To SLI or not to SLI

[imported_spike99]

I don't know if having 2 8800 GTX will make a difference... can you help me decide...

I am planning to buy a PC in September and this is what more or less what I will buy:
OS: Vista Home 32-bit
CPU: QX6850 @ 3.6
GPU: 8800 GTX
Monitor: DELL 24" 1920 x 1200
Games: Company of Heroes, BF2, Crysis (coming soon) and some other games....

I know that having 2 8800GTX in SLI will improve FPS... but my question is.... Will the human eye see any difference playing games at the highest settings playing with 1 or 2 8800GTX ?

I was a bit hesitant in buying next month since new GPU from NVIDIA - G92 possibly may be coming out in November.... but I found that if you buy from EVGA they have a 90 day period where you can upgrade to any card that is available.... you can upgrade... but you do have to pay a price difference - I figure that the price difference won't be much....

So, if you tell me that it does make a difference and to go with SLI.... Then I will buy 2 GPU's.... But it just occurred to me that If I buy 1 GPU now and then in November.... If G92 does come out then upgrade with EVGA and then get another G92 to have SLI. In this scenario, I only pay the difference of 1 card instead of paying the difference of 2 cards....

Note: If 90 days does go by and NVIDIA does not come out with G92, then I would buy another 8800GTX.


What do you guys think ?

 

[MarcVenice]

Go with one 8800gtx for now. And don't buy a qx6850 -_- Buy a q6600 g0 stepping and OC it to 3.2-3.4ghz, with some luck it will hit 3.6ghz as well with good air cooling.

 

[daveybrat]

Don't waste your money on a QX6850, like mark said, just get the Q6600 and overclock that. And a single 8800GTX is more than fine for now, unless you have money to burn and don't mind dealing with SLI issues in Vista.

 

[imported_spike99]

OK, I'm gonna go with a single 8800GTX until November/December... But, going back to the origina question... Is there a noticable difference having 2 8800GTX in SLI ?

In regards to the CPU... I will have a good cooling sys (Vigor Gaming Monsoon II Lite CLT-M2LI LGA775 CPU Air Conditioner Cooling System) so I may go with Q6600....

 

[JPB]

Originally posted by: spike99
OK, I'm gonna go with a single 8800GTX until November/December... But, going back to the origina question... Is there a noticable difference having 2 8800GTX in SLI ?

In regards to the CPU... I will have a good cooling sys (Vigor Gaming Monsoon II Lite CLT-M2LI LGA775 CPU Air Conditioner Cooling System) so I may go with Q6600....

Well of course there will be faster performance with SLI. But not enough increase to justify the extra $550 or what ever it is. Get one GTX now, then hopefully before November or so, step up to the new cards.
I was in this same situation, MarcVenice persuaded me to go with one card also.

Check out this review, single card vs. dual card

The GeForce 8800 in SLI

 

[SniperWulf]

IMHO, don't waste your time with SLI period. Sure it looks good in benchmarks, etc. But when it starts flaking out and not working like advertised... you'll be like.... OK why did I pay for 2 of these again?

 

[JAG87]

Dont bother with SLI when we are so close to next gen. Your 8800 GTX will already lose a great deal of value when G92 hits, the last thing you want is to have 2 of them on your hands and double that loss.

And as far as the cpu goes, dont touch the QX6850 unless you are planning for 4+ ghz overclocks with compressor cooling. The unlocked multiplier is a luxury you don't need with today's motherboards hitting above 400 fsb.

 

[HannibalX]

I have been running two Asus 8800 GTXs in SLI for about a month and I love them.

If you keep waiting for the next new part you will never buy anything!

 

[AlucardX]

i've never really felt that SLI was worth the cost. with all the driver, OS, and (some) game conflicts.. just seems more painful than it is worth it.

spend the money on a single high end card, and use the extra cash to round out your system, or simply save the money.

i'd rather move to new generation video cards as they become available than to be heavily invested in an expensive SLI setup.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Pale Rider, nice OC on that A64...! :shocked:

 

[HannibalX]

Thanks! I was crusing for months with the stock cooler @ 3.0 GHZ. I fixed my airflow problem in my case and upgraded to a Zalman and it his 3.4 without incident!

 

[imported_spike99]

JPB,

Thanks for the 8800 in SLI link...

