SLi questions...

[omniskillz]

i been on the hunt for a video card for a couple weeks and its driving me insane, reading reviews, forums.. cant really come to a solution.
i have a 1920x1080 display.
my motherboard is a dfi lanparty expert sli-dr.

question, i lost the sli bridge that came with the motherboard.
do retail nvidia cards come with the bridge?
if not , where can i get one?

i also noticed the second pci express slot is not 16x.
is this normal? if not how will it affect sli mode.

im guessing my 3ghz opteron 165 will be enough to handle 8800gt sli or a 8800gtx.

now the forecast calls for d9e g92's coming out in february.

so im still thinkin, go balls out for 500-600 and get 2 8800gt to sli them.
or wait a couple months and get the one card that will do it and save up for the cpu/mobo/ram upgrade for down the road..

buyers remorse is so horrid :bang head
anyway thanks for the read hehe.

[Tweak486Dx2]

3ghz Opteron will severely bottleneck a single 8800Gt, not to mention a SLI setup.

CPU/Mem/Mobo upgrade should be first on your list of upgrades.

With my rig in sig I am even bottlenecked by my Quad at 3600mhz. Every 100Mhz more I can get my quad up to my scores and fps in games rises. Overclocking my cards does nothing.

So pairing SLI gt's with a cpu that is about 10 times as slow as mine is just silly.

Either Core2Dou or Quad, or even Phenom.....Then SLI gt's.

[omniskillz]

3ghz Opteron will severely bottleneck a single 8800Gt, not to mention a SLI setup.

CPU/Mem/Mobo upgrade should be first on your list of upgrades.

With my rig in sig I am even bottlenecked by my Quad at 3600mhz. Every 100Mhz more I can get my quad up to my scores and fps in games rises. Overclocking my cards does nothing.

So pairing SLI gt's with a cpu that is about 10 times as slow as mine is just silly.

Either Core2Dou or Quad, or even Phenom.....Then SLI gt's.

dont know if any cpu upgrade which will also need a mobo and ram is worth the upgrade right now at my price range.
im just a gamer, internet browser. dont need quad.
so i go intel e6780 or maybe 5000+ black edition new mobo ram, prob run me 500-600 respectively for each platform.
i will still be stuck with my ati x1900xtx which is not that good at 1920x1080 res.

figured id get the gpu upgrade first, and then switch the cpu.mobo.mem when something in my price range is worth upgrading to.

and what confuses me, is wasnt the orginal amd 3000+ whatever designation meant to say they can compete with intel's 3ghz processor? even tho amd was clocked at like 2.2ghz? so is my opteron at 3ghz a 6000+? lol.

only game i can really play 1920x1080 on is any source games. since they are still using the same old engine from 3 yrs ago just rehashed, updated , etc. :)

call of duty 4 i have to play at 1280x720 resolution to get nice frames.. its a bit blurry but playable.

[Tweak486Dx2]

Im just saying if u want the best performance enhancing uprade u cant get then get the cpu/mem/mobo upgrade. Your system will come to life. People dont understand how much power these new intel cpu's can deliver. A C2d/1900Xtx system is a pretty hardcore system that will tackly any game at max settings with the exception of Crysis.

The same system with a single core Opty is no way near as powerful.

Ive had this same argument with my cousin who refused to upgrade from is Athlon 4000+ @ 3000mhz. He doubted me everyway that upgrading to core would be a waste and his money would be better spend on a 8800. BOY did he bite his tounge when he fired up his E6750 overclocked at stock voltage to 3400mhz. Also his video card is a 7900GS, no way near as powerfull as your 1900XTX. His FPS in HL2 in Vista went from 40-50 Avg to 160-300 average. THIS IS JUST FROM A CORE2DOU upgrade.

If he would have just bought a 8800gt and threw it in with his 4000+ I bet his frame would have maybe went up like 25fps. NO way near the 100-200Fps gain he saw from the cpu upgrade.

Badass computers need parts that balance out to perform at there best.

Example of past popular combos that balanced out well were:

Radeon 8500 Geforce 4's & AMd Athlon's (Tbirds)
Radeon 9800pros Geforce 5700's & Barton Core Athlons and up also Pentium 4 socket 423.
Radeon X800's with athlon 64's of all variety worked awesome together.

8800's work well with really only C2d's. Thats about the only cpu's that can feed these hungry GPU's.

[omniskillz]

Im just saying if u want the best performance enhancing uprade u cant get then get the cpu/mem/mobo upgrade. Your system will come to life. People dont understand how much power these new intel cpu's can deliver. A C2d/1900Xtx system is a pretty hardcore system that will tackly any game at max settings with the exception of Crysis.

