Help me help a friend. 8800GTS, SLI? Or single higher card?

[Buttons]

My friend has built a fairly nice computer recently. Both of us are fairly new to the hardware side of things, and I was hoping for some quick advice.

My friend has a Q6600 (Quad core) on a PW5, with 4 gigs ram.

Anyways, he's a little skeptical of new standards and seeing the new PCI-E 2.0 drove him to buy 2 8800gts's. http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814130317

Now from what I can gather these wont work in a SLI config on his mobo. Will it? http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813131025

I gather that PCI 2.0 cards will worth with older PCI slots? Is this correct?

Anyways, I suggested to him to avoid the SLI and just get one 8800gts and save for a future day when he wants to upgrade again, or to buy a single, higher level, card. He seemed impressed with the idea of having 1.5 gigs of video memory (1.5 gig being the combined total of both SLI'ed cards), and I tried to explain that video memory isn't everything and that processing ability will be more important than the size of the video memory. He seemed reluctant to accept that.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

Well, back me up if you will. Is the advice I gave him in the above paragraph reasonable?

In short, if you had his mobo (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E16813131025), a Q6600, 4 gigs of ram, with plenty of space in the full size case, and you intended to spend 500 on a graphics card, what would you do and why?

Thanks. I'll provide more information if desired. You will be very helpful to my friend I'm sure; who doesn't have internet and asked for me to get some additional opinions for him. Were both learning, bear with us.

 

[Jax Omen]

... he bought two G80 8800 GTS? The expensive 640MB versions? OMFG

No, he needs a single 8800GTS 512. He can't SLI on a non-Nvidia mobo, period.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Unless he finds a way to mod the drivers and such, which is no easy task by any means. But Jax is right, get the 512 mb model of the GTS, it uses the G92 core and performs significantly better than the 320/640 predecessors.

 

[Buttons]

EVGA 640-P2-N829-AR GeForce 8800GTS SSC 640MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

Yes, two of those. Yeah, I was a little blown away too. Thus my suggestion that he send one back, or if he really wants to spend all 500, he should go for a single card of higher quality. Thanks for confirming that SLI is entirely out of the question though, I told him such, but I wasn't 100% sure.

Again, if you had 500 bucks, what video card would you buy?

Also, please confirm that there is no reason to fear using a PCI 2 card on his P5W.

 

[Rhonda the Sly]

Anyways, he's a little skeptical of new standards and seeing the new PCI-E 2.0 drove him to buy 2 8800gts's

I gather that PCI 2.0 cards will worth with older PCI slots? Is this correct?

Yes.

He seemed impressed with the idea of having 1.5 gigs of video memory

768x2? Only GTX and Ultra have 768MB of memory. And on SLI 768+768 = 768 because only one cards memory is used.

Lame answer: 8800GT, 8800GTS 512, or 9600GT.

Better Answer: Look at video card reviews and look for the best card in your price range.

OMFG

Agreed.

 

[Jax Omen]

There is no reason to fear PCI-E 2.0. Tom's Hardware ran a comparison on that exact topic very recently. Flight Simulator X is the only time the bandwidth difference seems to be remotely relevant.

I'd just get the 8800GTS 512 and keep the rest of the money, honestly. If he REALLY wants a super-high end card RIGHT NOW, he could get the 3870x2 (crossfire on a card) or the 9800GX2 (SLI on a card), but both of those are really, really bad buys right now with new cards on the horizon.

 

[Cuular]

One important piece of missing information is what resolution he is trying to drive. If he's looking to drive 1920X1200 or higher at extreme quality settings, he may need the extra graphics memory on the older card. If he's not then any of the new ones are fine.

And like has already been mentioned, the 2 cards do not share each others graphics memory. You can't add up the sum of the two cards memory and expect that it will be used in the way you think it might. Each card is limited to the memory it contains.

 

[Jax Omen]

from what I understand, the 8800GTS 512 beats the 640 in every case, every time, no exceptions. At least, that's what I've been led to believe.

Besides, neither card can "max out" the highest-end games at 1920x1200. I'm not even talking Crysis, Lost Planet is a slideshow if I try to max the settings on my computer. I got 15fps indoors, and ~7fps outdoors.

*points at sig*

 

[Lithan]

He wants to spend $500? 9800gx2. It's a stupid buy given that the next gen is supposed to arrive in <3months, but clearly your friend isn't hurting for money if he bought TWO nvidia cards to run on his INTEL chipset mobo.

 

[Throckmorton]

LOL.. skeptical of PCIE 2.0

 

[Isaac MM]

The next generation of cards will have a better card than 9800gx2?

 

[chinaman1472]

^ can't say, because they're not released yet.

It took a long time for nVidia to release a card that could trump the 8800 Ultra. New generation doesn't always mean better performance. It usually means better performance for your dollar.

 

[Lithan]

New gen doesnt always mean better performance than a dual gpu card... but it can... and it almost always means better efficiency. And even if it doesn't mean better performance, so long as Nvidia doesnt stop making gx2's the price should dip.