One 8800GTX or two 8800GTS?

[onelegout]

Ok, so I recently came into a LOT of money....
I want to build an E6600 Directx-10 rig with it. I want to build my dream computer! So, one 8800GTX, or two 8800GTS cards in SLI?

Also, any reccomendations for a good but reasonably priced motherboard?

Thanks,
H

[andymushu]

there are downsides to both setups for the video cards, as well as upsides. 2 gts's would be more powerful, but a gtx has more upgradeability as you can put another one in if you get the money. i would personally recommend 2 gts's, but thats just me. as for the motherboard, i would recommend the asus p5n32-se deluxe. very powerful sli mobo. it is a bit pricey, but not to the point of going broke or anything.

[onelegout]

You've got a very good point with the upgradability. I don't expect I'll use the power of SLI as an 8800GTX is pretty damn powerful.... I'll go with a single 8800GTX then.

Ok so here's what I had in mind, can you guys check over what I've chosen and make sure I havn't selected something incompatiable by accident!
Thanks,
H

Motherboard
ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813131031R
http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/13-131-031-04.jpg
CPU:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz 4M shared L2 Cache
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115003
http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/19-115-003-01.jpg
RAM:
2x OCZ Gold 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16820227123
http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/20-227-123-02.jpg

Graphics Card:
EVGA GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit GDDR3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814130072
http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/14-130-072-12.jpg

[bartvandenberg]

I want to build my dream computer!


first of all, i see that link is for an open box item. I don't suggest this for a motherboard. Its def not what i would consider "dream computer" material. They get tested for working condition, but who knows how it was handled. Some of the capacitors might be just hangin on or something. My pci-e slot went for a crap 2 weeks after i bought one a couple years back. i would really really suggest to buy a new motherboard. save yourself the headache. its worth the extra $50-100 bucks

Also, i suggest against the ocz gold. get a ram like this.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145034


better timings, overclocks way better and i know a lot of the new asus socket 775 boards have compatabillity problems with ocz ram. ive got a p5n32-e sli plus, and ocz platinum would not boot. only revision 2 did, and it had no headroom for overclock.

or even better yet, but.. since newegg doesnt stock it....team xtreem ram <--- <--- <---Awesome stuff


So.. all in all, i suggest gettin some corsair xms ram. better timings, runs smoother, no worries about compatability, and overclocks well too. (and roughly same price after MIR)
NOTE: ive had 4-4-4-12 ddr2-800 xms running at 3-4-3-10, at ddr2-900 speeds with only 2.2.

Secondly, i suggest gettin a brand new motherboard, and i fyou dont have that kind of money, save a bit of money, get a e6400 instead of a e6600, get a better motherboard, and overclock it past a e6600. you can get 3.2 out of a e6400 with the right chipset, easily. Just beware of the p5n32-e sli motherboard with 680i chipset. its pretty buggy, and thus why asus released its p5n32-e sli plus board with 650i and n570 chips.

As for the video card =


. 2 gts's would be more powerful, but a gtx has more upgradeability as you can put another one in if you get the money. i would personally recommend 2 gts's

NOTE: 2 Gts's are not faster than one Gtx. so.. that is reason #1 not to do it.
#2, probably ends up costing you more.
#3 zero upgradeability (which was said)
#4 take into account that video cards are loud. you would be doubling the noise level, doubling the heat, and almost doubling power consumptions

So.. i would strongly suggest the single Gtx card. that way you are futureproofing with an empty pci-e slot, and all the other above reasons

[onelegout]

bartvandenberg - Awesome advice!
I was kind of unsure about the ocz as I'd head a few compatibility horror stories about it in the past - At the moment I'm running XMS platinum pc3200 and it's awesome so I'll go with that XMS2 that you suggested.
What motherboard do you suggest getting? I'm only air-cooling this rig so I'm not sure how far I'll be able to overclock it (and I've never been very confident with overclocking!)

Thanks
H

EDIT: OK my new plan:

ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813131153

Corsair XMS2 2gb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16820145034

Core2duo E6600
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819115003

EVGA 8800GTX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814130072

[bartvandenberg]

What motherboard do you suggest getting? I'm only air-cooling this rig so I'm not sure how far I'll be able to overclock it (and I've never been very confident with overclocking!)