The same system with a single core Opty is no way near as powerful.

Ive had this same argument with my cousin who refused to upgrade from is Athlon 4000+ @ 3000mhz. He doubted me everyway that upgrading to core would be a waste and his money would be better spend on a 8800. BOY did he bite his tounge when he fired up his E6750 overclocked at stock voltage to 3400mhz. Also his video card is a 7900GS, no way near as powerfull as your 1900XTX. His FPS in HL2 in Vista went from 40-50 Avg to 160-300 average. THIS IS JUST FROM A CORE2DOU upgrade.

If he would have just bought a 8800gt and threw it in with his 4000+ I bet his frame would have maybe went up like 25fps. NO way near the 100-200Fps gain he saw from the cpu upgrade.

Badass computers need parts that balance out to perform at there best.

Example of past popular combos that balanced out well were:

Radeon 8500 Geforce 4's & AMd Athlon's (Tbirds)
Radeon 9800pros Geforce 5700's & Barton Core Athlons and up also Pentium 4 socket 423.
Radeon X800's with athlon 64's of all variety worked awesome together.

8800's work well with really only C2d's. Thats about the only cpu's that can feed these hungry GPU's.

btw im a dual core opty, but im know what u are saying , ty.

[omniskillz]

any answers on the sli bridge and the second pci e slot being 8x only?

[ChinStrap]

the Second PCIe lane only being 8x is nothing to worry about, i have a P5n-e from Asus for a while and it only had double 8x lanes when in SLi. the GPU's today can't even fill an 8x lane. - i know venders sell SLi bridges (alone) like i know eVGA and Asus do. i would just go to DFI's website and see if they have anything for you - hell - you could even pick up an eVGA or Asus bridge - AFAIK they are all the same.

if you want a nice bump in FPS going SLi is always a nice answer, you have a good opty - if benchmarking and the like isnt your thing, SLi would still give you a nice bump in FPS over a single card - Espe at the large res your running.

[NettieZoom]

I ran my 8800GT 512mb in my X2 5200+ comp for a few days and it maxed out the card just fine at 2.9ghz, going from 2.9ghz to 3.2ghz barely raised my GPU scores.

Newegg sells the bridges cheap last time I checked, lost mine too and had to order one :)

[odin30]

This is the worst advice ive seen.
A 8800gt is alot smarter purchase than a new mb/ram/cpu.
If you are gaming at resolutions at and above 1920 then 99% of all your games will be bottlenecked by your video card, even ultra's and gtx's. A fast quad core etc isnt even 2% faster than a x2 at 2700 mhz at any kind of high resolution. Firing squad has a excellent article up about gpu/cpu scaling and its quite clear in every game at high rez the cpu made little to no difference as long as you start with a decent one ie-5000+ x2 etc
Basically it goes like this, if you raise your rez and your framerate drops your cpu is not helping at all and you need a faster gpu. If you raize your rez and framerates stay the same then you could use more cpu power.
Crysis is a perfect example, it runs the exact same on a 3.6ghz quad core as it does on a 2.7 ghz x2. The video card is the bottleneck in this game and all the other most recent ones also.
People seem to tell others to upgrade perfectly good systems to justify their own upgrades, when in reality the best course of action is simply to upgrade a video card.
Do some research around in different forums and you will see.

[Tweak486Dx2]

This is the worst advice ive seen.
A 8800gt is alot smarter purchase than a new mb/ram/cpu.
If you are gaming at resolutions at and above 1920 then 99% of all your games will be bottlenecked by your video card, even ultra's and gtx's. A fast quad core etc isnt even 2% faster than a x2 at 2700 mhz at any kind of high resolution. Firing squad has a excellent article up about gpu/cpu scaling and its quite clear in every game at high rez the cpu made little to no difference as long as you start with a decent one ie-5000+ x2 etc
Basically it goes like this, if you raise your rez and your framerate drops your cpu is not helping at all and you need a faster gpu. If you raize your rez and framerates stay the same then you could use more cpu power.
Crysis is a perfect example, it runs the exact same on a 3.6ghz quad core as it does on a 2.7 ghz x2. The video card is the bottleneck in this game and all the other most recent ones also.
People seem to tell others to upgrade perfectly good systems to justify their own upgrades, when in reality the best course of action is simply to upgrade a video card.
Do some research around in different forums and you will see.

