Have 8800GT SLI, what single cards starts to beat this?

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KillRoy X

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So currently have 8800GT's in SLI mode. I've decided the next card is just going to be one because the advantages I've seen of SLI have come up short to me.

If I were to be getting a new card, what single card either Nvidia or ATI is going to start beating the SLI config of the 8800GT?
 
anything lower than a hd5870 at this stage isn't worth the upgrade from your sli rig.
your cpu will definately hold you back though.
even @4ghz your cpu woul still hold it back a bit.
 
PlatinumPC said:
anything lower than a hd5870 at this stage isn't worth the upgrade from your sli rig.
your cpu will definately hold you back though.
even @4ghz your cpu woul still hold it back a bit.
Click to expand...

a 4 GHz e8400 has plenty of power for gaming, especially with a single video card.
 
PlatinumPC said:
anything lower than a hd5870 at this stage isn't worth the upgrade from your sli rig.
your cpu will definately hold you back though.
even @4ghz your cpu woul still hold it back a bit.
Click to expand...

If he's gaming at any modern resolution no a 4GHz dual core will not hold him back except for GTA 4. That game is CPU limited even on a 4GHz i7 though.
 
an e8400 @ 4ghz cannot be compared with an I7 at similar speeds.
Yes it has plenty of power, but for games like Crysis there will be a noticable difference.
He is running at stock speeds though.
 
PlatinumPC said:
an e8400 @ 4ghz cannot be compared with an I7 at similar speeds.
Yes it has plenty of power, but for games like Crysis there will be a noticable difference.
He is running at stock speeds though.
Click to expand...


Will a faster processor increase his minimum framerates in crysis? I doubt it. Crysis, and most demanding games for that matter, become gpu limited long before they are cpu limited. This is especially the case with larger resolutions, like 1920x1200 and above, as was mentioned before.

Are there cases where a faster cpu then his will provide faster average framerates? Probably.

Should we be recommending that someone with a two year old video card setup replace a fairly fast dual core cpu? I would first buy a single fast video card (because that's what he wants), and if he still isn't happy, he can upgrade his cpu.
 
Yes currently I am running at stock speeds, but have thought about bumpin it up some with proper cooling. As for the Graphics card, I am usually running resolutions at 1650x1080 on most games.
 
I went from two 8800GTS in SLI, to one 4890, and there was a significant improvement in gaming performance (I also played at 1680x1050). Granted, I also made the switch from a Core 2 Duo to an i7 platform, so perhaps that accounted for some of the difference.

If I were in your situation, I would try selling your GTs for ~$50 a piece, and use it towards the purchase of a 4890/275 or if your lucky, a 5850.

P.S: All this talk of games being CPU bound unless partnered with a 4Ghz chip is nonsense. Unless a game is poorly codes (i.e. GTA 4), I reckon your CPU will be more than adequate to play the latest and greatest games. With that being said, overclock that bad boy just for peace of mind :)
 
fwiw - my buddy here at work is running an e8400 at stock and a 5850 / i have a i7 920 and a 5850

we both have a similar experience in crysis at 1080p / same settings, same feel
 
You might be a little CPU bound at 1680, but probably nothing worth worrying about. At 1920 or above you definitely wouldn't be bound. Overclocking, when using high res and high settings won't yield you much if any improvement at all. What you would gain a lot from, is any modern quadcore. Checkout the difference in games that use it, L4D2 (scales about 50%) and Dragon Age.

You can take a look here http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,6...1404-FC2-und-Crysis-Warhead/Grafikkarte/Test/

Only games that require no GPU at all like WoW and CSS will show improvements from the CPU as the charts show at 1680 or above. And then, it's 100fps+ anyway so who cares.

Personally, I'd want to be on quadcore as it's the only CPU in those games that really gets outclassed across the board even by the Q6600.

If building today, I'd take a really hard look at the Phenom 965 + AMD chipset motherboard as it would probably be my choice. Cheap and does as well as everything else as you see.
 
KillRoy X said:
So currently have 8800GT's in SLI mode. I've decided the next card is just going to be one because the advantages I've seen of SLI have come up short to me.

If I were to be getting a new card, what single card either Nvidia or ATI is going to start beating the SLI config of the 8800GT?
Click to expand...

I am in the same situation as you and just purchased an ATI 4890. There is a good deal for a XFX one @ Circuit City. I can't wait to receive mine :)
 
PlatinumPC said:
an e8400 @ 4ghz cannot be compared with an I7 at similar speeds.
Yes it has plenty of power, but for games like Crysis there will be a noticable difference.
He is running at stock speeds though.
Click to expand...

Crysis is WAY more GPU than CPU dependant. He'd notice a far bigger difference with a video card upgrade then a CPU. Infact, a 4GHz Core 2 is plenty of power to make any video card the bottleneck in Crysis at resolutions 19x10 and above at max settings.

Sorry, but there is no CPU bottlneck here, at not one to warrant an upgrade.
 
