bit of gfx advice please

evening all.

been giving a lot of thought to building a new rig lately but not having built one for 2 years i'm a bit out of date on the best options for graphics & tbh i usually start with getting the graphics sorted then work other components around that

i currently have an 8800 GT...would it be worthwhile getting an SLI motherboard and another 8800 GT or would i be better off starting afresh?

if starting afresh, would there be a lot of beneift in getting an SLI or crossfire board anyway, leaving me the option of adding another gfx card at a later date or should i just blow as much of the budget as possible on a single card & save some cash getting a non-SLI / crossfire mohterboard?

Firstly you've got to ask yourself, do you actually need this upgrade?

What resolution are you running at, what else do you have as part of your system?

The 5 series may be something to look at as it's better cost-performing than getting an SLI motherboard and another 8800GT.

Although I haven't got any clear stats, I can say that 8800GT SLI will be roughly equal to a 5770.

5770 costs around £120 ish right now so if you sell your 8800GT for £30-50, that would mean an upgrade costing £70-90 which is slightly cheaper than getting an SLI board and another 8800GT.

What Ulti said

However if you're thinking of building a whole new rig and are considering an i5 or i7 then a p55 or x58 motherboard will support ether sli or crossfire, so a pair of 8800gt's in sli does become a semi-viable option.
All depends on how much you're willing to spend and how much performance you want out of it.

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Originally Posted by Ulti

Firstly you've got to ask yourself, do you actually need this upgrade?

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if i'm honest, not really...but that's never stopped me before!

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Originally Posted by Ulti

What resolution are you running at, what else do you have as part of your system?

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currently have abit ib9 motherboard, p4 dual core 3ghz CPU, 8gig ddr2 6400, coolermaster 600w psu, pair of SATA hard drives & a pair of PATA optical drives running windows 7 ultimate x64. display is running at 1680 x 1050

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ulti

The 5 series may be something to look at as it's better cost-performing than getting an SLI motherboard and another 8800GT.

Although I haven't got any clear stats, I can say that 8800GT SLI will be roughly equal to a 5770.

5770 costs around £120 ish right now so if you sell your 8800GT for £30-50, that would mean an upgrade costing £70-90 which is slightly cheaper than getting an SLI board and another 8800GT.

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cost isn't the main driving factor. obviously i don't want to sell my car & remortgage my house! but value for money is relatively important & to be honest having not built anything in ages (other than at work, which doesn't count) i'm a bit out of touch with what's hot or not, so your info is much appreciated chaps :thumb:

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Originally Posted by petrefax

if i'm honest, not really...but that's never stopped me before!


currently have abit ib9 motherboard, p4 dual core 3ghz CPU, 8gig ddr2 6400, coolermaster 600w psu, pair of SATA hard drives & a pair of PATA optical drives running windows 7 ultimate x64. display is running at 1680 x 1050


cost isn't the main driving factor. obviously i don't want to sell my car & remortgage my house! but value for money is relatively important & to be honest having not built anything in ages (other than at work, which doesn't count) i'm a bit out of touch with what's hot or not, so your info is much appreciated chaps :thumb:

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If you are running a dual core Pentium 4 this would be a bottleneck in most modern games!! I would upgrade to a Q6600 or even a Q9300:

http://www.abit.com.tw/cpu-support-l...l_p965_ib9.htm

This would improve system performance massively. The second upgrade option would be to go for a Phenom II 955 and an AM2+ 790GX based motherboard.

Both upgrade options would be well under £200 and would mean you could re-use your existing RAM. DDR3 is quite expensive at the moment an d 8GB of DDR3 will be over £160 usually!!

In 2011 there should be some interesting new CPUs being released such as those based on the AMD Bulldozer architecture and of course new Intel processors too.

happen you're right there chap. a CPU upgrade is the sensible, cost-effective option for now (not as much fun tho eh!)

only shame is i have an E7200 going spare but this board won't touch it :(

Why not get a P35/P45 board seeing as they're so cheap nowadays? You could then overclock the E7200 and you'll see quite a performance boost.

Depending on how old your hard drive is, getting new hard drives would also make things faster, although I don't think it's going to be worth the cost though.

I don't think getting an SLI board just for 8800GT SLI is worth it though now.

It's a shame the board I got doesn't appear to be on Scan anymore, it was only £62. (DFI LanParty DK P45-T2RS) It has PCI-E 2.0 crossfire at x8/x8 link and being a P45 chipset, it's great at overclocking. Only bought it around 2 weeks ago, I guess it was clearance stock and Scan sold it all.

If money isn't really an issue, I'd advise you to get a P45 crossfire motherboard and pair it up with your E7200. Then also get a 5770 and perhaps next year you may want a performance boost in games and you could buy another 5770 and crossfire them for 5870ish performance.