and the new low price is ~$425...

 

[melchoir55]

so even though the 8800gts is the lame version of the 8800, it's still a beast of a graphics card? 385 is pushing it but I probably would have done it. 425 is a little too much /cry

 

[Cookie Monster]

8800GTS is around 7950GX2 level, but with much more features and better IQ.

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: melchoir55
so even though the 8800gts is the lame version of the 8800, it's still a beast of a graphics card? 385 is pushing it but I probably would have done it. 425 is a little too much /cry

you can compare various video cards here, but yes, in terms of single GPU, the 8800gts is second best only to the 8800gtx...

 

[melchoir55]

I have both hate and love for you as you have convinced me which card I should go with while simultaneously making me spend an extra $125.

Sincere thanks.

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: melchoir55
I have both hate and love for you as you have convinced me which card I should go with while simultaneously making me spend an extra $125.

Sincere thanks.

no problem, but if i was in your position, i'd wait around and keep my eyes open for deals to pop up, such as the one dell had yesterday. the 8800 series just came out, so its prices are still inflated (though not as bad as release day), so you can only win by waiting a little bit

 

[FireChicken]

I think this is moot point since you decided to go with a single card but I didn't think p5b delux has sli??? Only crossfire.

 

[melchoir55]

Well it has two 16x pcie slots so I just sort of assumed it has sli... it may not..

Is there a way for me to find out? Newegg doesnt specify..

 

[brikis98]

after doing some googling, while the p5b does have two PCI-e x16 slots, it did not (out of the box) support any of the multi-GPU solutions (neither CF nor SLI). however, according to this article, using the new ATI Catalyst 6.10 drivers (and maybe the latest asus BIOS?), you can get a fully functional crossfire setup on that board. no word if nvidia will have any SLI solution that'll work. however, as mentioned before, dual video card solutions are still primarily for the hardcore enthusiast and i still think the single card 8800gts is the way to go.

incidentally, the dell deal, as it turns out, isn't totally dead. see this thread. click the link, add the 8800gts to your cart, and you should get a price of $424... however, you can buy stackable 10% dell coupons on ebay for a few dollars to knock off another $40, and if you have a dell preferred account, you could probably knock off even another few percent. YMMV, of course, but ~$380 for a gts is a good deal.

 

[Matt2]

SLI for the loss.

The only SLI solution that I have ever owned and thought was worth it was 7800GT SLI. It offered better than 7800GTX 512mb performance at about $100 less.

 

[BFG10K]

SLI is only worthwhile if you're pairing the fastest gaming cards available. It's a bad idea to SLI two slower cards as a single faster card is a better solution.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

Originally posted by: brikis98

Originally posted by: melchoir55
I have both hate and love for you as you have convinced me which card I should go with while simultaneously making me spend an extra $125.

Sincere thanks.

no problem, but if i was in your position, i'd wait around and keep my eyes open for deals to pop up, such as the one dell had yesterday. the 8800 series just came out, so its prices are still inflated (though not as bad as release day), so you can only win by waiting a little bit

actually i don't think the 8800 prices were ever inflated. at 450 the 8800gts knocks around the mighty 7950gx2 and the x1950xtx. at 650 the 8800gtx outperforms xfire x1950xtx and sli 7900gtx and costs less.

remember these cards are bieng sold at or below MSRP since launch day (with only a few stores being the exception). unlike CERTAIN other nvidia cards of the 7xxx generation.

 

[TheRyuu]

Originally posted by: Matt2
SLI for the loss.

The only SLI solution that I have ever owned and thought was worth it was 7800GT SLI. It offered better than 7800GTX 512mb performance at about $100 less.

Yea, the only SLI solution (that I had too) was the 7800GT's in SLI. It was almost as fast as 7800GTX's in SLI for a lot cheaper (i think the avg loss in going from GTX to GT was like 5-7fps, not worth it, IMO)

Now, (i think I got lucky) I got to step up (with evga) to 7900GT's in SLI. I then vmodded them and it is now the rig in my sig. Pretty good considering all I started with was 2x7800GT's. I basically got a 7900GTX rig in SLI minus the extra 256mb of vram.

Sry for OT
back to the topic, since you already made your decision (what, did you go with the 8800GTS?) guess there is nothing to add???