2 Cards or 1

[NLamb1978]

I am having a tough time deciding on what to do about my next video card upgrade. There are just so many choices. There are some pretty good deals on some lower end cards and I am wondering if running 2 cards, say 2 XFX GeForce 9600 GSO with 768MB DDR2 would give me better performance than running just one XFX GeForce 9800 GTX + 512MB DDR3.
Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.

[Radiator]

It most definitely would not give you extra performance over the 9800 GTX+ . I'd suggest a HD 4850 instead of the 9800 GTX+ , though ... or a HD 4870 if you can find 200 USD .

[-RK]

There are some cards out there that if you find a nice deal on them will do quite well SLI'd against a mid-high end card (9600gt)


For the most part though, you're better off buying a single more powerful card.

And yeah, the hd4850 would kill either of the choices you have there.

[NLamb1978]

Thanks for the info.
Right now I have a GeForce 8600 GT 1GB Running on a EVGA 780i mobo with a Q6600 2.4Ghz processor, 8GB of SLI OCZ memory, running Vista 64 bit.

The 8600 GT has served me pretty well, but the higher end games coming out these days will probably need something with a bit more power.

I have always had nvidia based video cards. The CrossfireX feature of Radeon cards doesn't work with nvidia base mobos, does it?

[-RK]

nope. I would still suggest the hd4850 though.

If you feel that you HAVE to be able to upgrade with SLI later though you could get a single 9800gtx+ now.

[NLamb1978]

What about the new GeForce GTX 260 and 280 series.

How do those compare to the Radeon cards?

[-RK]

The GTX260 core 216 beats out the hd4870 at lower resolutions, but the 4870 takes a slight lead as the resolution starts going really high with heavy antialiasing.

The regular old gtx260 is a slight step below the 4870. The GTX 280 definitely beats out the 4870, but really can't compete with the 4870x2.

The gtx260 is a pretty damn good card still though. You can find the 192 stream processor version for around $200 now if you look.

[NLamb1978]

I never really looked at the Radeon cards before, but have been browsing through some of the cards available on Tigerdirect.com.
They have some pretty impressive specs. I even came across a 3870 for $104 that had better numbers than some of the higher end nvidia cards.

Now I have all these numbers running rampant through my head. I need some clarification. What are the most important numbers when looking for a good card. Should I be more interested in the memory a card has or should it be the type of memory. I saw some Radeon cards with GDDR5 which I had no idea existed.

Then there are the stream processors and memory clock and core clock. Just too many things to consider.

Thanks for all the info!

[aVaLaNcHe]

Give us an idea of what kind of games you'll be playing and with what resolution. Also, at what point does the eye candy satisfy you?

The type of memory is somewhat important, but most options you're looking at have GDDR3, save for a few ATI choices. The amount of memory is usually considered when dealing with the resolution you will be using. More memory can typically handle higher resolutions.

The GTX 260 is really the bang for the buck card right now, sitting around $200. And if its not enough, overclock it a bit and see what kind of extra performance you can squeeze out of it for free. That goes for any card you may be looking at.

[-RK]

The raw specifications between the two manufacturers can't really be compared since ATI uses a completely different architecture for their chips.

ATI's DirectX10 capable cards use stream processors which can perform five operations per clock cycle. The HD3870 really has 64 stream processors, but it works as if it has 320. The problem is that this approach is a little inefficient, which is why Nvidia's cards are not completely blown out of the water.

For performance you should look at benchmarks. The HD4870 with it's 800 effective stream processors (160x5=800) beats the 192 stream processor gtx260, but gets beaten by the 216 version at lower resolutions. The 4870 also runs GDDR5 memory to get it very nice memory bandwidth, letting it beat the 216 version at high resolutions.

[Die Auslese]

Going with 2 cards is much more complex than 1 card, however can offer up sum surprising performance. Depending on Your resolution 1650x1050 (or whatever) or lower then I would go with 2 cards it will generally give U better performance. An example would be 9600GT in SLI VS. a 4870, the 4870 would get beat, however turn the AA up, and the resolution the 9600GT's tend to slack off. Also if Your planning to use multiple monitors, actually right now it doesn't mater both Companies offer multiple card multiple display drivers.
I would suggest a 4870 or 2 9600GT's Both are $200, however if ya wanna spend less get a 9800GTX 65nm, there like $150-$160, and offer some very good performance.

