1 high-end card...VS...2 SLI medium end cards?

M

MoreDents

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 9, 2008
Messages
294
Which option would give better performance for someone that does 3D modeling / video editing?

And what video card(s) do you guys recommend?

My budget is around...$300 and I expect to be using dual 24" monitors

Thanks!
 
AthlonXP said:
1 High end card is the way to go.
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I second that, less power consumed and if you don't need SLi then do not have to go with an SLi motherboard. It all depeneds on your setup but 1 higher end card is always better
 
1) Two medium cards need SLI/xfire mobos, so some added expense there.
2) Two cards always have some performance loss... its never x2 performance.
3) If you do already have a mobo that will handle two cards, buying one faster card will give you the ability to upgrade in the future more easily by just dropping in another high-end card.

Now, not sure what type of high end card you are talking about, but both 4870 1 Gig is pretty cheap right now and the prices are dropping on the gtx 285 also.

The only advantage I see for two medium cards is if one dies you can still run your system while waiting for a replacement.
 
Depends for that price you can get 1 gtx 285 or if you wait for the cards to go on sale 2 gtx 260 core 216.

If it was between those two cards I would go with the 260s.

If you don't get the 216s on sale you will be comparing 1 gtx 285 vs 2 9800gtx+ and for that comparison I would 100% of the time get the gtx 285.

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Normally it is always better to get a high end card vs two medium end cards. Due to price wars between ati and nvidia though at that price range you are only getting 10-15% faster by spending the extra 150 dollars. The 260-216 is the "performance card" while the 285 is the "extreme" card in marketing, and the extreme is only 10-15% faster.
 
Direfox said:
1) Two medium cards need SLI/xfire mobos, so some added expense there.
2) Two cards always have some performance loss... its never x2 performance.
3) If you do already have a mobo that will handle two cards, buying one faster card will give you the ability to upgrade in the future more easily by just dropping in another high-end card.
Click to expand...

I would add to those one more reason that I think is important:

4) Frequently, when a new game comes out, the two-card solution doesn't work well with it, limiting you to the equivalent performance level of only one of the two cards, until such time as the driver is tweaked to fix the problem and that new driver is made available (assuming it ever will).
 
Go one high end card leaving the option for more power via sli down the road.
 
Go with high end single processor card, get a lot more mileage from it, and if you want to sli/crossfire can always do so later when the card is about to go End Of Life.
 
neither will give you better CAD/3D Modeling / Video editing performance as the programs take advantage of quadro/fireGL cards and not standard GFX cards

seeing as you have a 20" monitor with a max res of 16xx by 1200 or 1050 then 2 cards are a bloody waste at the moment
a single 280/285 would do you more good now, and if you upgrade your monitor later grab another 280/285 then if you feel like you need to.

even a 260 216 would be enough for you now :)
 
Plus, you'd probably have to buy a new PSU to support SLI. 550w would be a little light.
 
Ah, modeling? i7 and a quadro or firegl. You will need opengl card. no sli.
 
SLI and CrossfireX are never a good idea unless you have enough money to go all out with two or three top end cards at the time you are building and have a monitor large enough running high enough resolution (1920x1200 minimum) to make use of them. SLI / CrossfireX with low to mid range hardware is idiocy, pure and simple.
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
neither will give you better CAD/3D Modeling / Video editing performance as the programs take advantage of quadro/fireGL cards and not standard GFX cards

seeing as you have a 20" monitor with a max res of 16xx by 1200 or 1050 then 2 cards are a bloody waste at the moment
a single 280/285 would do you more good now, and if you upgrade your monitor later grab another 280/285 then if you feel like you need to.

even a 260 216 would be enough for you now :)
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I completley agree
 
MoreDents said:
Thanks for the informative responses. I have settled with the Quadro FX1700 :)
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are you sure?

Quadro FX1700:

Core GPU: G84GL
Core GPU clock: 460Mhz
Memory Speed: 800Mhz
Memory Size: 512MB
Memory Bus: 128-bit DDR-2

I think you would be better off getting a newer card and soft modding it, 434 dollars is a stupid price for a G84 based card with DDR2 no less.
 
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