Which? 2 $180 SLI cards or 1 360 card?

[Wonkavator]

Hey guys,

new to the forum.

Looking to put together a new PC. I game a decent amount but can never get myself to blow the wad on top of the line card.


So which do you think is a better choice for the time being with an upgrade down the line.


If I spend around $360 dollars. Would I be better of buying two SLI cards now, then down the road (2+ years) buying 2 newer cards when needed.

Or

Buying around a $360 card now and then a second down the road when needed.


ALso would the two lesser cards be faster? I did not really have anything in mind just yet, but you know the general prices for cards so what does everyone think?


Thanks

 

[Munky]

Hey, welcome to the forums. The best choice is generally a 3rd option not listed above: buy a single fast card, and then a year or two from now, sell it and get a newer single fast card. It's hard to know how the cards will perform without exact model names, but if you're thinking 2 7600gt in SLI or a single 7900gt, then go with the single 7900gt. SLI is only a good option if you're getting 2 fast cards righ away for high resolution gaming. It's not the best option as an upgrade path, or for using 2 midrange cards together instead of a single high end card.

 

[Wonkavator]

Hey munky,

thanks for the reply. I have not really read up a huge amount on SLI, but from what your implying. SLI does not really offer much in the way of performance. What is the real benefit of SLI? I will do some searching and read what I can on it.


My current system has a 6800, bought about 2 years ago. So both options will be a nice boost.
And yes I was thinking along the lines of 2 (7600 GT)s or 1 (7900GT)

The upgrade reasoning really depending on which was best value for my money.
If I spend the 360 on a 7900 GT, then down the road when I wanted more peformance I would buy a 2nd 7900 for hopefully much less money.

or

If I spend around 340 on 2 (7600 GT)s then down when ready for an upgrade, I would imagine I would spend a similar amount of money on 2 better cards for around the same amount.


I guess the real question is what has better performance. One 7900 GT or two 7600 GTs?

Not sure it if matters, but my gaming tastes usually stick to FPS

Thanks

 

[keeleysam]

One 7900GT.

The ONLY SLi that makes sense EVER is two of the top of the line cards, the 7900GTX.

 

[deadseasquirrel]

I don't know of any reviews off the top of my head that feature SLI 7600GTs vs. 7900GT, but, like Munky, I would imagine that the 7900GT would be the best option, especially if you chose to volt-mod it. The 7600GTs, on the other hand, can be very nice in a quiet SLI setup.

SLI, generally, has a very good performance increase... yet, usually, this is at higher resolutions, such as 1600x1200. In such cases, with many of the latest games, performance increases anywhere from 50% to 90%. That's pretty good. What resolution do you play at, by the way? Are you limited to a certain resolution because of an LCD? What display do you have?

The problem with upgrading to a 2nd card down the line is that these cards are usually replaced by a newer generation, forcing retailers to then carry the new cards and not the old ones. And the retailers that do carry the old cards don't discount them in relation to their performance when compared to the new version. You see this right now with 7800GTs and the 7900GTs. It forces the buyer to find used cards in order to upgrade to SLI-- which isn't too bad if you can find someone offering a good deal and has good equipment that has been well taken care of.

I used SLI 6800GTs from January '05 thru to April '06. I bought them at the same time, not upgrading later. Buying 2 top-tier cards at the same time allowed me to continue playing at high levels of performance while skipping the 78xx cards and finally upgrading to an XTX. SLI worked well for me and I liked using it. At the time of my build, it worked for my budget too. With this next generation that will arrive, I'm thinking that you'll likely want one of the new gen cards instead of buying a 2nd old-gen one at that time.

 

[Wonkavator]

So the marketing department has worked their magic.

Well I have always played at 1024x760 but that was mainly becuase of the limitations of the cards. I would have played higher if available.

 

[Munky]

SLI does offer increased performance, but it's never a 2x increase. It varies from game to game, and also depends on the settings used. In some games you will get an 80 or 90% increase, while in others you may only get a 40-50% boost. In some cases SLI offers almost no improvement, such as was the case with Farcry running with HDR enabled. That's why a single fast card for the same price is a better option, because it will always be faster than a single midrange card, and does not suffer from some of the bugs and issues that dual cards have, such as getting vsync to work.