[NLamb1978]

Right now I still use a 17" older CRT monitor at 1280x1024. It doesn't show signs of dieing anytime soon. If/when it does I would like to go for a 20" or 22 LCD.

[Daveros]

Looking at Australian prices, I can pick up two new 9600GT's for approx $300, one 9800GTX+ for just over $300 or one GTX 260 for a little over $500.

Having been out of the computer market for so very, very, very long, i'm really struggling to keep up with all these new advances in GPU's. Is SLI the go? And does the final amount of RAM count in the GPU's so much anymore?

Thanks for your time.

[-RK]

Yes, the 9600s are definitely the way to go there.

A pair of them will scale extremely well in SLi, almost to the level of the GTX260.


Video ram matters much more at higher resolutions, a lot of games now at 1600x1200+ will use more than 512mb of video RAM - that is if the GPU is powerful enough to address it. Most midrange cards now can easily handle 512mb, and the high-end cards (especially if they have loads of memory bandwidth - HD4870 for example) get a nice boost at extremely high resolutions with a full gb.

[Daveros]

Thanks for that, -RK,

SLi is still something I need to read up on a little more, as I've never installed it before. This (http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2839) motherboard comes with two PCI-E x16 ports, so it would be the go?

The only other equiptment I would need is an SLi bridge? Is that the case? What exactly would I need to look at? Do they all just come as a standard?

Thank you again for your time.

[-RK]

Ahh, it also depends on the motherboard's chipset.

What motherboard is it?


You don't necessarily NEED the sli bridge to run SLi, but the performance boost is a bit insignificant on midrange to high end cards without one. They're a standardized length.

[Daveros]

Motherboard linked in previous post, but it's a bit hard to see, isn't it?

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2839
(http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2839)

So both cards will run without a bridge, they just wont communicate as effectively? Is that what happens?

Thanks.

Edited to add: I'm actually going to build a PC from scratch, so all componets are up in the air. I was just thinking of running a Core2Duo E8500, so that motherboard would be ideal.

[Radiator]

AUD = nearly one to one with the USD , with the USD being slightly more expensive , as I recall . What are the prices of the HD 4870 there ? I remember some australian dude , who was building a PC showed me an australian site , and the GTX260 and HD 4870 were both a bit under 300 AUD , and that was months ago .

[Daveros]

The AU dollar is only currently running at about US 0.65c, which is very unfortunate. A sign of the times though, no?

A HD 4870 will run at about $430.

[-RK]

Yeah, that motherboard won't do SLi. It's a crossfireX board, which is ATI's multiple graphics card solution.

[Daveros]

Ah. I naively thought they were one and the same. Thanks for that.

I'll have to start my motherboard hunt again, or GPU. What would be the ATI equilivant of the 9600 GT?

[-RK]

Eh, right now it would be the hd4830, but as far as I know it can't scale nearly as amazingly as the 9600gt in dual-card mode.

If you choose the ATI route I think you'd be better off going for a single hd4870.

[happyfinger]

would 2 8800gtx cards do good in sli mode or would a new card be better in performance wise?

[Radiator]

Two 8800 GTX's are fairly good in SLi ... but they eat lots of power . It's a good idea IF you have one 8800 GTX already , but if you are just planning on buying two and slapping them together , then it's not that good of an idea .

[happyfinger]

i have one already so might be better to buy another card they should be alot cheaper too thanks...:)

[Daveros]

Well, it's taken me six months, but I may just be ready for an upgrade now.

Unfortunately, all my research has dissapeared out of my brain. That and, I imagine, GPUs, CPUs and everything in between has changed since.

I'm still thinking about SLi, but I just don't grasp it fully. Can anyone point me in the direction of a guide that will help me, or just give me a couple of brief pointers?

I really only want it because I want to be able to show off. "Look, I have *two* video cards. I'm better than you!", etc...

EDITED TO ADD: I'm also one of those crazy NVIDIA and Intel people. I have no reason to be. I just decided. I was thinking of setting up an E8500, but I don't know if that's just that little bit too old now. I really need to research from scratch again.