You have no idea what your talking about. I wish someone else would back me up on this WHO DOESNT HAVE AN AMD!! AND who the hell games at low resolutions these days??? What is this 2000 and were all gaming at 1024/768????

SLI 8800GT's and AMD's cpu's just doesnt work well together.

Do it right and start with what u NEED first and get Mobo/Cpu/Mem.

U guys act like u know what your talking about and u dont. I HAVE SLI GT's, My computer scores almost 20,000 in 3dmark!! With an amd cpu I wouldnt even break 13,000!!!!!I HAD AN 8800 WITH AN OPTY 185 @ 3000Mhz. IT WAS A JOKE!!!! When I bought my first E6600 my computer finally came alive. It was like night and day. And I was a non-believer just like all u amd guys now are. I wish some Core people would actually back me up on this.


Dont listen to the haters. Start with E6750/EVGA 680i/2 gigs of any cheapass DDR2800.

THEN get SLI'Gt.

Your trying to make a drag car out of a honda civic and your leaving the stock tires on it. Thats about how much sense this will make if u do this.


The whole Low Res/High Res argument is what amd people try to belive cause there in denial that there cpu's are SLOW and holding back there entire setup.


FLAME ON!!

[Rattle]

the other side of the coin is 3dmarks dont mean ****

when you game at 19x12 the load is displaced to the gpu

at high res you be surprised how less of a difference there is between the 2 cpu/mobo combos in actual games at that high res, compared to the difference when you run 3dmarks where there's a huge meaningless difference lol

to each his own, people just need to know facts

even a q6600 bottlenecks a SLI setup with 88's if you run 3dmarks all day

or you run low res which is retarded if your gonna go SLI

your score in 06 is 3k more than mine with a 3.6 e6600 and cards at 650/1625/1900 which are stock for them.
lets run some game demos at 1680x1050 and see if there's a difference.

[Tweak486Dx2]

people dont understand that 3dmark is what your computer is. That score is what your gaming with. Its like a Horsepower rating.

[Rattle]

your highly misled

the resolution is key not the application

[odin30]

lol you are the backwards one bro and im not going to get into a flame war with you.
I said at high resolutions not low.
And who plays at low rezzes.
Go do a little research, and i own 2 8800gtx's with a x2 and have had them over a year and they work fine.
Go talk with absolutely anyone who actually knows what they are talking about and they will tell you at high rezzes the gpu is your bottle neck.
Did you even read the in depth article at firing squad?
Go to a dozen different sites and do some research instead of blindly saying dumb ****.

[Rattle]

odin run fear test at 1680x1050 max in game settings set drivers to default.
I will do the same.

[ratbuddy]

You have no idea what your talking about. I wish someone else would back me up on this WHO DOESNT HAVE AN AMD!! AND who the hell games at low resolutions these days??? What is this 2000 and were all gaming at 1024/768????

SLI 8800GT's and AMD's cpu's just doesnt work well together.

Do it right and start with what u NEED first and get Mobo/Cpu/Mem.

U guys act like u know what your talking about and u dont. I HAVE SLI GT's, My computer scores almost 20,000 in 3dmark!! With an amd cpu I wouldnt even break 13,000!!!!!I HAD AN 8800 WITH AN OPTY 185 @ 3000Mhz. IT WAS A JOKE!!!! When I bought my first E6600 my computer finally came alive. It was like night and day. And I was a non-believer just like all u amd guys now are. I wish some Core people would actually back me up on this.


Dont listen to the haters. Start with E6750/EVGA 680i/2 gigs of any cheapass DDR2800.

THEN get SLI'Gt.

Your trying to make a drag car out of a honda civic and your leaving the stock tires on it. Thats about how much sense this will make if u do this.


The whole Low Res/High Res argument is what amd people try to belive cause there in denial that there cpu's are SLOW and holding back there entire setup.


FLAME ON!!

Holy crow.. Are you running 800x600 on an old 14" monitor or something? If a 3.7ghz Q6600 is bottlenecking your video cards, you must be..

[NettieZoom]

You have no idea what your talking about. I wish someone else would back me up on this WHO DOESNT HAVE AN AMD!! AND who the hell games at low resolutions these days??? What is this 2000 and were all gaming at 1024/768????

SLI 8800GT's and AMD's cpu's just doesnt work well together.

Do it right and start with what u NEED first and get Mobo/Cpu/Mem.

U guys act like u know what your talking about and u dont. I HAVE SLI GT's, My computer scores almost 20,000 in 3dmark!! With an amd cpu I wouldnt even break 13,000!!!!!I HAD AN 8800 WITH AN OPTY 185 @ 3000Mhz. IT WAS A JOKE!!!! When I bought my first E6600 my computer finally came alive. It was like night and day. And I was a non-believer just like all u amd guys now are. I wish some Core people would actually back me up on this.


