[QUOTE="Lach0121"][QUOTE="neatfeatguy"] If you have a good dual core (Intel E8400 or better clocked around 3.0GHz) or a good quad (Q6600 or better from Intel or AMD's Phenom II....the first series of Phenom might work, too) then you'd get good performance out of an SLI setup.
From a few benchmarks I was looking over, I couldn't find any that ran 2 8800GTX in SLI, but I did notice that an 8800GTS 512 ran kind of close to the GTX for the most part, and an SLI setup for the 8800GTS 512 cards was only about 5-10% behind the single GTX 280 card in most applications - sometimes better and sometimes it lags behind as much as 50-70% (This was from Crysis in high resolution with AF/AA cranked), but generally about 5-10% behind the single GTX 280. An educated guess would lead me to think that two 8800GTX would do just as well as a single GTX 280 or maybe even a little better. I see nothing wrong with going with 2 8800GTX in SLI, especially if you say you're not much into computer gaming as you used to be. Then it doesn't make any sense to spend more money on the GTX 280 unless you plan on wanting to run two in SLI later down the road.
If the difference in price isn't very much ($50 or less), I'd say just go for the 280. If the price is a noticeable difference ($50-100 or more or whatever you decide is the breaking point for your wallet), then maybe you'd be better off getting the 8800GTX cards for SLI.
neatfeatguy
so what your essentially saying is i have two 8800gt ocx.. in 16x 16x sli... and once i upgrade from my 6000+ dual core, to the new phenom II 940, i will actually be able to utilize my SLI setup, cause my 6000+ isnt cutting it.
i hope so, cause i need some more performance, but im not gonna buy and build a new rig, cause when teh economy collaspes people with all these expensive rigs are gonna see alot of the games comming out, not come out, because there isnt enough backing it, and all.
I hear that if you drop your resolution in a game and your FPS don't change (improve) over your native resolution, then your CPU is bottlenecking your GPU.
MY computer= AMD 64 X2 5600+ (stock speeds @ 2.8GHz), 4GB memory, Windows XP w/ SP3, 2 8800GTS 512MB in SLI, 22" monitor @ 1680 x 1050
With Crysis I turn all the settings to high and AA to 4x....my avg. fps was low 20s with my native resolution - I turned the resolution down to 1024 x 768 or might have been 1280 x 768 ), kept all settings on high and AA to 4x and my avg fps improved by only 2 or 3. If I run Crysis on high settings with no AA, I push mid-high 30 FPS at my native resolution. The AA just kills my cards.
I'd have to say that my CPU is easily bottlenecking my SLI. Intel's Duo Core clock faster then AMD...so even if you took my CPU to 3.0GHz and took Intel's E8400 @ 3.0GHz, the Intel would outperform. The new Phenom II are very close to matching Intel's Duo Core, so that would be a good option to move to.
With your setup and only running with the 8800GT OCX cards, you're probably bottlenecking them a bit, but nothing that's going to make or break most of the games you run. Stepping up to a better CPU will provide you with a good boost, but I couldn't give you any solid numbers to go by without taking the same steps myself....which I want to do; pick up an E8400 or better dual from Intel or a Q6600 or better quad from Intel....I wouldn't be opposed to use the new Phenom II, either.
so your saying i should definately see some improvement over my cpu upgrade, cause in all honesty i didnt seem much of a performance drop going from 1366x768 to 1680x1050 at all, and world in conflict seems to run better at the higher resolution. seriously my framerate was higher going from 768 to the 16x10 on world in conflict, all other games not much difference at all.so yeah i think the phenom II 940 would be the best choice for me to do in my situation. thanks man.
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