[-RK]

Well... I've got a few things you should think about.

SLI/Crossfire can complicate things in setting up a system and in some games causes problems or stuttering framerates. Generally speaking I'd always recommend a single high end card over a pair of midrange cards for the same price and performance. The main reason in my mind to go with SLI would be for the sake a near-future upgrade path if you don't have the cash right away.

Another note, ATI's mid-high end cards right now are extremely cheap, you should really take a look at some of them. When you can find a hd4850 for $100 and a 4870 for $130 easily... right now nvidia can't really compete for price/performance. It looks like you can get the ATI cards at the same performance level for about $30 cheaper, everything from the GTS250/HD4850 to the GTX275/HD4890.

A pair of HD4870s will still max out any game out there, and most likely will for quite a while.


As for the technology behind it, what would you like to know? How it renders? How it's set up?

[Daveros]

Complicating things may not be the best idea for me. As clever as I think I am, I am very under researched and don't really know what I am doing. I'd like to think I do, and I pretend to my girlfriend that I do (because she wont notice), but I don't...

I'd really quite like a run through of SLi in general. How to set it up, how to make sure it actually works - I really don't want to have two cards in and have it set up so only one is working! - how it renders, what the benefits and drawbacks are.

It's interesting to know that you would reccomend just one card over two. I did a bit of assumption and thought two mid-range cards would compete quite well, and actually be able to handle a bit more, than a high-end card, as they could multi-task. A bit like Dual-Core PC's, I did think...

I really have to look at everything again, research it properly, and know what I am doing. Especially as I want to build the bugger myself. That's my goal.

I did a bit of dreaming on www.megabuy.com.au and created the PC I *want*, but I have gone about $600 over budget... Oops!

Any help is greatly appreciated. Truly.

Thank you.




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Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R (Rev 1.0) ATX mother board, Socket 1366, Support Core i7 Processor. Intel X58 + ICH10R chipset, Triple channel DDR3 2000 1600... (B,F) $282.52

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Sub-Total: $2,041.42

[hdantman]

Really, you should stick to a 4870 or 4890. I have been running SLI systems for years, and if you don't have the commitment to put in the time required to keep such a system running well with each individual thing you want to do--Skip it. In a good many of the games I run, I wind up cutting off two of my three SLI'd cards. Why? Because it's a pain tweaking things properly to where I get a performance hike, and because a single card is sufficient. The 4870 is VERY fast and powerful. I have a system with that card in it, running for the last six months. Not a game you can throw at it that it doesn't conquer with ease.

Stick with a single card. Get a powerful, cheap, 4870. The 4890 isn't worth the extra $$$ in my opinion.

[-RK]

If this is a gaming system you can shave off a large amount by going with a phenom II and 4gb of RAM instead of that i7. The i7 is an unbelievably powerful CPU, but really not worth it for gaming when a much cheaper CPU will do just as well.

If you're absolutely set on sticking with intel then take a look at the core2 quad 9450/9550 too. In my opinion though, you're paying a fair bit more cash for not much effect with the core2 quads for gaming.

Try putting a little less power into the CPU and more into the graphics card(s).


Well... as for SLI setups, two midrange cards can indeed make quite an impression. As mentioned previously in this thread, a pair of 9600GTs can match a gtx260 for performance. The problem is that now you can get a single GTX260 for the same price or cheaper and still have the option to add a second later if you wanted a boost.

I'll get into the technical stuff later since it's 2:30am and I've had a crazy day, but with nvidia's current SLI implementation it's not a question of multitasking, just raw power.

[entropy13]

Get a Phenom II X4 then go with a GTX285 instead of two GTS250.

[Radiator]

A HD 4890 is nearly as powerful as the GTX 285 ( and you can OC the HD 4890 to 1 Ghz core , which DOES make a difference in games ) and considerably cheaper , than the GTX285 ... so why on earth would you suggest one ?

[Daveros]

Thanks for all your advice so far.

To be honest, I'm starting to get quite lost. I would really quite like to stick with Intel and NVIDIA, but I do know that's possibly a silly thing to do. Added to that, you're all probably banging your heads against a wall at my stubborness, but it is something I'd like to do if it's possible.

