Thinking about upgrading come January, need some recs/things cleared up.

[TheVrolok]

So I built my current system a little over a year ago now.

Q6600
EVGA 750i FTW
4GB RAM
8800GT
Corsair 620HX

I've loved it. The 8800GT turned out to be a wonderful choice. Now I'm looking for a bit more. I've recently upgrade my monitor to the BenQ G2400WD in all it's glory. I consider myself a fairly hardcore gamer, play a bit of everything from FPS/RTS/RPG/MMO/etc, and do enjoy good performance. I will be gaming on my 24" monitor and 42" TV so I'll most likely game at 1920x1200 and 1920x1080 respectively. Though I may drop down to 1680x1050 or 720p if necessary. I'm looking for a video upgrade. Now, the 295 is on the horizon and the tag will be sizable, but I don't so much mind, I'm looking for a solid upgrade. However, I don't think I keep up with hardware enough to know what my best route is.

I've been wondering if I should stick with a single card and pick up the GTX295 when it debuts, or perhaps go SLI with 2x GTX 260's. Perhaps I'll just sell/pass down my 8800GT, but then I was wondering; could I use my 8800GT as a dedicated PhysX card? If so, would there be an advantage? I'm honestly relatively clueless here. I used to keep up pretty well with hardware, but I just don't have the time anymore. Also, are we looking at any bottlenecking issues with the processor? I'm starting to wonder if I should just pick up a faster C2D as the C2Q is still a bit off from being fully utilized.

 

[Tempered81]

You can pick up a second 8800GT for sli right now for about $90, overclock both cards, and have quite a fast rig.

You can grab two GTX260 192's for $410, or two core 216's for $470.

I would sell the 8800gt, unless you really want it in the 3rd slot for physx...

 

[TheVrolok]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
You can pick up a second 8800GT for sli right now for about $90, overclock both cards, and have quite a fast rig.

You can grab two GTX260 192's for $410, or two core 216's for $470.

I would sell the 8800gt, unless you really want it in the 3rd slot for physx...

The one problem with an 8800GT SLI setup I could foresee is the fact that mine is the XFX alpha dog edition (slight factory OC), and I haven't been able to find a second one at a good price. Would you recommend 2x GTX 260's then, instead of the single 295 when it comes out?

 

[phexac]

Unless you are using a 30" screen or are trying to run crysis maxed out, it seems that second tier of high performance cards, such as as the GTX260 and 4870 run every single game out there very well, especially if you get one of their overclocked editions. I really don't see the need for an SLI solution, be it two separate cards or one of the GX2 options. If it were me, I would start with a single GTX260 (whichever variety you want) and then add a second one should you decide you want some extra performance. A single GTX260 will be a significant jump from your current card.

 

[chizow]

If you have an SLI board already, I do think native SLI would offer more performance and flexibility, particularly if you overclock. We'll have to see how well the GTX295 OCs, but the GX2 even though it OC'd well still fell short of some of the similar single card G92 OCs. If that board is PCI2.0 the 8x per PCIE is less of an issue, but another small advantage of single card SLI over SLI in a single slot as each card would get 8x and not have to share bandwidth.

You can use the 8800GT for PhysX, however, there are no significant titles available now that would take advantage of it and the two on the horizon (Mirror's Edge and Cryostasis) would probably run the same with GTX 260 SLI or GTX 295 with or without the 8800GT as a PhysX processor. If you could get anything in return (~$100) I'd just sell the 8800GT and worry about PhysX later.

As for the CPU, is it overclocked at all? If not, then yes a faster C2D would offer more performance in most games. If you can't OC the Q6600, there's not too much point in going SLI as many of the recent reviews show significant bottlenecking for all of the faster multi-GPU solutions, even as high as 2560 with AA.

Personally I'd go with a single GTX c216 (55nm version if you can) and then add another if you're itching for more performance. It'll probably end up being cheaper, should OC better and offer more flexibility than the GTX 295.

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

I'm in the same boat, nearly exactly. I have a Palit 8800GT 1gig Sonic edition (factory clocked to 650mhz; I clock it even more though). I game on my 37" 1080p HDTV primarily. The 8800gt is an amazing card even today. But, some games it just can't power at 1920x1080 with 4x AA enabled, and that's where I like to be at. The simplest solutions is to get another 8800gt and SLI them. Amazing power. Two 8800gt's to this day out power a lot of new stuff. They're just that good. But finding another Palit sonic like I have has proven prohibitive. I can get a normal 8800gt for like $100 both at Tiger & the Egg. But I can't get another exact model like mine. No one is selling it. I found it on some other websites, but they still want nearly $300 for the thing--which is stupid.

So the next choice is which videocard to go to then.