I didn't suggest he upgrade his CPU at all, and of course most games are far more GPU bound than CPU. However, at his resolution he will miss out on large chunk of performance with an E8400 anywhere near stock clocks, if he gets a HD5870.
I stand by my suggestion that he gets a HD5870...then just make your cpu the next upgrade in the future.
and no a 4ghz e8400 is certainly not powerfull enough to bottleneck todays high end cards. Even going from a I7 @ stock to 3.8GHZ...there are significant gains in most games.
 
Perhaps you can show me some games with a significant difference then. If they exist and they're games I play I may upgrade. Short of SupCom I really can't think of any. And just for clarity, I don't consider a game going from 100 to 130fps a reason to upgrade, it needs to be a difference that I'll actually notice while gaming, not merely a noticable difference while staring at the FPS counter or benchmark score.
 
A better CPU will increase the minimum frames per second, which is WAY more important than average. I used to have a 8800 GTS (g80) SLI and switched to a GTX 260 and even though my average frames per second didn't go up massively, the minimum frames did and my gaming was at least 1000000x smoother feeling because of it.

To sum it up, more CPU = more minimum frames, more minimum frames = smoother game. Of course a better GPU does the same thing as well. It's all a matter of diminishing returns.
 
i jumped from a 8800gt sli setup to a single 4890 and i love it. I don't get such drastic drops in framerate. Also, I recently got windows 7 so i kept one of my 8800gt cards to use as a physics card (got it working with the patch).

i game at 1920x1080 if that adds any perspective.
 
Headfoot said:
A better CPU will increase the minimum frames per second, which is WAY more important than average. I used to have a 8800 GTS (g80) SLI and switched to a GTX 260 and even though my average frames per second didn't go up massively, the minimum frames did and my gaming was at least 1000000x smoother feeling because of it.

To sum it up, more CPU = more minimum frames, more minimum frames = smoother game. Of course a better GPU does the same thing as well. It's all a matter of diminishing returns.
Click to expand...

I'm not arguing that, i'm arguing that a 4GHz core 2 will provide more than acceptable minimum frames. Why do I think that? Well, a year ago i5 and i7 did not exist and 4GHz core 2's did (via overclocking) and they provided excellet performance, including minimum frames, games are still console ports just as they were a year ago so their requirments really have not changed much for the most part, so if 4GHz was providing smooth game play back then, it should still today.

I suppose I should clarify the difference between significant improvement and a noticable one. An i7 may show an intangable number significantly higher than a Core 2. But I'd like to know which game will yeild a NOTICABLE in game difference.
 
I have a similar setup, but with more system horsepower than yours since I did a new build in October. 8800 GT SLI performs similarly to a GTX 280 or 285, not sure if those are the same. I'm too lazy right now but there was an article at Anandtech that had some pretty extensive testing and that's about where it fell. Obviously in certain situations the 285 is better, but 8800 GT SLI is still a very potent combo.

I game at 1600x1200, except for online shooters I play @ 1280x960 to eek 100hz out of my crt, which is very comparable to 1680x1050.

If you were to buy a card RIGHT NOW, I would highly recommend the 5850, you'll have DX 11 and it will outperform the 8800s in every situation, you're also future proofed. Though honestly there aren't really any worthwhile directx11 games coming out in the near future, unless you're into racing, eg Dirt 2.

8800 GTs SLI'd run current games awesome, except for Crysis on ultra high wtfever settings, but who cares.

I'd recommend waiting to see what Nvidia has to say in the next couple months, and then get something, so you also don't get gouged by the current Ati 5k series economic craziness.
 
Ati 4890 -- Low
Ati 5850 -- Mid
Ati 5870 -- High
Ati 5970 -- Stupid

nVidia 275 -- Low
nVidia 285 -- Mid
nVidia 295 -- High

I recommend the Ati 5850 then in a few months time get another and crossfire them/get a 5870 at a lower price.

OR

buy an Ati 4890 / nVidia 275 until the prives of 5870 come down and more news about nVidia's saviour card.
 
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Majinhoju said:
i jumped from a 8800gt sli setup to a single 4890 and i love it. I don't get such drastic drops in framerate. Also, I recently got windows 7 so i kept one of my 8800gt cards to use as a physics card (got it working with the patch).

i game at 1920x1080 if that adds any perspective.
Click to expand...

This is interesting. I didn't think of doing this. You mention a patch, for Windows 7 or from Nvidia?


I do have to agree that right now the game out aren't completely taxing my current rig, but moving into the next couple months that could change. The DX11 cards are intriguing.
 
KillRoy X said:
This is interesting. I didn't think of doing this. You mention a patch, for Windows 7 or from Nvidia?


I do have to agree that right now the game out aren't completely taxing my current rig, but moving into the next couple months that could change. The DX11 cards are intriguing.
Click to expand...

Yeah, IMO, it doesn't make to upgrade to a non DX 11 card at this point in time. But there's a price premium right now on the 5800 line, which is gonna be the minimum for actually seeing a performance bump from where you're at now.
 
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