Now, that being said. I'll have a look at ATI. I will. I promise.

Is Crossfire any better than SLi, at all? Or easier to use?

I wouldn't mind having to fiddle with the SLi settings all the time, but I just want to know what I am doing. I've tried google, but i'm too much of an idiot to work it all out properly. I know I see pretty hung up on SLi, but it just seems like such a brilliant thing to be able to do. And it seems to be the only way I can get 2GB of video memory for $400... Video memory is still important, isn't it?

But yes, I'm now lost, confused and alone. But I want to learn.

[Daveros]

Right, well I just learnt something that shows that I am stupid...

When I configure two graphics cards in SLI mode, do the graphics cards work together to create double the memory size?
No. In SLI mode, each graphics card uses its own frame buffer memory to render a 3D application. The operating system will report a graphics card frame buffer memory size that is found on a single graphics board.

[-RK]

Crossfire and SLi both work around essentially the same principle and neither has a solid advantage over the other. It is possible to use completely different cards in crossfire, which SLI cannot do, but usually it's not worth it since the scaling is horrible when you try and do it.

SLI and Crossfire both split the rendered frame into two (or three, or four) sets of smaller images and divide the calculations between the cards. It's not a perfect process though, there is some latency between the cards and the CPU itself is put under a little more strain dividing the workload. Most cards won't see higher than an 80% performance boost at their best, and it'll usually hover around 60-70%. There are a few cards which really do incredibly well in SLI setups (a pair of 9600GTs can hover around 80% at middle resolutions) but most won't see the full potential of both cards working together.

As you mentioned, the cards mirror one another's framebuffer so your video RAM stays exactly the same as if you had just one card.

The first gaming PC I built myself from scratch with my own funds was a SLI system. I built myself a 939 athlon64 PC (which I'm still using with an opteron and a new video card) with a single 7600gt when the 7 series was new and added a second a couple months later. Unfortunately, my timing was pretty bad with that build, the geforce 8 series blew the 7s out of the water. That made me a bit sad to see.

All in all the technology is excellent for upgrading a PC to give it a bit more life in games, but IMHO it's not worth it when just building new from scratch. You save yourself the upgrade path later.


Looking over your system specs again, you could probably lose that blu-ray drive. Do you remeber how much DVD drives cost when they first came out? It might be prudent to wait until the standard starts getting used more often and you will probably be able to find a burner for lot less. Just another idea for cutting cost.

[Daveros]

Ok, well you've pointed something out to me that I should have realised previously. I can spend the money on one GPU, get the same result as two, and now I have an upgrade path for the future.

That's actually a very positive thing I failed to recognise before.

Right, that's that decided.

So either a HD 4870 or 4890 would be the consensus of this forum?

I'll spend about $400 on a GPU, I suppose. Would you suggest anything from NVIDIA at all? And is there anything with a framebuffer (look at me pretending to know what I am saying) over 1GB availible?

[Daveros]

The first gaming PC I built myself from scratch with my own funds was a SLI system. I built myself a 939 athlon64 PC (which I'm still using with an opteron and a new video card) with a single 7600gt when the 7 series was new and added a second a couple months later. Unfortunately, my timing was pretty bad with that build, the geforce 8 series blew the 7s out of the water. That made me a bit sad to see.

I made my first PC with a 7600GT, also. I used a 1.86ghz Core2Duo and I loved it.

I never knew anything about video cards, though... I still don't. I was happy with what I had, really.

[-RK]

Unless you're planning on going over 1920x1200 resolution with everything maxed out there's not much need for more than 1gb video RAM. There are several choices that have more, if you really feel like spending the money.

The GTX285 and 4890 offer 2gb versions, I've seen GTX260s with 1792mb.


Really though, I'd say that a 1gb 4870 should be just fine for you. Nvidia's equivalent for performance is the GTX260 with 216 stream processors. Here's a brief rundown of competing cards from the two manufacturers in your range.


ATI - Nvidia

HD4770/4850 - 9800GTX+/GTS250

HD4870 - GTX260

HD4890 - GTX275/GTX280/GTX285 (the 285 beats it out by a bit, but is a LOT more expensive)


The ol' 7600 was great for it's price at the time. This site actually helped me make the choice, I wanted a midrange card that would perform well for it's price and I wanted to have some money to add a second later. I didn't know anything about video cards back then either, but it's an interesting subject for me so I did a bunch of research and have kept up with it ever since.

