Time for a graphical upgrade

Sasquatch · Post by **Sasquatch** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 9:41 am

I am an ATI fan and been fooling with the idea of crossfiring 2 ati 2900xt cards. VRC has each one at $700 bucks and 2 of them is just about (or slightly more than) the same price as the GTX.

Here are my pc specs

ASUS M2R32-MVP ATX AM2 Xpress 3200 Crossfire 2PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 2PCI SATA2 1394 GBLAN Motherboard

Mushkin EM PC2-6400 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-800 CL5-5-5-12 240PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 4 SE PCI 7.1 Surround Sound Card OEM

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Dual Core Processor Socket AM2 Windsor 2.6GHZ 2000FSB 2X1MB 90NM OEM

Thermaltake 700w PSU

Some advice or opinion comparisons between 2 2900xt's crossfired vs 8800GTX would be helpfull..

s0cks · Post by **s0cks** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 10:00 am

$1400 is quite a bit more than the $900ish that a 8800GTX can be found for.

I used to be an ATI and AMD fan, but the fact is that the nVidia cards are faster, even the new ATI 512-bit memory doesn't make up for its lack of speed. New drivers will probably increase speed, but from what I have seen the nVidia cards are currently faster, and improving, and some of the DX10 tests I've seen have shown the nVidia cards to far out-perform ATI.

Also remember that SLI/Crossfire doesn't mean twice as fast, usually an extra card only give 50-70% gains (dpending on the game).

At the end of the day its up to you. I plan to get a 8800GTS simply because the value for money is awesome.

BAZZIL · Post by **BAZZIL** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 10:10 am

Also have a look at the kinds of games you're playing and see if they support dual graphics cards, it may well not be worth even doing a crossfire setup if the games you play aren't going to use it.

I myself would head the one graphics card direction just because it's more simple, there is only one card to worry about = less to go wrong and from what i've seen the top single graphics card is generaly about the same price/performance as two combined graphics cards (which remember only run at twice the performance in the best case scenario which I don't think is actualy that often

)

Do a search round on google for crossfire reviews

s0cks · Post by **s0cks** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 10:24 am

Don't forget you'll need to upgrade to an SLI PSU if you don't have one already. You'll also have a hotter computer, so make sure it doesn't get too hot that it cripples performance.

Scrunty · Post by **Scrunty** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 11:07 am

He won't need an "SLI" psu - thats marketing bulls**t.
Most high-end psu's run multiple 12V rails anyway.
Blair mate your current psu will cope just fine

I was playing on my mates comp last night (Intel E6600 / 4GB mem / 2x 8800GTS 640MB in SLI) ... i'm still not convinced by the whole dual cards thing, don't get me wrong - it was pretty mint but I would rather just stick to one card and upgrade that a little more often I think.

my 3c

Sasquatch · Post by **Sasquatch** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 12:33 pm

I hear what you guys are saying, and thanks

Ascent has the 8800GTX ULTRA for $1400. VRC has 2 2900xt's for $1400 the money thing is pretty much even

I"ve been googling around reading reviews and head to head comparisons. Each benchmark performance and game test is are all different. There are advantages to crossfiring and advantages for not, but no clear indication which is better other than 1 card is cooler and uses less power than 2. But you could flip the coin and see it as if your 1 and only card craps out, with crossfire you have a secondary card on hand while you wait for a replacement card to arrive.

It would seem some games are more 'tweeked' for Nvidia hence the better performance on those games. Other games its the other way and some its middle of the road.

Thanks again guys for your advice but it would seem it comes down to the types of games I play now and will in the future.