SLIed 8800GTs delivers HALF the performance?!?

[poohbear]

so sli is working then? just a few odd things are happening on the side yea? maybe a clean install will help?

btw im curious if u notice any diff w/ crysis on 8800gt sli, plannin on going that route in the next month w/ a rig similar to urs (the 1 in my sig) & its 1 of the games i play regularly.

 

[Zap]

Glad you got the problem resolved.

Originally posted by: DefRef
but this one bench is telling me it was a waste of time/$$$.

Then ignore it. You play games. You don't "play benchmark." Okay, well a friend of mine did, even at LANs when everyone else was gaming, but we thought he was strange.

Here's some 9800 GT benchmarks on a Core 2 Duo setup that I did:

3DMark03
single - 37319
SLI - 59021

3DMark06
single - 11211
SLI - 12831

So, 03 showed considerable improvement with SLI, while 06 did not. Just the nature of that particular benchmark.

 

[DefRef]

I just got home from work and found my computer shut off again. According to the MBM5 interval log, it shut down after about an hour. The last recorded temp was 33C, so it didn't melt down.

A clean install of Windows is absolutely out of the question. While it could probably benefit from a reload, I simply have too much software loaded to take my system down. I'd may as well build a new system than reload it. I'm not like the people who reformat once a month because they're afraid they may be losing .01 fps because of Registry cruft - I set my system up and then DO WORK WITH IT until it's time to build the next rig. It's been three years, but the problems I'm seeing now appear more hardware based than anything.

Edit: It's been running about 3 hours without a hiccup. Played Crysis for 45 minutes and it's definitely smoother, though still a system slayer. I've got the Crysis Lighting Mod and detail configurator and it looks great. Remember how F.E.A.R. was so overwhelming in 2005 that enabling soft shadows was nearly forbidden, just in case your pets could be killed in the explosion of your overtaxed system? Well, with upgraded video (and all the problems I'm having now), I was able to max out every setting possible - AA, AF, soft fraking shadows bay-bee!!! - and get 33 min, 170 max, 71 ave. fps at 1920x1200x32 with uTorrent and a bunch of Mozilla tabs open running in the background.

2nd Edit: 6 hours running and everything I throw at it runs fast at max settings (except Crysis, natch) including the Fake Factory Half-Life 2 Cinematic Mod. Don't know what the deal is with the shut downs, CHKDSKs and 3DMark weirdness, but for games, it seems to be rockin' like Dokken.

Cheers to all who helped with their suggestions.:beer:

 

[poohbear]

btw defref do you think getting the 2nd 8800gt was worth it? i was considering either going that route with my current sys (in my sig) or just upgrading my mobo & cpu to a 8400 rig (alot pricier after mobo, ram, and cpu is factored in).

I'm pretty sure 8800gt sli would yield a much better gaming experience than upgrading to a 8400 rig in my case, which is really the only reason i'd be upgrading (for everything else my current rig is fine).

just curious if you would've done the same in retrospect after going through w/ 8800gt sli. cheers.

 

[DefRef]

Since I've been too busy trying to get it working, it's hard to say for sure, but since darn near everything appears to run like blazes at 1920x1200 with details maxed, I'd say yeah, it's a good deal, especially since the 2nd card was only $109 w/tax. I'm glad I bought two, so that when I build the next rig, I'll have a matched pair for less than a single GTX260 would've cost. What's coming down the pike that's going to be too much for this to handle?

 

[poohbear]

cool. i think crysis is the ultimate benchmark in terms of performance, if it can handle crysis at some of the higher settings w/ decent fps, then it'll handle pretty much everything for the next year as i dont know of anything more graphically intensive coming up. 8800gt sli will last me for over a year me thinks, so im gonna go that route.

 

[DefRef]

Just a follow-on update: The PC has been shutting down at random, never when I'm using it, typically in the middle of the night. Weird. MBM5 and SmartGuardian were giving contradictory readings, appearing to flip the CPU and chipset readings.

What was causing concern was that the chipset was reading over 70C. After the rig shut down while I wasn't looking tonight, I booted into BIOS and saw the Shutdown Temp was 65C which was lower than what wasn't working. Hmmm. The legendary crappy DFI chipset fan wasn't spinning, but when I tried to goose it into action, it stayed still. Going at it with a pencil, I was surprised to see the entire blade piece fall off. Uh-oh. No fan at all, as if a non-running fan was any use either.

What to do? The same thing I did back in the day when video cards needed some help: put in a Card Cooler (jeez, look at the date on that review!) with it bridging across the video cards. Because of the dimensions of the card and the SLI bridge, it's being secured by the power cables from the hard drives. (You do NOT want to see the snake nest in my case now.)

How did it work? Here's the before and after:

Before:
? NF4 Chipset: 74C
? GPU core: 68C

After:
? NF4 Chipset: 51C
? GPU core: 56C

Yikes! We'll see if it holds together better now, but this is quite an improvement. I may put a Card Cooler into the next rig if it's gonna have this sort of effect.

 

[Zap]

Ghetto, but works! I have fond memories of my cooling contraptions BITD, before all the fancy aftermarket stuff when you had to find good fans from industrial shops and use spare bits of metal, plumbers tape and such to place fans in exactly the right spot.

 

[DefRef]

I used to use "squirrel cage" fan tacked up with this gummy green gunk used to tack together floral things to point directly at what needed cooling. I haven't used such methods in over 5 years, but I had the Card Cooler stashed in a box right next to my desk - awaiting the day it could serve my cooling needs again.

 

[poohbear]

i just use the HR-05 thermalright heatsink for my NB. It would fit between ur sli vid cards i imagine. It cools better than most fans and its completely silent (passive). I get 44c under load on my DFI Expert NB.

 

[DefRef]

I can't get at the broken fan without tearing apart the whole rig and since I'm planning on building a new rig in the next couple of months - hey, I've got the video cards and new PS already - I'm just gonna limp along like this. It seems to be working great other than my 3DMark06 scores being a fraking joke. I played the FF HL2 Cinematic Mod at 19x12 and everything full blast and it ran smooth as glass.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: DefRef
I used to use "squirrel cage" fan

Nidec Gamma 28?

Originally posted by: DefRef
It seems to be working great other than my 3DMark06 scores being a fraking joke.

That's synthetic benchmarking for ya!

 

[DefRef]

Never heard of that fan. They were round turbine units that looked like a Bundt cake pan. The air came in the side thru a round opening and then was blown out a spout. I can't find an example at the moment, but if you've ever ridden thru a car wash, the air blowers at the end are giant versions of these.