Author Topic: Add a second 7900GT or go to 1 8800GTS? (Read 425 times)

Nomak · « **on:** January 07, 2007, 10:13:55 PM »

The title says it all......

Opinions?

Dave

Reschke · « **Reply #1 on:** January 07, 2007, 11:40:59 PM »

Running 3DMark06 right now on a fresh and clean installation of WinXP Home SP2 with my Core2Duo and an 8800GTS with 640MB Ram. I will let you know in the morning what the score ends up being.

Well I just got the results now.

E6600 Core2Duo @ stock speed
EVGA 680i motherboard
EVGA 8800GTS 640MB stock speed
2GB DDR2800 Corsair XMS
WD Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s

I posted an 8837 3DMark score.

Krusty · « **Reply #2 on:** January 08, 2007, 12:55:33 AM »

1 single 8800 will leave a dual 7900 setup in the dust. It's just that radically different.

However, having said that, a 7900 is still damn respectable. I can't see anything out there today that would reach the limit of the 7900's capabilities, and you should get along fine for years to come with the card you have.

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #3 on:** January 08, 2007, 02:30:55 AM »

I found the 8800GTS a slight disappointment. It's not that big a leap over my old Radeon 800GTO I was expecting. Plus the 8800 drivers are absolutely horrible. Buggy, hard to navigate, lack functionality of older drivers.. A near disaster.

I absolutely detest the new .net based GUI.

SunKing · « **Reply #4 on:** January 08, 2007, 09:07:19 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Krusty
1 single 8800 will leave a dual 7900 setup in the dust. It's just that radically different.

What about going to a 8800 from a 7800GT? How big a leap is that?

whels · « **Reply #5 on:** January 08, 2007, 10:52:15 AM »

good place to test Video card vs Video card.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #6 on:** January 08, 2007, 12:41:29 PM »

The biggest problem with SLI is that when you buy a card you reason: When I need more power, I can get a similar second card upgrade cheaper than I bought this now.

When in reality it will be like: Pay $350 for a second outdated card for a 25% performance increase OR dish out $450 for a new generation that's 50-80% faster.

So the only appeal for SLI is for real geeks who want to invest $1100 for a high-end graphics SLI setup.

Nomak · « **Reply #7 on:** January 09, 2007, 08:03:58 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Reschke
Running 3DMark06 right now on a fresh and clean installation of WinXP Home SP2 with my Core2Duo and an 8800GTS with 640MB Ram. I will let you know in the morning what the score ends up being.

Well I just got the results now.

E6600 Core2Duo @ stock speed
EVGA 680i motherboard
EVGA 8800GTS 640MB stock speed
2GB DDR2800 Corsair XMS
WD Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s

I posted an 8837 3DMark score.

Does XP home recongnize both of your cpu's?

republic · « **Reply #8 on:** January 09, 2007, 08:34:21 AM »

If money is no object, by far the 8800GTS is the best choice. If your like me, and money is a BIG object

, you might could sell your current card to offset the additional cost.

Reschke · « **Reply #9 on:** January 09, 2007, 09:50:20 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Nomak
Does XP home recongnize both of your cpu's?

I really don't know because I haven't checked.

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #10 on:** January 09, 2007, 10:21:17 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by republic
If money is no object, by far the 8800GTS is the best choice. If your like me, and money is a BIG object , you might could sell your current card to offset the additional cost.

Uhm if money is no object, 8800GTX in SLI configuration would be the choice at the moment. At least untill R600 comes out.

Nomak · « **Reply #11 on:** January 09, 2007, 10:47:47 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Reschke
I really don't know because I haven't checked.

I only ask because someone that I work with claims that xp home does'nt work with dual core cpu's. I dont know if he is correct or not. If you dont mind checking I would be curious to know.

republic · « **Reply #12 on:** January 09, 2007, 11:03:03 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by MrRiplEy[H]
Uhm if money is no object, 8800GTX in SLI configuration would be the choice at the moment. At least untill R600 comes out.

I was just picking from the 2 choices he offered.

On a side note, I wish I had the extra pennies to be considering even a single "lowly" 8800GTS!
I can't wait to see what the R600 can do.

Nomak · « **Reply #13 on:** January 09, 2007, 11:24:41 AM »

Its a tough call.

The truth is that the 7900 I am now using is a fine card and I am getting simply unreal FR's with it at the moment. However I paid alot of extra money for a MB that had true X16 pcie support in SLI. So it just really bugs me every time I look over and I see 1 empty pcie slot.

To make matters worse, my 7900gt is the evga overclocked version that is for all intents and purposes no longer available. So if I buy another 7900 it will have different clock speeds. Nvidia says its ok to use different clock speeds on the different gpu's while in SLI but it just seems to me that it certianly wouldnt be optimal. I really am not sure as this would be my first attempt at SLI. Any opinions on this matter?

Its catch 22. I hate spending money on an outdated card and I hate getting rid of a dang fine card that I paid $300 for just a few months ago to move up to an 8800.

I was looking at the link that whels posted. Looks to me like the 8800 series doesnt really perform better than the others until the resoulition really goes up. At the resoulition that I am using I am not convinced that a single 8800 will out perform 2 7900gt's.

The numbers on the ATI x1950xtx are very impressive. To bad it costs what an 8800gts does....

Its probably best to just wait and see where the prices go.

Krusty · « **Reply #14 on:** January 09, 2007, 11:38:32 AM »

SLI is really just a sales pitch. It's like 8 cores in a computer. You don't get extra performance from it, you just spend more money.

While you get insane FRs now, you'll only get maybe 15% more fps with the second card, at more than double the cost (counting price of high-end SLI motherboard and high-end PSU with dual PCIe plugs and extra connectors, etc).

I say live with the empty slot. Use the money on a faster CPU or more RAM or water cooling. You won't gain at all by wasting it on another vid card when the one you have is already getting "insane" FRs.