I would not bother with the GTX295 unless you really, really only want to have 1 videocard in your computer. It performs about the same as two GTX260's. It costs more. $499 for the GTX295 is projected. GTX260's are only $199 at the Egg right now. That's $100 difference for the same performance. The only real difference is two cards or one card. I'd rather save the $100 and get two cards. Plus, the sandwich cards tend to have `minimum fps' issues.

And if you have a 3rd PCIe slot, you could use the 8800gt for Physx (not that it actually makes any lick of difference, yet).

Very best,

 

[Genx87]

I'd look for a cheaper 280 or a 260 216. I think that Q6600 could be a bottleneck for gaming since it is at 2.4Ghz. Also spend the 45-60 bucks and get another 4GB of ram

 

[TheVrolok]

I used to have my Q6600 (it is the SLACR with G0 stepping) OC'd at 3.0 and it ran absolutely perfectly till my old board (Asus P5N32-E Sli Plus) just quit one day. I don't think it was a very good board to be honest, but I've been somewhat weary of OC'ing since. Though this 750i FTW OCs much better from what I've read. So perhaps I'll push it back up to 3.0 to eliminate some CPU bottlenecking. If I could run my Q6600@3.0 stable do you think it would eliminate the need for a faster C2D? I really don't want to spend the money on 2x 260/280's only to be bottlenecked by a Q6600@3.0.

 

[nitromullet]

If I was in your shoes, I'd go with a single GTX 260 or HD 4870 1GB. If you have been happy with an 8800GT for the past year, you will be happy with either of those for the next.

As far as processors go... Personally, I wouldn't bother with another LGA 775 chip at this point. LGA 775, FSB, DDR2 are a dead platform going forward. Nothing wrong with either of them, but I wouldn't invest any new funds into a platform that has been replaced.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: TheVrolok
I used to have my Q6600 (it is the SLACR with G0 stepping) OC'd at 3.0 and it ran absolutely perfectly till my old board (Asus P5N32-E Sli Plus) just quit one day. I don't think it was a very good board to be honest, but I've been somewhat weary of OC'ing since. Though this 750i FTW OCs much better from what I've read. So perhaps I'll push it back up to 3.0 to eliminate some CPU bottlenecking. If I could run my Q6600@3.0 stable do you think it would eliminate the need for a faster C2D? I really don't want to spend the money on 2x 260/280's only to be bottlenecked by a Q6600@3.0.

At 3Ghz it will help a bunch. I wouldnt bother getting another C2D unless you plan on going for 3.6-4Ghz. I still think a 260 216 or 280 is a better more cost efficient use of your money.

 

[AuDioFreaK39]

I game at 2048x1152 (16:9) on a 23" Samsung 2343BWX. The resolution is very similar to 1920x1200, only off by 55,000 pixels. I use a single GTX 280 @ 670x2430 but to be honest, Crysis still suffers. If you're looking to play very GPU intensive games like Crysis, Fallout 3, and NFS Undercover, I would suggest using at minimum GTX 260 Core 216 SLI or a GTX 295.

http://firingsquad.com/hardwar...nce/images/cry1920.gif


The advantage of you going with a GTX 295 would be that you could use your 8800GT as a dedicated PhysX card, and your GTX 295 could focus solely on rendering graphics which would in turn give you more performance.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: TheVrolok
I used to have my Q6600 (it is the SLACR with G0 stepping) OC'd at 3.0 and it ran absolutely perfectly till my old board (Asus P5N32-E Sli Plus) just quit one day. I don't think it was a very good board to be honest, but I've been somewhat weary of OC'ing since. Though this 750i FTW OCs much better from what I've read. So perhaps I'll push it back up to 3.0 to eliminate some CPU bottlenecking. If I could run my Q6600@3.0 stable do you think it would eliminate the need for a faster C2D? I really don't want to spend the money on 2x 260/280's only to be bottlenecked by a Q6600@3.0.

These reviews show just how close the fastest multi-GPU solutions are with the fastest CPU available overclocked to 3.6-3.8GHz. You'll clearly see they're all still bottlenecked even as high as 2560 with 4xAA. You'll also notice how close a single GTX 280 is to the multi-GPU solutions before it reaches it hits a GPU bottleneck, typically around 1920 with 8xAA or 2560. Key thing to remember is that without a fast CPU, you may not generate enough FPS to make any meaningful difference between single and multi-GPU.

GTX 295, 4870X2, GTX 280 Review

Bit-Tech SLI Scaling with Core i7

And these reviews will give you a good idea of how your Q6600 at stock stacks up. You'll see that generally a faster clocked C2D provides more performance and that clock speeds are especially important if you're considering SLI or CF with the fastest single cards available.

