How much is SLI limited by CPU speed?

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Srezic

Member
Jul 30, 2005
43
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I've just been reading that some people, including one posted here, are getting slower framerates with their SLI setup than if they had just used one card.

I personally will most likely be buying the following:

Athlon 64 3500+ Venice
Geforce 7800 GTX


But I'm wondering if 1, anyone knows of any good reviews of this sort of behavior, and 2, if anyone could recommend that I should step up my CPU choice to one that would better handle a future 7800 SLI-setup.


Thanks,

~Ryan
 
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canadianpsycho

Diamond Member
May 23, 2001
3,417
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I think that isn't a question of CPU bottleneck, but driver issues.

However I don't think a 3500+ would do the 7800GTX justice, unless you plan on overclocking it.
 
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Srezic

Member
Jul 30, 2005
43
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Well, I would like a really fast 939-pin CPU.... but I also want to keep my bank intact =P.


Any recommendations on somethin that would give SLI a little more flavor for a relatively small increase in price?(max 150-ish bucks over the $230 3500).
 
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mindgam3

Member
May 30, 2005
166
0
0
The 3500 will be fine you should be able to overclock it to 2.6ghz easy if you ever had to in the future :) .
 
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Srezic

Member
Jul 30, 2005
43
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Well, the thing i'm just worried about is something along these lines:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=31&threadid=1660244&enterthread=y


Where I buy a new 7800 to SLI my system with, and it ends up just slowing it down. What would be my purpose for getting an SLI board and another video card if i get degraded performance.


Also here are the primary comp parts I will probably order:

Athlon 64 3500+ Venice
(unsure on brand) Geforce 7800 GTX
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium
1 GB(2x512) Corsair XMS PC3200 DDR400
ENERMAX 550W (not specifically SLI-ready, may change this).



Basically what I want is a great system, where I can pop in another 7800 and SLI it for a really noticable increase in video processing. An upgraded CPU may come after, but I dont tihnk I want to dip into the $800 range for a CPU. 400 is pushing it, but acceptable though.


Also, I don't know much about overclocking, but I might try to OC it a little bit.


Basically, my question is whether I should even go the SLI route if SLI will just be slower? It seems kinda odd that this would happen. Also, with the new Nvidia motherboards coming out with 16x SLI support, it makes me upset that I would have to wait even longer if i wanted something better.

I hate parts shopping ><
 
Gamingphreek

Gamingphreek

Lifer
Mar 31, 2003
11,679
0
81
Why would 2 cards ever be slower than 1 :confused:

Additionally, Canadianpsycho, what driver issues would you be referring to. I was under the impression that Nvidia ironed out 99% of the problems now and there are just some minor annoyances. Additionally, they allow you to create your own profile, so i see 0 problems with the drivers right now... I would know i have an enormous driver thread.

The cards will be bottlenecked at anything under 16x12 maxed out AA and AF (16x16 might be a bit high, probably 8x/16x). Anything over that and you should be all GPU.

Your system is fine right now. As for SLI-Ready PSU it is just a marketing gimmick. It means that it has 2 PCI-E connectors. Your system right now is perfectly fine. I would however consider bumping up the RAM to 2gig.

-Kevin

Edit: PCI-E x16 in SLI will make virtually no difference unless for some reason you run out of texture memory, and are doing huge Aperture swapping. Once again your system is fine.
 
Gamingphreek

Gamingphreek

Lifer
Mar 31, 2003
11,679
0
81
You know what i meant. Im sure the OP knows full well that Nvidia's drivers are no where near that bad.

-Kevin
 
BFG10K

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,709
3,002
126
The driver overhead is always there regardless. If you're not runnning GPU limited settings two cards will be slower than one card.
 
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