Although it was reviewed on 1/23/07, and some issues with SLI may have been worked out... The bottom line is that I will have a 24" Monitor 1920 x 1200 ( 2 Mpixels). It appears you may need a 30" Monitor (4 Mpixels) to take full advantage of 8800 in SLI... and even having a 30" Monitor, a single 8800 GTX may be good enough...

So, I think I am going with a single card and having the option of SLI at the end of the year.... But I will probably stick with a single card...

Thanks !!

 

[JAG87]

Originally posted by: Pale Rider
Thanks! I was crusing for months with the stock cooler @ 3.0 GHZ. I fixed my airflow problem in my case and upgraded to a Zalman and it his 3.4 without incident!

you have a very, very special cpu. that might be the only K8 chip I have ever seen running at 3.4 ghz on air. do you mind taking a screenshot? I find it a bit hard to believe.

 

[HannibalX]

What you choose to believe or not believe is of little concern to me.

 

[nitromullet]

With the 9800GTX upon us in a few months I would suggest building your rig with an EVGA 8800GTS and then if the 9-series launches 90 days after you purchase your GTS, sell the card a week or two before the launch on Ebay. Else, just Step-Up to a 9-series card with the EVGA Step-Up program. If you're impatient, you could even buy one 9-series card on launch day, and then use the Step-Up to acquire the second one if you decide you want to go SLI.

As far as going SLI goes, it's really up to you... I've had a number of SLI rigs, and while it does make things a bit more difficult sometimes, it can be interesting if you like to tinker a bit, plus the performance is amazing. NV is pretty good about supporting new, graphically intensive, games with new profiles as the games are launched (I'm sure they will be all over Crysis). Don't expect a lot of legacy app support for SLI from them though, but it's not as if you need it.

The main drawback that I've found with SLI, is that in some games v-sync just won't work or it won't be stable, so you have to turn it off. On the flip side of that, if a game is smoothly playable with a singe card, you can usually run with massive amounts of AA which can really make your games look nice.

...I only speak of my experiences with 7-series/XP SLI though, since I haven't toyed with 8-series/Vista SLI. I skipped the 8-series SLI and 6-series SLI, as both of them were new architectures. I am hoping that NV will improve the 9-series/Vista SLI as much as they improved SLI from the 6-series to the 7-series, as I'd like to run an SLI rig again. It also simply wasn't necessary this year, since there were few games that actually taxed my 8800GTX, even at 1920x1200. I think that will change at the end of this year as more DX10 titles are released and the bar gets raised.

...sorry for the long rambling post... I just felt a lot of SLI hate in this thread, and wanted to give it a fair shake. Hope this helps...

 

[aka1nas]

As an aside, how much RAM were you going to include in that rig? Keep in mind that with SLI'ed 8800GTXs on Vista(or XP) 32-bit, you will automatically lose at least 1.5GB of usable address space, which means you will only be able to have 2.5GB at most usable in Windows if you install 4GB of RAM.

 

[imported_spike99]

aka1nas,

I went with 2 Gigs of RAM with my rig... I should get it in 2 weeks.

At the beginning I really wanted to go for SLI, but after reading the GTX SLI review JPB provided... I am somewhat convinced that if you have a monitor below 30" you don't really need SLI (I'm getting a DELL 24").

I checked with EVGA and in order for me to upgrade within the 90 day period, I needed a receipt indicating how much I paid for card... When buying a PC from a vendor they will give you a receipt with total price... they don't provide an invoice with components parts... so I purchased rig with no video card... and will buy GTX from newegg seperately.

Most vendors when buying PC, you have to buy a video card... with CYBERPOWER you have the option of buying with no video cards...

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: AlucardX
i've never really felt that SLI was worth the cost. with all the driver, OS, and (some) game conflicts.. just seems more painful than it is worth it.

spend the money on a single high end card, and use the extra cash to round out your system, or simply save the money.

i'd rather move to new generation video cards as they become available than to be heavily invested in an expensive SLI setup.

I'm you with buddy. SLI is a waste of money from the get go IMO. You know beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the a single next gen high end card will always outperform your SLI setup while using less power.

SLIing midrange or low end cards is a feature that only sheep fall for.

Its far better to take that 400 to 600 dollars you saved on video cards and using it to buy more RAM, a better display, etc.