[Daveros]

Firstly, thank you so much for all your help.

I'll only be running 1680x1050, but I would like to max everything out.

I can't believe it. I'm really thinking ATI, now... I just never wanted to ;). I'm still thinking of running that i7 rig, mind, or perhaps just downscaling to an E8500.

I just... I just... I wanted more than I can have, essentially. If I could afford a 2GB GTX285, I would get it. I just have to be sensible.

I'm a tad dissapointed really. I thought I could get 2GB worth of video card, you see. I misinterpreted this SLI, sli-ghtly. ;)


EDITED TO ADD: I've just seen this: http://www.megabuy.com.au/sapphire-pcie-hd4870-2gb-vct-p97011.html

What do you make of that for the price? It's about the same as a 1GB 4890, or an 896MB GTX260.

[-RK]

I would definitely go with the 4890 over that, it'll outperform it by a fair bit, and I'm pretty sure the 4870 wouldn't use 2gb well. Besides, video RAM isn't anywhere NEAR as important as processing power at your resolution.

The regular 512mb 4870 would be the absolute best for your buck, but a 1gb version would do alright. A general rule of thumb that I've always tried to follow when building gaming or performance systems is to have around 4:1 RAM:VRAM ratio for high resolutions or 6-8:1 for normal. If you think that CPU and the rest of the system will handle 4gb RAM well and you've got a monitor that maxes out at around 1600x1200, then you should generally be thinking of a video card that can handle an extra 1/4 of that by itself. That always seems to get the best performance for the price for me. Not all cards can handle large amounts of video RAM so the choice of card is always going to be more important, but it's a good baseline.

If you're building a new computer in your price range you should really be thinking of a triple or quad core system. You could go with an E8500 and have it perform well in single or dual threaded apps, but with quad cores actually being decently priced and more and more things taking advantage... The q9450 is a good price choice if you're for intel, and the lga775 boards are significantly cheaper than the i7's 1336 boards.

[Daveros]

Ok, thank you.

What's happened now is that i've allowed myself to become confused again. I was to put 6GB of RAM in my PC, as I want to run 64-bit. Does that mean if I want to run things at maximum I should now by looking for a card with atleast 1.5GB of RAM? Or is that the most?

Or should I just put 4GB in and run a 1GB? I thought 6GB would be better...

*sigh* I'm really hopeless at this, it seems...

[-RK]

Ehh, sorry if I confused you. No, it's not exact, just a general guideline I think about when building a high end system. I can't think of a game out there that needs more than 1gb video RAM, you just don't really need that much. 4gb RAM is also just fine for a 64 bit OS and should do fine for most games unless you're going with an i7 and triple channel memory. When I built an i7 system not too long ago it had 6gb RAM and 896mb GTX260, that was all it needed for the CAD/CAM stuff it was for. It depends on a lot more than that, and video RAM really isn't the first thing you should be thinking about when considering a video card for gaming. Look at my sig if you need a hint on what is important when trying to determine a card's performance.

*cough* in game benchmarks! *cough*


Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever built a system with more than 6gb RAM in it.

[upgrademe]

hi i have a geforce 7300 gs video card and wanna upgrade to better is a geforce 8800 gt my best option? i have amd 64 athlonx2 3600+ 1gb ram thanks...

[-RK]

No, an 8800gt wouldn't be your best choice. Back when it was released yes, now there are much better choices for the money. Your best bet would be to upgrade your entire system slightly. Get another gig of RAM and a more powerful CPU (or overclock the one you have heavily). For a video card you should look at the Radeon hd4850 and 4870. They are running at around $100+ and $130+ respectively on newegg and the 4870 does really well for it's price. The Geforce 9600GT and radeon hd4670 are also pretty good for slightly less.

Go for a CPU and RAM upgrade before pricing your video card though. If you absolutely can't upgrade your system any then you'll likely start to hit a hefty bottleneck above the 9600gt.

Also, in the future it would probably be better to start a new thread instead of posting an off topic question in an existing one. Your question will be more likely to get answers.