Question on G80 SLI set-up

[maverik-sg1]

Serioulsy considering SLI'ing a pair of G80's but looking for advice.

Probably not volt modded (but not ruled out if I decide to change the coolers) the following set-ups in terms of price consciousness are considered

2x 320MB 8800GTS (approx £360 invest)

2x 620MB 8800GTS (approx £410 invest)

2x 768MB 8800GTX (approx £580 invest)

Running of a Q6600 G0 an 680i mobo.

The objective is to boost the scores without breaking the bank - SLI is clearly the leader in that respect but G80 prices are not as bad as they once were.

Does anyone know the expected 3DMark points difference using each respective set-up? - assume that I am running the quad at 4.3Ghz.

Feel free to drop in your thoughts here.

 

[stocky]

well, if you're investing that much you may as well go for the GTX's

 

[K404]

2x xxxMB 8800GTS- for benching, the RAM makes no difference, but the 640MB RAM is binned slightly better.

I fail to see how you'll get 2 GTX cards at £240 each, but lets ignore £££ for now

You will be CPU bottlenecked with any G80 SLI I reckon, so buy the GTS320 cards. The numbers per £ spent will be the best.

 

[maverik-sg1]

2x xxxMB 8800GTS- for benching, the RAM makes no difference, but the 640MB RAM is binned slightly better.

I fail to see how you'll get 2 GTX cards at £240 each, but lets ignore £££ for now

You will be CPU bottlenecked with any G80 SLI I reckon, so buy the GTS320 cards. The numbers per £ spent will be the best.

Opps I will edit the post - the cost is considerably higher on GTX, and what you said makes sense to me, I was thinking a similar thing, just seeking confirmation of that thought.

Nice one Kenny, a mine of infiormation as usual.

Anyone else care to comment?

 

[Thor]

I did read somewhere (might even of been Kenny(other than this topic)), that anything other than the 320mb gts sli, the cpu acts as the bottle-neck. Just depends if you can get a higher score with a single gtx compared to a pair of 320 gts'.

(Just going off memory from what I have read so may be wrong)

 

[Animal]

Strange you bring this up Mav,

I have 2 x BFG 8800 GTX OC'2 & a Q6600 sitting in the back of my car that i will be install ing on my EVGA 680i mobo.

Thing is im running x64 Vista Ultimate and i dont realy plan on benching them, i might do a 06 run on this setup if you want but tbh i realy dont plan on installing XP for any professional benching.

 

[maverik-sg1]

Strange you bring this up Mav,

I have 2 x BFG 8800 GTX OC'2 & a Q6600 sitting in the back of my car that i will be install ing on my EVGA 680i mobo.

Thing is im running x64 Vista Ultimate and i dont realy plan on benching them, i might do a 06 run on this setup if you want but tbh i realy dont plan on installing XP for any professional benching.

I feel sure that a Vista run will be slower than XP but with that set-up and Vista you would still be welcome contribution to the team mate - god knows we need more scores and that is high end so even your worst score should count for something.

Fill yer boots!!

Mav

 

[stocky]

do a 06 run on this setup if you want

yes please!

 

[Vrykyl]

Mav matey - you have a large tft monitor right? Im assuming one of those nice 24" 1920x1200 jobs

If so, purely from a gamers standpoint id get either the 2x 640mb gts or 2x 768mb gtx

Why? Because reviews have shown that a single 320mb gts doesnt have enough v.ram to run as high AA and AF on 1600x1200+ size monitors as its 640mb counterpart (Hence why i have a single 640mb card).

Not a problem you say as you'll be SLI'ing them? What about all the games that dont properly support SLI?

If I was dropping that much cash on a dual gpu setup id make sure that just one of the cards had the ability to acceptably game on my monitor should the other fail/not be supported in SLI.......

Just my 2p

*p.s* dual gtx ftw - 640mb gts = £230 or 768mb gtx = £290

 

[maverik-sg1]

You are right about that Vrykyl mate - however this is purely benching for everyday use I have a 8800GTX

There is every chance I will bench and then sell the GTS's and the 320MB units will sell better as they are more in reach of enthusiasts and not many people game at or above 1600x1200.

Looking at what people can achieve in SLI on a 8800GTX set up - seems in 3dm06 SLI GTX with a quad, 20k is the max (ish). Given I can crack 13.5k with a core2 and a single 8800GTX it's safe to assume it is CPU limited. One would expect that potentially 30-35k is available from teh GPU's - it really does show that the limit is one of two things, crappy SLI driver or severe cpu limitations - I would like to think its a mix of both with a heavy percentage sat on the CPU holding it up.

 

[Vrykyl]

fair enough mav - didnt know you had a gtx already

 

[Animal]

yes please!

Cant do it m8,

found out that there only 32bit OS compatible

 

[maverik-sg1]

Cant do it m8,

found out that there only 32bit OS compatible

Nvidia released new driver sets for vista yesterday - are you saying can't run SLI in Vista 64?

IF thats the case, any chance of creating a dual boot for a quick run - the team really needs your scores mate.

Or if not - pull one card and run single card - 06 will benefit from the quad chip and 14k+ is waiting for you and the team

cheers

Mav

PS: Sorry I could not be more help yesterday - also, did not see you were running SLI in Vista

 

[Animal]

3DMark®Basic Edition (Build 1.1.0)

System Recommendations:

Minimum System Recommendations

Intel® or AMD® compatible processor 2.5GHz or higher

DirectX® 9 compatible graphics card with Pixel Shader 2.0 support or later, and graphics memory of 256 MB minimum*

1GB of system RAM or more

1.5GB of free hard disk space

Windows® XP 32bit or Windows Vista® 32bit operating system with latest Service Packs and updates installed <<<<< Not 64bit like im running

DirectX® 9.0c December 2005 or later

Visual C++® 2005 Redist

Microsoft® Excel® 2003/XP or later for some 3DMark functionality

Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 6 or later for some 3DMark functionality

 

[Highland3r]

See below for a couple of benchies, ~ a 2k difference in scores although the GPU's were at differing speeds. Maybe ~ 1.5k difference at the same clockspeeds perhaps?

Similar sort of result in 05, and ~ 5k lower in 01. 03 was a bit crappy so results for that are null

Of the above setups, 8800GTS would certainly be the cheapest and at the res's you're looking at (1280 max) there's little need to get the 640mb version.

They're also cheaper than the other solutions so you can rag the cards and loose less money

Of the 2 cards (from a person POV) I much preferred the GTS 320, the performance difference between it and the GTX wasn't huge (~ 10%). Having said that you've already got 1 GTX so if you're willing to bench your 24/7 card that might be the cheapest of the options?

As Kenny said though, you're gonna be CPU limited with any G80 SLI setup, especially with only 4.3ghz (despite it being a quad)....

If you had closer to 4.7-5ghz then GTX SLI might well be the best option

 

[advancedkill]

Depends ont he screen res: 1680*1050 and below is good for 320mb, above that you need 640mb.

 

[maverik-sg1]

Depends ont he screen res: 1680*1050 and below is good for 320mb, above that you need 640mb.

I think that was already mentioned - but given that 19" widescreen monitors pumps out 1280x1440 a 320mb 8800GTS would suffice in that repsect and offer great value for money at the same time.

Nice one Highlander mate - appreciate your input - good to see you back here posting

Cheers

Mav