Dont listen to the haters. Start with E6750/EVGA 680i/2 gigs of any cheapass DDR2800.

THEN get SLI'Gt.

Your trying to make a drag car out of a honda civic and your leaving the stock tires on it. Thats about how much sense this will make if u do this.


The whole Low Res/High Res argument is what amd people try to belive cause there in denial that there cpu's are SLOW and holding back there entire setup.


FLAME ON!!


You are handing out bad advice plain and simple....

What now AMD cant run a SLI setup ? LOL give me a break......

A dual core Opty @3ghz will run SLI 8800GT just fine.


I am no AMD fangirl, my main system is an Intel C2D but I still have a couple AMD setups and to be honest I hardly notice the difference between my C2D@3.2 and my 5200+@2.9ghz-3.2ghz in games.

Its just wrong to carry your Intel fanboyism crap so far as to tell someone to replace their whole computer for no reason in my opinion.

[Tweak486Dx2]

Im over this discussion, go waste your money. What the fu_k do I care!



ALso heres a link from XS of 8800gt's completely bottlenecked by a Q6600.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=164238 Read thru it.

[ratbuddy]

Im over this discussion, go waste your money. What the fu_k do I care!



ALso heres a link from XS of 8800gt's completely bottlenecked by a Q6600.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=164238 Read thru it.

Ignorance combined with arrogance is a recipe for.. Well, not good things. The OP has a 1920x1080 display. The CPU is not going to bottleneck at that resolution. The post you refer to features lovely 1280x1024 screenshots. And no anti-aliasing. Completely different animal.

[johnm]

When Oblivion came out i was getting 35fps with a single 7900@1920x1080
Got another 7900 for sli fps went close to 70fps was well worth it.
Now with cheap gts comig out i went back to sli.
Score: 16147 stock sc gt8800sli beta untweaked air
Score: 12898 8800 GTX.
Good score Tweak486Dx2 3DMark 06 19,554,
Need to put wb on gts next weak

[johnm]

Score: 25136
Date: 2006-09-24
CPU: AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 148
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT sli
OS: Microsoft Windows XP
Res: 1024x768@32 bit

Score: 42470
Date: 2007-02-18
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT sli
679 MHz / 817 MHz
OS: Microsoft Windows XP
Res: 1024x768@32 bit

Same sli different platforms in 3DMARK 03

[Tweak486Dx2]

1024/768 is kinda a real low res to compare these days. Try running Crysis time demo at 1600.1200 on both platforms and compare. Still the intel will score way higher.

[johnm]

1024/768 is kinda a real low res
only thing i had to compare amd to intel
At AnandTech there is a post LIST YOUR 8800GT OC
I can see a increase in 3d scores as cpu speeds go up
A dual core Opty @3ghz will run SLI 8800GT just [fine]
Dont think amd will ever max out SLI 8800GT
Order 2 Dell gt 418.00 cheap temp way out.
I would wait till jan order a680i light + 45nm Q9450 12meg
Last thanksgiving i upgraded from a 939 to sig system
I shouldnt have kept my 2 outdated systems that long.
Pi 1 m 29 sec on a amd 148@3000
Pi 1m 13 sec on intel@3700

[Nomanor]

With my rig in sig I am even bottlenecked by my Quad at 3600mhz. Every 100Mhz more I can get my quad up to my scores and fps in games rises. Overclocking my cards does nothing.

what a load of bullshlt, LOL

[Tweak486Dx2]

what a load of bullshlt, LOL


Jsut shut up dude, im so sick on the stupidity on this website. Your a moron and I would tell u that to ur ***** ass face if I could. YOu have no idea what your talking about. Your probably some punk ass kids on his moms computer who bought an issue of maximum pc and thinks hes a genius now.


Im over this stupid ass argument from people that have no idea what there talking about. People are even PM'img me telling me to stop wasting my time arguing with all these amd fanboys who hold on to the hope that there cpus are still fast. Come back in 10 years when you know what your talking about. Or better yet go buy dual GT's and pair them with your outdated AMD cpu and make sure u comeback in here to say your sorry for doubting me.

Peace.

[NettieZoom]

Jsut shut up dude, im so sick on the stupidity on this website. Your a moron and I would tell u that to ur ***** ass face if I could. YOu have no idea what your talking about. Your probably some punk ass kids on his moms computer who bought an issue of maximum pc and thinks hes a genius now.


