Should I/Could I get another 7800GT

[Spike]

I have an old rig. There, I said it, my pride has been wounded but at least I was honest. Due to buying a house and other real world expenses my rig has not been updated in almost two years (in the sig below). While this has served me well the latest games are finally showing me that an upgrade is, indeed, called for in the near future. I am going to build a new machine sometime in the next few months, hoepfully sooner, and will be going the quad route. Until then I am looking for a cheap(er) solution to my poor gaming performance which brings me to my questions...

I have found that eVGA 7800GT's run $100 or less used around the forums. I am tempted to pick one up to improve my current gaming situation but here are my hesitations. Are there any current cards in the $150 or less range that would out-perform a 7800gt SLI setup? I know I can spend more and get an 8800 or 2900 but I don't want to spend that much now since I plan to get a much better card later. Plus, I will continue to use this pc as a secondary gamer so upgrading won't be a waste even if I build a new rig soon.

Now the second set of questions... can I even SLI? I have a DFI nf4 Ultra and while I have heard there were SLI hacks I have not researched them lately. Can this be done easily? If I can do that, do I need to get an EXACT match to my current eVGA 7800GT or will any 7800GT work?

If it helps I game at 1680x1050. I would not expect this rig to be able to handle bioshock at full res + all extra's, I just want playable framrates and a viable secondary loaner machine for a lan party.

Thanks for you help and sorry for the large amount of text!

 

[Munky]

You can do the SLI hack by connecting 2 pins on top of the mobo chipset with a pencil. I've done it on my board, and although I haven't tried SLI, my DFI Ultra-D now says "DFI NF4 SLI" when I boot it up, so it's possible that it works. I don't remember exactly which pins I connected, but if you search around with google I'm sure you will find the answer.

You don't need to have the exact same card and manufacturer for SLI, you just need to have the same model, so another 7800gt will work just fine, even if it's not eVGA. Whether or not it's worth it at this point is debatable. Dual 7800gt's are about equal in performance to a x1950xt, minus the dual-card issues and situations when SLI doesn't work. I would rather have a single faster card any day than two slower cards, but since you will be building a new rig soon anyways, it doesn't matter much at this point, you could go either way and see a big improvement in performance.

 

[Spike]

Munky, you are correct, I would also much rather have a single card solution. I was not aware of any single cards that could beat 7800GT SLI for under $100-150. Can you find the x1950XT for less than that? If so I would seriously consider one of those for a replacement card as a temporary solution.

 

[cputeq]

Finding a new 1950XT is about as easy as finding a $3 bill.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814102075

There's a decently-priced Pro, though.

According to Tom's VGA charts,
http://www23.tomshardware.com/...5&model2=725&chart=275

You'll take a definite performance hit between the Pro and the XT, but find your games and resolutions and see how they compare to the 7800GT.
Unfortunately no SLI scores are given, but you can roughly guesstimate about a 20-40% gain from a SLI setup, assuming no driver problems.