Thanks
H


Your new plan sounds pretty good to me. ill back that up 100%

Now, you said aircooling? what kind? stock heatsink and fan? with a stock heatsink/fan, id think you could get 2.8 out of your e6600 without worrying about temps too much. If you want advice on overclocking your cpu on that board, just let me know, and ill give you a walkthrough of the bios and what to do.

if you want a good suggestion for aftermarket heatsink/fan, i suggest a thermalright ultra 120 (and they are coming out with the extreme version which adds 2 more heatpipes) this heatsink is literally one of the best aircoolers out there.

if you want an extreme heatsink, that not only cools your cpu, but your ram, passive heatpipes and everything else, check out my review of the Coolermaster gemin II heatsink.

http://thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7250

ive got a couple pics of it installed on a p5n32-e sli plus mobo too. If you are interested in knowing more first hand info, let me know too.

If you need anymore questions answered, i just went through all the details of gettin this board, installing and setting it up, overclocking and stability, so.. jsut ask.

[azminisk8r]

personally i would suggest the ABIT in9 32x max, has sli 3 pcix16 and is 680i chipset, newest set of chipset, extremely OCable easy to get a 3.0 out of you 6600,

[andymushu]

thats looks like a very soild rig. one thing i would suggest if you are air cooling this computer is this zalman hsf
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118223. it is the best cpu heatsink i have found yet in my quest for the best (yay rhyming). it is totally compatible with all LGA 775's and a lot of AMD's too, so no matter what you get you can just keep using this thing. very versatile, but it does come with a bit of a pricetag.


NOTE: 2 Gts's are not faster than one Gtx. so.. that is reason #1 not to do it. -actually, im pretty sure they are, unless i just misread those benchmarks... anyway, one gtx is still pretty dang powerful, so you really can't go wrong in that department.

edit: i found a thread in which this was talked about
http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6680&highlight=8800gts+power

[Indybird]

Good setup, but watch out for that RAM because along with the customers professional reviews said that RAM is not that good. So just lettin ya know watch out for that.

And on your main question, you'll get better performance out of dual GTSs.

[onelegout]

Your new plan sounds pretty good to me. ill back that up 100%

Now, you said aircooling? what kind? stock heatsink and fan? with a stock heatsink/fan, id think you could get 2.8 out of your e6600 without worrying about temps too much. If you want advice on overclocking your cpu on that board, just let me know, and ill give you a walkthrough of the bios and what to do.

if you want a good suggestion for aftermarket heatsink/fan, i suggest a thermalright ultra 120 (and they are coming out with the extreme version which adds 2 more heatpipes) this heatsink is literally one of the best aircoolers out there.

if you want an extreme heatsink, that not only cools your cpu, but your ram, passive heatpipes and everything else, check out my review of the Coolermaster gemin II heatsink.

http://thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7250

ive got a couple pics of it installed on a p5n32-e sli plus mobo too. If you are interested in knowing more first hand info, let me know too.

If you need anymore questions answered, i just went through all the details of gettin this board, installing and setting it up, overclocking and stability, so.. jsut ask.

Thanks again for the great advice,
Despite the crazy-good cooling power of those heatsinks, I've never realy been a fan of the gigantic air-cooled HSFs.. They just look a little clumsy and industrial. I was planning on getting the HSF that Andymushu mentioned - this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118223
As as well as having pretty decent reviews, it would go well colour wise with the copper heat sinks on the motherboard!

It would be realy, realy useful to have someone like you to refer to when overclocking with this motherboard as you've done it before! So, when I get back from the states (in a week and a half or something) I'll be overclocking my stuff, so I'll PM you if I need any specific help, any overall advice for using that board though? like, anything I should make sure I don't do? any settings that need to be checked in bios?
Thanks
H

P.S. I just sold all of my current setup for £300 to my best mate, who's been wanting a good computer for years, so he's happy and I have enough money!

[onelegout]

OK PEOPLE, I now REALY need some serious words of advice.
I'm sitting here, thinking 'how am I going to afford all this?!'
And then I realise, that I havn't added on the &#163;300 extra from my friend buying all of my old stuff.....

This means that I now have $600 more.....
And What costs just under $600?
An 8800GTX....

So now part of me is saying 'But you'll have an SLI capable motherboard with nothing in the second slot! it will be a waste!'

So the question is

Do I actualy go for it, and make my DREAM computer.
Do I put two 8800GTX cards in SLI?

