To SLI or not?

[AyashiKaibutsu]

So I'm in the stages of planning to build a new rig. Current one is a socket 754 3400+ 1gig of ram 6800gt. I'm mostly looking for an improvement in multitasking since I tend to have a game (WoW usually) running fulscreen windowmode (so alt tabbing is fast). When I'm running that, some IEs, Azureus, winamp, Visual Studios and/or netbeans, my computer slows down (still usable but it's annoying). Some times I'll run 2 instances of WoW at the same time. I figure switching to a dual core system + getting 2gigs of ram will help tremendously with that.

Now for the video part. At the moment, I'm using a 6800gt. I'm going from AGP to PCIe so changing cards is a must. I can buy a top end card, but not two, and it's questionable if I'll beable/want to buy a second top end before I end up building a whole new computer. Is there an advantage to getting 2 cheaper cards over a really expensive card?

It's also within reason to just get one card that's a little better than the 6800gt and plan on another upgrade in the future, but I'm personally leaning towards making it as big an upgrade as I can afford.

 

[keeleysam]

If you want to do SLi, get two 7900GTs. If not, get a 7900GTX or (shudder) X1900XTX.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Originally posted by: keeleysam
If you want to do SLi, get two 7900GTs. If not, get a 7900GTX or (shudder) X1900XTX.

I'm trying to figure out if I want SLI or not...

 

[Bartokomus]

um sorry to say, but WoW doesn't work with SLI. i went SLI so i could play oblivion (which it really helped!!!) but there are major problems ALT-Tabbing out of WoW, and if you check Thot or are going to run two instances, you'll have problems. Forums are full of complaints about this, but perhaps there is a fix for it out there...

 

[Cooler]

Unless you want the uber top end SLI/Crossfire is not worth it. Better off geting One top end card then two Mainstream cards.

 

[lein]

I can Alt-tab back and forth from WOW just fine with my 7800GTX + Athlon X2 3800+ and 2 gigs of ram

 

[Enig101]

Originally posted by: Cooler
Unless you want the uber top end SLI/Crossfire is not worth it. Better off geting One top end card then two Mainstream cards.

This is what I've heard. Unless you want to have dual high-end video cards to improve performance beyond the fastest single card out there, it's not worth it.

 

[nitromullet]

If your main game is WoW, SLI is not only overkill, but a bad idea since SLI has v-sync issues with WoW. Basically, what you end up with is the same experience as with a single card, but you get tearing...

For pretty much everything else, a single 7900GTX an X1900XT(X) will do the trick as well. I've done SLI and CrossFire, and I'm back to a solid single card. IMO, dual card setups are cool, but they simply aren't worth the cash unless you have a huge LCD that won't let you run a single card. I can play everything I've tried at 1680x1050 on my single X1900XTX with most of the available eye candy and some AA/AF, so I'm happy with what I have.

 

[Skott]

You didnt mention at what resolution you plan to use and thats what SLI really helps in. Gaming at high resolutions. If you got a LCD thats above 1600x1200 then SLI/Crossfire really helps out. If you are gaming at 1600x1200 or less then you'll get the same performance if not better with a really good single card like the x1900XT/X or the 7900GTX.