Im over this stupid ass argument from people that have no idea what there talking about. People are even PM'img me telling me to stop wasting my time arguing with all these amd fanboys who hold on to the hope that there cpus are still fast. Come back in 10 years when you know what your talking about. Or better yet go buy dual GT's and pair them with your outdated AMD cpu and make sure u comeback in here to say your sorry for doubting me.

Peace.


Oh my someone opposes his Fanboy views and now he is talking like a ghetto 12 year old..... You are SUCH a big boy.

*Edit - Now I am receiving PM's with the same language from him... Too funny.

[Tweak486Dx2]

I come on there trying to tell people how to build there sytem right and all everybody does is try to express there stupid no knowledge opinions.

Ill tell u what lets see someone top my score in 06 with there amd setup and TRIPLE sli, better yet lets find a way to hook up 10 GT's to our AMD's and see if we can break 15k.

[ratbuddy]

I come on there trying to tell people how to build there sytem right and all everybody does is try to express there stupid no knowledge opinions.

Ill tell u what lets see someone top my score in 06 with there amd setup and TRIPLE sli, better yet lets find a way to hook up 10 GT's to our AMD's and see if we can break 15k.

Let me try to be as diplomatic as I can.. You have some misguided opinions. CPU bottlenecking is mostly a function of resolution. The higher the resolution you play at, the less effect CPU has on frames/second. 3DMark scores do not mean jack in real world game performance. Yes, Intel quads will score higher than AMD dual cores, but again, it's a synthetic benchmark. Look it up.

Try reading and learning from what people are telling you, unless you actually enjoy being a troll??? Could be that's your whole deal... But I won't assume...

[odin30]

all i can say is wow just wow.
Go read the article at firing squad then come back.
At high rezzes you are bottlenecked by your graphics card, high rezzes being 1920 x 1200 and higher. This is fact, anyone who disagrees is a simpleton plain and simple.
Argument over.

[joesaiditstrue]

as long as you have a decent CPU, it won't bottleneck you at higher resolutions (1680x1050 and higher), so long as your GPU can handle those resolutions at playable framerates

this has been common knowledge for the last 10 years

[icantfindone]

**trying to tiptoe around the flames**

Earlier this year, I bought the Westinghouse 37W3, and so I game at 1920x1080. When I first got this monitor, my rig had a Core Duo @ 2.93 with an ATI x1900xt. I upgraded to the 8800GTX and noticed a huge difference in games. After I got crysis, tf2, cod4, and some other new games, I decided to upgrade to the q6600 running 24/7 @ 3.6. The only difference I can actually see in my computers performance is in 3dmark06. It runs the CPU benchmarks at 3 fps instead of 1.5 fps. In games running 1920x1080 all settings maxxed, I can tell no difference between a quad @ 3.6 and dual @ 2.93.

The reason the benchmarks show a huge difference is they run much lower resolution (1024x768 for 3dm05, 1280x1024 for 3dm06) so more stress is placed on the cpu to provide a large amount of polygon data to the graphics card, since it has a relatively low number of pixels to calculate.

In games at high resolutions, however, there are much more pixels for the graphics card to process, and depending on the visual settings you have applied, much more post-processing for the graphics card to complete. Therefor ingame, the majority of the load is placed on the graphics card.

All that being said, as long as you have a capable multi-core cpu, no matter the flavor or variety, with an 8800gt at high resolutions, you will see a real world difference of maybe 2% at best in game between the AMD @ 3ghz and the Conroe @ 3ghz, because the graphics card is still the bottleneck at high resolutions and high IQ.

Soooo. . . to get down to the original question, if I were you, I would get a single 8800gt to start out, and see how that performs for you. If you are still dissatisfied, experiment a little. Lower your cpu to its stock speed (1.8ghz? 2.0ghz?) and see how much difference IN GAME the lower clock speed makes (I know, slowing your computer sounds crazy, bear with me). This way, you can see the difference the CPU speed makes with the graphics card for free. If it makes a huge difference, then you can expect to gain a proportional amount by upgrading your platform. If it doesnt make much difference, then dont expect much by upgrading your platform.

I hope this helps, if you managed to read it all. . .

[icantfindone]

Ahh, since we are on the subject, here's a useful thread

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=538095

[Elluzion]

as long as you have a decent CPU, it won't bottleneck you at higher resolutions (1680x1050 and higher), so long as your GPU can handle those resolutions at playable framerates

this has been common knowledge for the last 10 years

thank u lol,