Most Bang for the Buck

[Tempus_37]

I am not what some would call a serious gamer. I have a decent rig (for about 3 years ago) and now I am trying to upgrade but I have limited funds.

Here's what I have:
ASUS P5N32-SLI Delux MB rev 1.02
Intel 775 Pentium D 920 (2.8 Ghz I think)
Evga GeForce 6800 GS (PCI-e, 256 MB DDR3)
4 GB DDR2 PC 6400 (4 @ 1 GB in dual channel)
Power supply is only 535W

So my options are:

a) Buy another Evga 6800 GS card and run the machine in SLI mode

b) Buy a single, newer 8800 card

My question is: Will a new 8800 card running in an older PCI-e 1.0 slot run faster than 2 6800 cards running in SLI mode?

Both the 8800 and 9800 cards that I am looking at have 512 MB ram and the total ram for the dual 6800s would also be 512 MB. Both cards have a 256 bit data path for memory access so there is no gain there (other than the latency of synching the dual GPUs)

Is two older GPUs better than one newer one? Maybe but then again, there is the time lost synching them.

If money were not an object, I know what path to take (new 790i motherboard, Quad Core CPU, 2 (or 3) @ GeForce 280s, 1000+ Watt PS...). Since that's not the case, is it better to spend the $100 or so on the older card and link it with what I have or get a single, newer one?

Thanks!

[ultima]

well first off the 8800 gt will work fine in the pci-x 1.0 slot

yes the combined memory for the 6800's would be 512 however
the memory of 256 mb would be for each single card, it would not be shared
between the 2

second not all games use SLI properly and since your card is older
the drivers may not even support it. i've seen some games already where
older cards in sli has no effect, but new cards work fine

in game prey, the SLI had no effect over a single card


and lastly the 8800 gt would still be about double the performance
over two 6800's in sli

i was looking at BF2152
and two 6800's were giving around 60 fps

the single 8800 gt was about 110 fps

and this repeats itself with many other games, the 8800 is 2 generations newer

[Radiator]

The 8800 card ( ANY 8800 card ) would be faster , than a 6800 GS SLi setup .
If you can scrape up a bit more money , get the HD 4850 .

[Tempus_37]

Looks like I'll look into the 8800 instead. I really appreciate your responses!

[Headfoot]

An 8800 and 9800 of any type and up will absolutely obliterate the 6800 SLI. Radeon 4000 and GTX 200 series will own even harder.

I'm talking like getting roundhouse kicked by Chuck Norris kind of obliteration.
When the 8800 GTX came out it made 7900 GTX SLI owners cry.

[Radiator]

Yep the oblitteration would most certainly be comparable to a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick . Chuck Norris ! BATMAN! POWER RANGERS!

[mrstew]

Best bang for buck at the moment is HD4850 it is beating 9800GTX in real world performance