GTA4 - 13 CPU round-up

COD4 + GRiD - Intel CPU Clock for Clock Comparison @ 2GHz

COD5 - 12 Intel and AMD CPUs

Far Cry 2 - various speeds

Left 4 Dead - various speeds

Nvidia chipsets are certainly much more of a PITA to OC than Intel chipsets, but what VID is your G0? I couldn't get more than 3.1GHz stable on my 650i boards but knew I had a nice chip (VID 1.2375v). This board made OC'ing it simple. Biggest thing I found to help on NV boards was a VTT% setting, I had to max it at 20% to get any type of stability. The other thing I noticed was NV boards tend to undervolt/droop considerably. I couldn't increase the setting any higher and still, the BIOS to actual was off by nearly 0.2v.

I'd certainly try to OC that Q6600 to 3.0GHz+ otherwise you may look into selling it and replacing it with something like an E8500 for about the same money. Other option would be Core i7 but that's a much greater expense, especially if you're already upgrading the GPU.

 

[TheVrolok]

Originally posted by: chizow

... snip ...

Thanks for the great post. I've currently got my Q6600 @ 3.0 (9x333) 1.37 (I honestly just left the vcore on auto for now until I see how stable it is, I'll play with dropping it a bit to see where I can save heat later). I've had about an hour of 100% Prime95 load now and the hottest core is just tipping 65C (my room ambient temp is pretty warm sadly, and I think the thermal paste job I did last time I reseated my CPU/Arctic 7 Freezer pro may be a bit lackluster). Still, 65c isn't terrible under 100% load. Also, I'm thinking about watercooling my system to cut down on some noise and save performance so we'll see where that goes.

I'd like to get some more leg work out of my Q6600 before I go buying a new processor, and as long as this OC holds up, I may just do that. If I do WC, I might try kicking it up to 3.3-3.5.

Annnyway, I'm thinking that I'll just end up waiting for the 285 reviews to come out and probably pick one up. The 295 might just be a bit too absurd.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: TheVrolok
Thanks for the great post. I've currently got my Q6600 @ 3.0 (9x333) 1.37 (I honestly just left the vcore on auto for now until I see how stable it is, I'll play with dropping it a bit to see where I can save heat later). I've had about an hour of 100% Prime95 load now and the hottest core is just tipping 65C (my room ambient temp is pretty warm sadly, and I think the thermal paste job I did last time I reseated my CPU/Arctic 7 Freezer pro may be a bit lackluster). Still, 65c isn't terrible under 100% load. Also, I'm thinking about watercooling my system to cut down on some noise and save performance so we'll see where that goes.

I'd like to get some more leg work out of my Q6600 before I go buying a new processor, and as long as this OC holds up, I may just do that. If I do WC, I might try kicking it up to 3.3-3.5.

Annnyway, I'm thinking that I'll just end up waiting for the 285 reviews to come out and probably pick one up. The 295 might just be a bit too absurd.

Np, although I would definitely take Vcore off Auto and just scale it as you go. Try using something like HW monitor to get an idea of voltages at idle and load.

Also with your G0, I actually meant using CoreTemp to find out your VID. Basically that's the factory validated voltage needed to run at stock speeds. The generally accepted significance meaning if it needs less voltage to run stock, it can achieve higher clocks with higher voltages and stay within TDP specs. Lower VID will generally give you an idea of how far you can push your chip if all other factors like cooling/chipset/mobo etc are nominal.

65C under load isn't too bad with that cooler, but once you hit ~3.5+GHz and 1.35 Vcore (actual from HWmonitor) there's a drastic increase in TDP. Biggest problems with the NV chipsets I had were FSB speeds couldn't go over 400MHz, I think anything over 385MHz was a problem actually. Increasing VTT% or FSB Termination voltage is a must here for Quad overclocking. Other issue was Vdroop as I stated earlier, where I had to max out the setting in the BIOS just to get enough power under load due to Vdroop.

Getting to 3.5/3.6 is pretty difficult on a Q6600, but 3.2 to 3.3 is much easier and requires much less voltage and cooling. Water may help for sure but I'd certainly check your VID to get an idea if its worth it before spending on a water cooling set-up.

 

[TheVrolok]

Shortly after my post, I dropped my Vcore down to 1.25v and Prime95 has been running just fine since. Haven't had a core hit over 55C either. So I may either have a bit more room to drop the vcore, or should be able to up my OC without sacrificing too much heat. I should be able to get this thing to 3.4 easy. Oh yeah, forgot to mention that it's a 1.25 VID. (I'm pretty sure on that Vcore/VID at least, I'm on my laptop atm, I'll have to check with HWmonitor anyway).