SLI vs. X850XT PE vs. X800XT PE

[Elfear]

I have the opportunity to get either an X850XT PE or two 6800GTs in SLI for pretty cheap. Right now I'm using an X800XT PE and I'm thinking its probably NOT worth the upgrade. From the reviews (http://techreport.com/reviews/...n-x850xt/index.x?pg=9) I've read the performance gains of SLI aren't too consistent. I'd probably need to come up with $200-250 to upgrade what I have (cards, psu, mobo).

The X850XT PE is only worth 3-5% over the X800XT PE from what I've seen and the only reason I'm even considering that is the new overdrive. Some reviewers have had their overdrive clock up to 600/600. I like the idea of ocing and still keeping my warranty. I'd probably be out $40 for the cost of a new mobo.

For some reason I don't mind ocing 6800GTs (seem to have more headroom) so I'd probably shoot for 400/1100 with those.

Do you guys think either of these options is worth it?

 

[Ronin]

SLi isn't consistent because of driver support in conjunction with the games (that, and only a handful are supported right now). As more games support it, and more driver profiles are created to work with them, SLi will work more effectively.

Personally? I think it's about which way you want to go for bragging rights. I think both solutions are worthy, but the question would be, which is going to last you longer?

 

[Thor86]

You already have an XTPE, so I would wait for the next gen ATI R520s to come out retail. Your best bet is to upgrade you cpu to get something higher than 2.5Ghz for any further REAL-world performance gains.

 

[mwmorph]

um. amds only come up to 2.6 or 2.7. 2.5 is incredibly quick for a amd64. also, dont forget, it's outperfforming practically all other intel chips out there.
if you really wanted to go sli, id go for another gig of ram too.

6800gt x2 will work best, espically if you volt bump it and make it run like 2x6800ultras.

ask yourself 2 questions,
1. do you need this? do games really run to slow for your tastes?

2. how much is it costing gor the 26800gt, psu, mobo, ram? just a nforce4sli and ram and psu should cost aroung $400!

 

[Elfear]

Well, to answer your 1st question mwmorph. All the games I play (HL2, FarCry, UT2004, Halo, etc.) will play just fine at max eye-candy except for FarCry. 1600x1200 and 4AA/8AF is just too much for my rig right now (drops below 30 fps). I was just thinking that it would be a bit more future proof (lol, like 6 months or so) than what I've got, especially moving to a PCI Express board. Plus, when acting as server at our lan parties I notice that my performance takes a hit and maybe the extra speed would help out.

 

[Insomniak]

1) I think SLI is still to immature to be worth it yet.

2) When it is worth it, I think SLI will be much more valuable as an upgrade option than a base system setup. 1 top end GPU for $400 now, another in a year or two when they're ~$250 for the same performance as a new $400 card makes sense to me - less expensive that way.

I'd go with a standard X800XT for now. Or, if you want to be SLI ready (like I do) then an SLI motherboard with any PCI-Express GPU, that can be replaced later with SLI GPU(s).

 

[mwmorph]

dualie 6800gts will help really only at 16x12 or dual 16x12 and all settings on. if you need that. go for it.

 

[Malak]

I only got the x850XT PE because it was cheaper than the x800XT PE, the performance boost is minimal. So whichever cheaper really is the option there. As for SLI, I think everyone agreed it's still too immature to play with right now. And obviously, the single high-end card is more than enough performance, dual high-end would be seriously bottlenecked by the cpu anyway.