New Gaming Rig Advice...

[Rudel]

Ok, so I'd like to upgrade to something new. My current system is by no means a slouch, but this is my hobby so.....

Current Rig is Q6600 @ 3.4, 2-8800GTX SLI, 2GB GSkill, 74GB Raptor System drive plus 2 x 750GB for Stuff. X-FI extreme gamer. Dell 3007 monitor.

I know I need a lot of GPU horsepower to game @ 2560 x 1600. Should I go 780i, x38, x48, crossfireX, tri-sli, sli?

Suggestions are most welcome. Thanks in advance.

 

[HardwareGuru]

Your current setup is pretty powerful. Those 2 x 8800GTX in SLI should be able to play some games at that Res. For Crysis, it will definitely struggle. You will need Tri SLI to make it play at 30 fps. If you intend on wanting to game primarily at 2560 x 1600, I would go Tri - SLI. With Tri-SLI you probably can push 60+FPS with 4X AA in COD4 at 2560 x 1600.

 

[Jon855]

You might would want to look into Quad CrossFiring (2x 3870X2)

 

[iJeff]

Tri SLI right now seems to be a waste of money:

you'll need a 2560x1600 display in order to really realize the benefits of three GPUs. Even then, in none of the games we tested did we see a case where going from two cards to three made a real difference in terms of playability. (Going from 80 FPS to 95 FPS doesn't count.) The closest we came to that may have been Crysis, but that game seems to have its own performance scaling problems—at least at the "high" and "very high" settings—that involve factors other than the graphics subsystem alone. Perhaps, in some games, turning up antialiasing levels to 8X or 16X will help tease out some of the benefits of having a third GPU. That wasn't the case when we tried it in Half-Life 2: Episode Two, however.

From Tech Report's tri-SLI article: http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14161/9

Obviously, AMD has captured the title of "fastest single graphics card" with the Radeon HD 3870 X2. There is much to like here. The X2 is generally faster than the GeForce 8800 Ultra, and it has HD video decode acceleration that Nvidia's older G80 GPU lacks.

But, SLI outperforms it...

For just a little more money, a pair of GeForce 8800 GT cards in SLI will outperform the X2, usually by a healthy margin. Those 8800 GTs will come with many of the same multi-GPU caveats as the X2, however, plus additional ones about requiring two PCIe x16 slots and an Nvidia chipset.

From Tech Report's 3870x2 review: http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/13967/11





COD4 benefits from 2x 3870x2:

In Call of Duty 4 this game showed us the power of two Radeon HD 3870 X2s in CrossFireX. We saw incredible performance scaling allowing 2560x1600 with 2X Adaptive Supersampling to be playable.

UT3 does not:

In Unreal Tournament III we found there to be no benefits to using two Radeon HD 3870 X2s in CrossFireX for this game. You can already run this game up to 2560x1600 with maximum in-game settings with one Radeon HD 3870 X2.

Crysis might be acceptable with 2x3870x2 at 2560:

We even tested all the way up to 2560x1600 and found that the game was playable if we turned everything to “Medium” except Game Effects and Particles to “Low.”

From [H] article http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQ3MCwzLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==




Bit of research goes a long way.

 

[crhscoog]

my advice would be wait for the 9series cards. tri sli right now is a waste of money so i would wait until there are more powerful cards out. a guy that goes by maxishine who you could see on youtube (well his system) tri sli-ed 8800 ultras and at 1920x1200 gets 40-55fps on 2xAA ultrahigh settings. so as you can see even if you tri sli right now its not worth it although those are very playable fps. (for over $1500 worth of videocards

 

[HardwareGuru]

Well...he has 2 x 8800GTX already. He just need one more and a Mobo that supports tri-sli. However, if the 9800GX2 proves to be quite powerful, then maybe he can run 2 of these in SLI instead.

 

[crhscoog]

well i find buying another 8800gtx for $400 is a waste of money because it should be worth at most $350 since the 8800gts G92 performs just as well with slight oc and its only $300. i would instead wait till the 9800gx2 or 9800gtx comes out and sli those instead after selling the two 8800gtx.

 

[Markyip1]

Your rig is still top of the line. See how the new nVidia graphic cards perform and if you're going to upgrade anything, upgrade to one or two of those. Swapping out for a new motherboard and processor with your setup at this time is a gross waste of time, money, and effort. Wait until Nehelem... then you'll have reason for a full system upgrade.

If you're itching to spend money however, and if hardware is your hobby, then might I suggest watercooling? It's a big project and will certainly occupy your time until the new architecture is out, and besides, it'll give you a shot at running your G0 Q6600 at 4ghz.