 

[Wonkavator]

Thanks all for your advice.

Appreciate your time to help me out on this. I guess I never realized that the newer cards were really that much a huge jump in performance.

Looks like I will be buying a 7900 GT or similar card.

Thanks again guys.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: keeleysam
One 7900GT.

The ONLY SLi that makes sense EVER is two of the top of the line cards, the 7900GTX.

Well you could buy a 7900GT now and if you see a good deal on a new or used one 6 months from now then you could go SLI.

That's what I am going to do when I build. I will buy a SLI motherboard and one card, then later I will keep an eye on eBay or the FS/FT threads or even new cards for a sweet deal and go SLI.

 

[gobucks]

i generally agree that SLI is only worthwhile with 2 top of the line cards. If you look at benchmarks, it is quite obvious that SLI performance is less than 100% efficient, meaning that you'll gain between 40-70% IF the game is optimized for SLI. On the other hand, the $300 7900GT is nearly twice as fast as the $200 7600GT, and is good at overclocking, so it's pretty obvious which is the better use of your money. And while it may seem tempting to upgrade the 7900GT with another one down the road for faster performance, by then you'll be able to get a G80 or R600, which are directx10 compliant, so it will make much more sense to just sell your 7900GT and buy a new generation card. I though I'd do the same thing by SLI-ing my 6600GT, but when it came time to upgrade it made much more sense to just buy an X1800XT for $260 and sell the 6600GT.

 

[beggerking]

actually, both are excellent choices.
I think 7600 SLI would beat 7900GT stock, but with OC 7900GT would beat 7600 SLI stock.

but if you OC 7600SLI, then 7600 SLI would beat 7900GT OC.

 

[firewolfsm]

Originally posted by: keeleysam
One 7900GT.

The ONLY SLi that makes sense EVER is two of the top of the line cards, the 7900GTX.

Or two volt modded GTs

 

[Bull Dog]

Originally posted by: Wonkavator
The upgrade reasoning really depending on which was best value for my money.
If I spend the 360 on a 7900 GT, then down the road when I wanted more peformance I would buy a 2nd 7900 for hopefully much less money.

But see by the time you will want the another 7900GT it'll be a last-gen card and you will have to pay a premium for it and then it will be more cost effective to buy another single card.

 

[Sonikku]

SLI is for those that are not satisfied with the performance of the fastest card on the market and want to expand upon it, even if the cost to performance ratio goes down the toilet. You suggest that this rig will last you two years, although I suggest paying $180 for a quality mid range card each year, rather then $360 that is to last for two. Go with an X850XT for $164 on Newegg, or a 7600GT for $180. In a years time upgrade again, as either option will probably be too slow to run the latest with moderate quality settings.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

at those sorts of prices, its probably best to jus get a fast single card.

SLI is really only worth the hassel if your gonna buy the top tier cards like 2 7900's. well SLi isnt reallly any hassel, it works great, but it s not worth it in this situation. if you got an SLI motherboard jus leave it at that, least then you will have the opertunity to SLI later on when, say, you have more money to spend

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: Bull Dog

Originally posted by: Wonkavator
The upgrade reasoning really depending on which was best value for my money.
If I spend the 360 on a 7900 GT, then down the road when I wanted more peformance I would buy a 2nd 7900 for hopefully much less money.

But see by the time you will want the another 7900GT it'll be a last-gen card and you will have to pay a premium for it and then it will be more cost effective to buy another single card.

exactly. i dont know how many times this has to be said. sli is not a good upgrade path. it only makes since if you are getting two top end cards to begin with. two top cards are only neccesary if you will be running high resolutions like 1600 or better. anything under that and all that is needed is a single top end card.

 

[deadseasquirrel]

Originally posted by: toyota
two top cards are only neccesary if you will be running high resolutions like 1600 or better. anything under that and all that is needed is a single top end card.