HELP ME DECIDE!

Also, What is all this I keep hearing about being able to make one card act as a physics processor? Under 'features' in newegg's specs of the card it says '
NVIDIA Quantum Effects physics processing technology' ?

Thanks.
H

[andymushu]

two gtx's would be pretty much the ultimate computer in terms of gaming. keep in mind though the fact that the computer industry's technology changes practically by the month. depending on how much money you would be getting in the future, you may want to think about waiting for a better card. that being said, 2 gtx's would last you a decent amount of time while providing you with some outstanding performance. the way i see it you have to decide between ultimate performance now but danger of obsoletion (is that a word?) in the future, or almost top performance with the ability to upgrade later. it is really just your personal preference. as for the physics question you posed, i have not heard anything about this, so i can't help you there.

[bartvandenberg]

OK PEOPLE, I now REALY need some serious words of advice.
I'm sitting here, thinking 'how am I going to afford all this?!'
And then I realise, that I havn't added on the £300 extra from my friend buying all of my old stuff.....

This means that I now have $600 more.....
And What costs just under $600?
An 8800GTX....

So now part of me is saying 'But you'll have an SLI capable motherboard with nothing in the second slot! it will be a waste!'

So the question is

Do I actualy go for it, and make my DREAM computer.
Do I put two 8800GTX cards in SLI?

HELP ME DECIDE!

H

You shouldnt look at it that way. you have to look at it in a different light....like

"will the second card give me any real performance boost?"

and i dont mean that as, it wont gain you any fps, but.. what game do you know thats out that 8800gtx cant run at full settings at insane framerates? really, the second card will only push your 100fps to 130fps theoretically, and since the human eye cant notice any difference over and above..lets say 60fps (even though i think its more like 50) those last 80 fps are kind of "useless".

so.. really.. is paying an extra 600 bucks for a second 8800gtx worth it right off the bat? you wont notice the boost in any games that are out right now anyway.

personally, i would get the one card, and later on, if you need it, buy the second. price drops are always happening, so.. instead of gettin a second card now... wait till june or something, and get another one for 350 bucks?
that saves you a couple hundred bucks.

so.. to sum it all up.. IMHO, get the one card. its WAY beyond anything you need as it is. then, since i know you need a suggestion for a "cheap" psu, get a GOOD psu, and maybe get instead of 2 X 1gb ddr2-800 ram, get 2 X2gb sticks.

thats just me. hope this helps.

[bartvandenberg]

It would be really, really useful to have someone like you to refer to when overclocking with this motherboard as you've done it before! So, when I get back from the states (in a week and a half or something) I'll be overclocking my stuff, so I'll PM you if I need any specific help, any overall advice for using that board though? like, anything I should make sure I don't do? any settings that need to be checked in bios?
Thanks


honestly, ive never found overclocking easier on a motherboard. then again, i was never huge into intel either, and its different to overclock intel's than Amd's.

ill look again at the bios settings i tweaked and so forth and let you know when you get back to me. Ill say this though. i probably only had to change like 4 settings to get a rock stable 2.93 from 2.13. i dont think it gets any easier (at least i had an easy time)


P.S. 2 gts's in sli maybe a bit faster with some games, but.. not all, and in most cases only pushes a few fps more than a gtx..(unless you are running at 2048x1536 res,4x/16x HRD full..then it seems to pull ahead a bit more) But still, does not warrant, IMHO, to go sli, take up the space and power and have no upgrade room. hence, i say right off the bat that its just not worth it. even after looking at benchmarks, if you think realistically, its not worth it at all. Cons far outweigh pros

Call of Duty 2: 2048x1536- 4x/16x

MSI 8800GTS SLI 57.10 +3% increase
ASUS 8800GTX 55.30

[onelegout]

Thanks again for taking the time to help me out with this!
I realise now, that with my monitor it wouldn't be worth having the extra card as my max resolution is 1280x1024
I think I'll just get the single card, spend the extra money on a 20" LCD with a higher resolution, like this samsung
http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=4C3G
Then, in the future I can sell my current screen and get another of the samsung screens and then work on getting another 8800GTX in the future

Do you think my Antec SmartPower 500w would be ok to power the system with just one 8800GTX?

