To Sli or not - that is the Question

Grimspoon

Grimspoon

The Hoff
I have a 8800GT and I can possibly get my hands on another one from a friend.

I have read mixed reviews on wether putting 2 cards in Sli makes a difference..

SO my question is, if I can get the other GT at a good price will it make a difference to my performance or is it just a waste of cash?
 
I've heard that the 8800GT (my previous card) is a KILLER SLI card.

I had 2 8800GTS 640 cards in SLi, wich back then cost me close to 6K per card, along came the 8800GT wich was R1800 and it clobbered both my behemoths with a smile.

THe awesome thing I had with SLi on the 2 GTS cards though is, I could run crysis with 16xAA and experience only 1-3 FPS Drop in FPS over 4xAA :)

But there are games out there, very recent titles aswell that really don't show ANY benefit from a second card. I even had games run SLOWER because I had SLi Enabled.

Bear in mind again this was back in the day when the 8800GTS and GTX were king, back at the end of 2006, never touched an SLi Rig since. Just my 2 cents....
 
Thanks Maps,

I think I might see how much he wants for the card and if he is willing to let it go for a good price I might just do it ;)
 
SLi is great, when it works, as not all games can benefit from it. However it is going to be the cheaper route than buying an expensive high end graphics card and most games that are supported should see significant gains.
 
I would say it depends on how much you can get another one for, if it's to much sell your and buy a single card that has a chance of working with more games.
 
Yeah I think it all depends what I can get it for, also I found out that his card is the xxx edition and mine is the plain vanilla, I have OC mine to the xxx edition specs anyway but wonder if that might cause issues. Will try before I buy I think.
 
Grimspoon said:
Yeah I think it all depends what I can get it for, also I found out that his card is the xxx edition and mine is the plain vanilla, I have OC mine to the xxx edition specs anyway but wonder if that might cause issues. Will try before I buy I think.
Click to expand...

I hope it works for your part.
 
hmmmm ... usaully the problem with sli is the mobo ... as in unless its the latest mobo, getting a mobo that support sli and that is cheap is a real pain ...
 
Isengard said:
SLi is great, when it works, as not all games can benefit from it. However it is going to be the cheaper route than buying an expensive high end graphics card and most games that are supported should see significant gains.
Click to expand...

last sli setup i had was massive 10-20% increase in overall FSP and the cost lol, its not what it used to be with 2x voodoo's.
 
I run 2 HD 4870s in Crossfire and they are pretty epic.

Its difficult to compare to SLI, and I actually have no experience with dual Nvidia cards.

However, I have heard that those 8800GTs offer around 80/90% performance scaling improvements in SLI (in some games), which is very impressive.

I would do it if I were you
 
Tinman said:
I run 2 HD 4870s in Crossfire and they are pretty epic.

Its difficult to compare to SLI, and I actually have no experience with dual Nvidia cards.

However, I have heard that those 8800GTs offer around 80/90% performance scaling improvements in SLI (in some games), which is very impressive.

I would do it if I were you
Click to expand...

Yeah I reckon I am going to go for it. I got the board so I may as well take advantage of Sli. Waiting for this chap to decide when he wants to sell it.
 
i've been wondering about this aswell.
i have a 4870x2, power hungry bastard. Crossfire works ok for most of the time.

But my question is this, would a 3-way sli rather be the way to go...
for example 3 x 9600GT?
anyone who've tried this, pls give me some advice on this matter too..
The Joker, i've heard u the person to talk to :P
 
I built a Tri-Sli Setup once with 3 GTX 260's, Core i7 920.

Client was in the office while doing so, so I did not have time to bench or run games on it :(

After windows + Drivers, he took the pc and went :(
 
aaaa Maplassie, i see u also don't sleep... much :P
that Rig sounds totally awesome, the amount that must cost is even too much for myself to spend LOL :P
well, till the prices come down anyways
 
imo, SLI/Crossfire setups are only really useful when you start getting to really high resolutions, 1920x1200 / 2560x1600.

I run at 1920x1200 res with a 4870x2, 6GB DDR3, i7 920 @ 3.6ghz and there really isn't any game that drops below 35-40FPS maxxed out. Its important to note though, that at 1920x1200 and higher aliasing becomes less of a problem, so you can start lowering AA settings which will save you FPS with no visual quality loss.

However, at a res of 2560x1600, some kind of Crossfire/SLI setup is necessary if you want to maintain a playable frame rate. There you will see those setups pull far ahead of single GPU configurations.
 
Hey guys, digging up this topic again...Still havent bought my second 8800GT but I think I am about to.

I need to know though from an expert if I mix these 2 cards if it will work.

I have a XFX 8800GT 512 MB alpha dog std edition and I want to add a Asus 8800GT TOP 512 factory overclocked version. I have asked this Q before and most people say it will work fine. Just want to hear from some other peeps on here.
 
It will work perfectly together although you have to put the XFX version in slot one. Your Asus one's clocks will be lowered to the same as that of the XFX card.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top