While I generally agree with you about SLI/CF mainly being useful at 1600x1200 and above, there have been some games that have come out recently that show a good increase in performance even at 1280x1024. Notably, Oblivion:
Single cards
SLI/CF

Results for the clicky-impaired:

Oblivion, 1280x1024 Foliage HDR 0xAA 8xAF
Card........single.......dual......%increase
XTX.........32.5..........51.8.....59%
x18xt.......28.6.........46.5......63%
79GTX......24.6.........43.7......77%
79GT........17.2.........31.7......84%
78GTX......17.3.........31.1......80%
78GT........13.2........21.7.......64%
68GT.........7.8.........14.6.......87%

Those increases look pretty good for 1280x1024-- in some cases making it go from unplayable to playable. Granted, the 1600x1200 numbers look even better and are closer to 100% increase across all SLI/CF configs, so that is where you'll see your best performance increase. But I wouldn't completely shrug off SLI/CF at 1280x1024 since it's really dependent on the specific game. COD2, FEAR, and now Oblivion have very good increases at 1280. Many other games do not. We'll have to wait and see if these next-gen games coming out later this year behave like some of these recent releases.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: deadseasquirrel

Originally posted by: toyota
two top cards are only neccesary if you will be running high resolutions like 1600 or better. anything under that and all that is needed is a single top end card.

While I generally agree with you about SLI/CF mainly being useful at 1600x1200 and above, there have been some games that have come out recently that show a good increase in performance even at 1280x1024. Notably, Oblivion:
Single cards
SLI/CF

Results for the clicky-impaired:

Oblivion, 1280x1024 Foliage HDR 0xAA 8xAF
Card........single.......dual......%increase
XTX.........32.5..........51.8.....59%
x18xt.......28.6.........46.5......63%
79GTX......24.6.........43.7......77%
79GT........17.2.........31.7......84%
78GTX......17.3.........31.1......80%
78GT........13.2........21.7.......64%
68GT.........7.8.........14.6.......87%

Those increases look pretty good for 1280x1024-- in some cases making it go from unplayable to playable. Granted, the 1600x1200 numbers look even better and are closer to 100% increase across all SLI/CF configs, so that is where you'll see your best performance increase. But I wouldn't completely shrug off SLI/CF at 1280x1024 since it's really dependent on the specific game. COD2, FEAR, and now Oblivion have very good increases at 1280. Many other games do not. We'll have to wait and see if these next-gen games coming out later this year behave like some of these recent releases.

well you dont want to limit yourself to 1280x1024 or below if you are going to with a sli 7900gtx setup.

 

[compgeek89]

two 7900 GTs are actually the best SLI optiona available, they offer a huge increase over 1 GTX for only ~$50 more.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: keeleysam
One 7900GT.

The ONLY SLi that makes sense EVER is two of the top of the line cards, the 7900GTX.

I would generally agree with that the assessment with the caveat that, depending on whatever models are available and pricing, it is often somewhat sensible to look at getting the two of the second fastest model available vs one of the fastest card available. The flagship model often carries a premium price in excess of it's increased performance.

With that said, the added cost of purchasing an SLI capable motherboard and added complexity of a dual GPU setup may negate this benefit for many users.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

Originally posted by: compgeek89
two 7900 GTs are actually the best SLI optiona available, they offer a huge increase over 1 GTX for only ~$50 more.

QFT

 

[deadseasquirrel]

Originally posted by: theprodigalrebel

Originally posted by: compgeek89
two 7900 GTs are actually the best SLI optiona available, they offer a huge increase over 1 GTX for only ~$50 more.

QFT

Most definitely. A few interesting stats:

FEAR 1600x1200 4xAA 16xAF link
GPU.............fps.......price
7900GTX......49........$465
7900GT SLI...67.......$530

A 36% performance increase for a 14% price increase. (Just pulled the pricing from Anandtech's RTP, so some better deals may exist)

Oblivion 1280x1024 HDR 8xAF Foliage
GPU.............fps.......price
79GTX..........24.6....$465
79gt SLI.......31.7....$530

Another 29% increase in fps for the 14% increase in price.

I didn't take into account overclocking since both cards can easily be overclocked. The GTs, however, have an even bigger advantage in volt-modding to push clocks even further.

I would've totally jumped all over SLI GTs except for 3 things-- my budget was a strict <$450, only 256mb ram, and performance in Oblivion was about equal to the single XTX.

 

[compgeek89]

Im vmodding mine soon, wont stop until 750mhz core is a reality.