What should do ? Go SLI or no ?

[Candymancan]

Im buying a new HDD for my PC so i dont have much money left over maybe $100-$110. I dont know what to buy next really.

I was thinking of buying another 8800GTS 640 and going SLI but i need to get lucky and find one for around $100.


My system specs are

Opteron 165 @ 3ghz
4GB G.skill DDR500
8800GTS 640 the older 96 shader model
DFI NF4 SLI-DR
Antec 650w trio power


Basicly my pc as you can see is getting old now, if i could i would upgrade the whole thing or just the cpu at least but i cant. I dont really like selling my stuff either cuss i always give it to my brother when i actually upgrade the whole thing. Hes on a 9700pro A64 3000+ 1.5gb ram lol.

Anyway.

Can you guys help me find some reviews that hopefully have the 8800GTS 640 in SLI and not in SLI compared to other graphics cards in games like crysis ect ?

I dont know what the performance increase will be. From what iv seen of the 4850 its pretty similer to a GTS 512 or GTX 768, so i dont think selling my card and buying one of those would really boost my performance much over 2 8800GTS's but who knows ? Cuss i sure as hell dont. All i see are 8800GT and GTS512 benchmarks but not 640's.

My motherboard is also PCI-E 1.0 so i dont know if itll work with all these new 2.0 cards

 

[taltamir]

I don't think it is a good idea, SLI heats up your room like crazy, has microstutter, costs an arm and a leg in electricity to operate, requires an extreme PSU upgrade (although you seem to have one beefy enough), and so on...

SELL your 8800GTS 640, add those 100 to whatever you get, and buy a new single card with that. (which, considering your card's performance, will probably even perform better).

Multi GPU has never, EVER been and never WILL be a viable upgrade method, it costs too much and gives too little (electricity costs money too, lots). Multi GPU is for getting more with today's latest cards then you could with a single card.

 

[Candymancan]

Can you explain this microstutter ?

I mean its pretty self explanitory by the name but you know what i mean ?


Btw im not worried about heat im in the basment where its always around 60-66F, nore am i concerned with electric costs really. Pretty sure 1 GTX 280 will draw more power then 2 GTS's correct me if im wrong.


EDIT: yea i checked. 2x GTS draw 270 watts idle, 380-400 load. A single GTX280 draws 177 idle and 298 load. 2 draw 500.

I dunno 100 more watts i dont think is much really. I replaced all my lightbulbs with energy efficient ones recently so i guess itll even itself out.


From what iv been see'ing 2x 8800GT in SLI beat a single GTX 260 and GTX280, since a GT is all i have to compare my card too i can only assume i will get near same results if i overclock the cards assuming if i get 2.

But what is microstutter your talkin about ?

 

[SolMiester]

Do a search on the microstutter.....sell the GTS to ya brother.....get 1 new card, easy peasy!

 

[Shortass]

Sell the GTS and with the $100 or so plus what you already have you can buy a 260 gtx or a new ATI card. It will perform much better than what you have and will at least equal SLI performance, with greatly less power used and heat generated, no microstutter, will allow multiple monitors and will let you use your current PSU.

I bet there are a few other reasons, too. SLI doesn't scale well or at all in some games, causing some to downright crash. Not worth it!

 

[ViRGE]

I think he should go with the second card. Nothing except the GTX280 handily beats G80/G92 SLI setups, and he certainly won't be getting that. As long as he's not sensitive to microstutter, it's a good upgrade for him.