Hey guys, I'm wondering what would be a better solution - two GT cards in SLI or a single Ultra card? I'm looking at getting an SLI 780i board regardless so I have the capacity to add another Ultra card or 2 in future when their prices come down. Thoughts? Craig
8800Ultra is overpriced. why not get 1 8800GT now, and wait for the 9 series? the top card hopefully coming out in 3 month
agreed. SLi is an upgrade path, not a way to start. get a single gt or gts now, and if you feel the need for another next month, then go for it.
+1 And even then, only if you really need to upgrade by the time they come out. Under any circumstances apart from the current market, SLI as an upgrade path is a false economy. Even as an upgrade, it's still much more cost-effective to just get rid of the old card (by selling it or making use of it in another comp) and replacing it with a faster model from the next generation. I admit to being biased against SLI as an upgrade path because I got burned in my situation, having bought a 2nd 7900GT for SLI mere weeks before the release of the 8800GTS 320, which would have given superior performance to my SLI solution, the ability to use 2 monitors and a better return for my investment. I'm not the only one who found that out the hard way about SLI as an upgrade path, though. Right now, SLI is, however, less of a false economy than in the past, since 2 GTs will outperform an Ultra in most situations for less money, but you still have the inherent disadvantages of using 2 cards (increased current-load on the PSU, no dual-monitor support, extra heat in your system and an extra card to get rid of when you upgrade). cbovis, what resolution do you usually game at? If you use anything less than 1680x1050, the GT 512MB will handle whatever you can throw at it - it'll even run Crysis at very respectable settings. If you want something a bit better for higher resolutions (or running Crysis in 1680x1050) I'd go with the new G92 8800 GTS 512MB and not bother with the Ultra at all. (For reference, I've got Crysis running with smooth framerates constantly between 25 and 60 on my BFG GTS512 OC at 1680x1050, using a combination of 'high' and 'very high' settings via the Xp config-hack) If you're gaming on a 30" monitor and want to play everything in 1920x1200 then the Ultra would be more appealing, but I personally would feel very cheated by the price of the Ultra, no matter my needs, given the performance delivered by the GT and GTS512. Don't bother with the 1GB GT under any circumstances - Benchmarks and tests show that the extra 512MB of video RAM makes no difference in most games, and negligible difference in others. The GT doesn't have the necessary memory bandwidth and raw processing power to actually make effective use of 1gb of Video RAM. 512MB seems to be the sweet-spot right now.
Hmm interesting guys. If I were to go with a single GT what single component would you recommend spending the extra £150 I save on? If anything... I'm looking at coupling it with a Q6600, 780i board, 4GB of DDR2 PC6400 RAM. I'm thinking perhaps a larger hard drive than the 500GB I'm going with or perhaps the next level of CPU? Zurichiel: I would be on a 1680x1050 resolution so the GT is sounding like a good option. Would you guys think getting a 780i board for future SLI support is a bad idea then? I know atleast one advantage even with a single card would be the PCIE 2.0 support it would give the GT card in it but would it be better to go with a board that supports DDR3 for example and skip the SLI?
I'd go for the GT, either save the money, get some good case cooling or mabey a new Keyboard / Mouse / HDD I'd go for a P35 board over the 780i though and save some more money aswell.
do you REALLY need to spend that £150 pounds? the banks will be happy to save them for you otherwise, give them to me, i'll put it towards 9800GTX when it comes out.