Thanks,
H

[bartvandenberg]

Thanks again for taking the time to help me out with this!
I realise now, that with my monitor it wouldn't be worth having the extra card as my max resolution is 1280x1024
I think I'll just get the single card, spend the extra money on a 20" LCD with a higher resolution, like this samsung
http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=4C3G
Then, in the future I can sell my current screen and get another of the samsung screens and then work on getting another 8800GTX in the future

Do you think my Antec SmartPower 500w would be ok to power the system with just one 8800GTX?

Thanks,
H

the link you have there is for a 22" samsung widesreen.. not a 20", and in that case, go for it. i think you'll be a lot happier with a 22" screen than another gtx.

you antec should possibly be enough to power your system, but remember that if you add more hd'd, more dvd-rom's, and if you want lights, that all takes up more power. especially if you are looking to go sli in the future, maybe futureproofing your psu is an option.

[onelegout]

Ok, I'll try it with my psu, as it is quite a nice modular PSU and it is still quite new, then if I need more power I will get a new one.
I'm now also able to buy some dj hardware that I wanted and have &#163;100 left over afterwards which is great because it means that I'll still have money to spend on small things :)

Oh and, yeah I meant to say 22" not 20"!
Peace,
H

[andymushu]

hey if you waren't sure about how much power you will need for this, go here:http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine
just put in all your info and it should tell you how much you need. my advice to you is this-if you splurge on one thing for this system, let it be the power supply. nothing like fired components, especially $600 ones, to ruin your day. plus if you put 2 gtx's in sli on a 500 watt psu, your just asking for osmething to catch on fire. just my thoughts, take them with a grain of salt.

[onelegout]

yeah but I'm only going to put one 8800GTX on this rig now, and upgrade the PSU later when I get a second 8800GTX

[bartvandenberg]

That is your wisest choice. glad you took the advice. (and i dont mean just mine)

[andymushu]

congrats on your choice and good luck with this thing, hope it works out for ya.

[Sebastien]

two gtx's would be pretty much the ultimate computer in terms of gaming. keep in mind though the fact that the computer industry's technology changes practically by the month. depending on how much money you would be getting in the future, you may want to think about waiting for a better card. that being said, 2 gtx's would last you a decent amount of time while providing you with some outstanding performance. the way i see it you have to decide between ultimate performance now but danger of obsoletion (is that a word?) in the future, or almost top performance with the ability to upgrade later. it is really just your personal preference. as for the physics question you posed, i have not heard anything about this, so i can't help you there.


Might as well not buy a new rig at all since every month your current rig will become obsolete. You can't let that stop you, I had a rig with a 6800 in it for years with a single core processor and it served me Godly for those few years.

If you get a GTX now I doubt for one second you'll have to upgrade anytime soon. I'll bet you'll have that setup for atleast 1-2 years before actually upgrading to a new motherboard/card/setup.

Then again I can't predict the future.

[onelegout]

^^^^^
precisely!!

Besides, I love building computers so every time something goes obselete it's great as I get to replace it with new stuff!
It's just cool to have something to work on other than schoolwork, and it's good also as it helps you keep track of the market and the current technology so that if you have to give advice you can give good advice based on experience.

Thanks for all your help people,
H

[bartvandenberg]

Might as well not buy a new rig at all since every month your current rig will become obsolete. You can't let that stop you, I had a rig with a 6800 in it for years with a single core processor and it served me Godly for those few years.

exactly. if not now, when?

oh.. and i still have a 6800 ultra and a single core cpu, and its still serving me great. When i see past the need to have the "best of the best" and see what gain ill really get, i save a lot of money and stay more content.

But thats probably cause i have to, since im gettin married in a month, have a mortgage and way to many other bills to pay first. Other than a couple fps, (or multitasking, which i dont do anyway) a better gpu, and dual core cpu serve me nothing anything.

Now, i just save up for more frivolous things like my new viewsonic 37"LCD tv. Makes Guitar hero 2 more enjoyable.

[onelegout]

hee hee yeah big tvs are always fun!

I ran into a problem (well, I knew already that it would be a problem, but I didn't predict that it would take me so long to fix)

Basicly, the 8800GTX is too long for my case, and I can't find my hacksaw, and my dremel sucks balls.

SO

I've got to wait til my mum wakes up (we just got in from a 12 hour journey from the states) before I can go to the store and pick up a new hacksaw + some small files.

H