As a sequel to my CPU question thread, I'm curious as to whether it's worth doing the SLI thing these days. If I'm going to spend about $300 on video hardware, is that better spent on two 8600GTS's used in SLI, or a single 8800GTS? My gut instinct is that the single 8800 is better, but wanted to check with some of the gurus here.
Buy a single 8800GTS.
Seconded.
Thirded for the GTS, but make sure you buy a 640MB version.
I bought the 320MB version because it was a lot cheaper. I am happy with it.
Don't SLI. Waste of time.
QFTOriginally Posted by Marcus Walser
To elaborate:
Performance and features-set are both important. Whats the point of having shader model 4.0 if all the games that support 3.0 run like crap? Likewise, whats the point of running Doom 3 at 60fps if newer games don't run at all? (I'M LOOKING AT YOU ATI)
In either case you will have to upgrade as games get richer and feature sets and require higher fill rates. Therefore, paying for two cards - which only benefits performance - is almost always less cost-effective in the long run than simply buying a more high end card.
I'm a huge advocate of dual displays, and you can't run them with SLI enabled. I consider SLI systems crippled, and if I were reviewing them (I'm not a reviewer, just sayin') , I'd dock a the rig a few points if it had an SLI configuration. Running Xfire, IRC, IM, email or Steam Community in one display, while gaming in the other is fantastic. As is utilizing the secondary display in games that support it, such as Supreme Commander or World in Conflict. Can't do it in an SLI rig.
Furthermore, if you buy a single top of the line card, you're pretty much guaranteed an awesome gaming experience on any new games until the next-gen high end card is released. Other than some sort of framerate bragging rights, I just can't see the utility of SLI, even without its dual display unfriendliness.
Get the best single display adapter you can afford, and if you can afford two great cards, then use the cash to buy a second panel; it's a much better investment.
Get SLI if you're going to be running 30" monitor.
I gave SLI a shot and found it to be a waste of money. Worked ok on a couple games, didn't seem to work at all on others, forced me to spend too much time tweaking profiles instead of playing games.. overall a huge disappointment.
I'm a little surprised to see so much negativity about SLI. It's true that the high end 8800 series cards take great jumps in terms of performance, but if you can't afford that (I certainly can't), SLI is a great way to get real performance improvement for a minimal additional expense (provided, of course, that your motherboard supports it.).
Among other things, what SLI lets you do is spread your expenses out over time. Sure, my dual 7600GT setup doesn't come close to an 8-series card. But it runs plenty of things well enough and I daresay it beats out a single 7900GT, which still runs around the same price. I also haven't had any incompatibility issues.
I love my Dual 8800 system. I don't think it's the best bang for the buck - it's definitely a luxury, but now a super high-end system is less than it used to cost for an average gaming system, and given the amount of pc gaming I do, it's a luxury with a lot of utility.
It's just really nice to not have to worry at all about graphics settings, and to be able to max them all out at 1920x1200.
Couldn't agree more here. My SLI performance (2x 7900's) was very good. Then I got a second monitor and discovered how much it cripples you. Now I'm a single card fanatic and use the second monitor constantly in games to show folks on ventrilo, have a web page up and monitor a chat application.
I wouldn't go back to SLI at all. Not to mention I now just have to upgrade a single card when a new model reaches my price point.
Between dual 8600GTS vs single 8800GTS, go with the 8800GTS, no question: it'll outperform the 8600GTS SLI and leave you the option of adding a second 8800GTS down the road (presuming your PS is beefy enough to handle it). Personally, I'm on the "SLI is an overpriced luxury with too many issues" side, but since you already have an SLI MB, there's no harm in leaving the door open.
I've been specing out a new system centered around an 8800gtx. I don't plan to go with SLI because of the expense and since I don't have a giant widescreen monitor it's probably not necessary yet. The question becomes, it is worth spending more on a SLI capable motherboard and power supply in order to have the option of going SLI to extend the usable life of the system. Is it worth, say $150-$200, or in other terms around 10% of the overall machine cost, to have an SLI capable system for future expansion?
I say no. Hold on to the extra cash, and when you get the itch to upgrade, sell the 8800GTX and buy the new king-of-the-hill vid card.
SLI is broken in Vista still, so single card ftw.
No, I'd go with the single card. Dual displays rock, and you lose multi-display capabilities with SLI.
SLI is not an attractive upgrade option either. Adding a second obsolete card to you system will not give you feature parity with the latest video card releases.
Always buy the fastest single card you can afford, I think.
The only even marginally useful SLI is one composed of whatever the two fastest cards out there currently are, and that's only if you care nothing about money and absolutely must have the fastest possible rig. Even then it's a rough choice due to the reasons mentioned above (compatibility issues and the dual-display problem).
Typically for the price of any two of the same video card, there's a cheaper single card that's faster than those two cards in SLI.
I agree with the herd on this one. The last time I bought a motherboard, I got an SLI board because I remembered the good old days of the Voodoo 2 where everything was fixed function pipeline and thus could easily be parallelized and things like shaders just didn't factor into anything. I put a single higher-level mid-range card in expecting to enhance it with a twin running SLI half a year or so down the road.. by the time I got to that point there were cards out that soundly beat my card even SLIed and had higher levels of shader model support and only cost like 10 dollars more than buying another of the same card I already had would cost.
Personally, I'd much rather run a second computer to go with that second display. Like my tragically outdated Mac G4.
A single 8800 GTX is powerful enough to drive a 30" display. I play NWN2, LOTRO, etc., at 2560x1600 with 8x AA and 16 AF at solid frame rates.
Thanks for all the input. I'll end up going with a single card when I upgrade. :)
The only SLi type of card that I know of that will run dual displays are with a 7950GX2, but even with mine, I have to turn off other features to get it to work. So instead of the two GPUs running together, it tells me [I just checked....] that I have to turn off dual GPU support so it will run, which means a good and bad thing. You would most likely need dual screen support when? At the desktop, video on one, desktop on the other, that sort of thing. And the only time you would need raw power for gaming would most likely be on a single monitor, so I don't think it is that much of a big deal. I say buy a 7950GX2 also. Mine runs all the new games just fine at high resolution... Even Oblivion played with 0 hiccups at 1280X1024, all up on high and all that shit.
Either that or go with a single 8800GT or GTX if you can. I think it is the only faster Nvidia card out there, at least until the 8900s arrive :D :D :D :D [then I am gettnig the new GX2 baby, YEAH!]
Last edited by corpsman; 09-29-2007 at 12:21 PM.
Also, I would check out Tomshardware, browse to the GPU/video card chart on the right. Those are pretty much it, except now mine runs a little faster with the newer drivers.
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