Am I Insane?? 2 * 6800 ULtra's SLI ??

[Jon-E-Durex]

I'm thinking about buying 2 Geforce 6800 Ultra pci-e in SLI?? Have I clearly got to much money ?

I've been wating to get SLI and then thought, no cards or boards our out, I got to the stage where I could't be bothered to wait, so I brought a gainwood geforece ultra agp for £300. The day it arrived the Geforce 6800 Ultra Pci-e's came out as well as the sli mobo's as well (typical).

I'm now thinking should I sell my GFX Ultra AGP for £250 (means I can upgarde later and save cah )and then buy a PCI-E Mobo and ultra pci-e, then next payday get the second one, I know I would have a PC that flys but is this me getting caught up in the moment ??

Does anyone think this is a good idea, or a complete waste of money ?? I'm a uni student, who has moved to the channel islands for my placement year, this means :-

1. I have money this year and none next from August for a year till Aug next year, no more PC parts for about 2 years after 2 next payday
2. I don't pay any VAT so I get things a lot cheaps 20% of everything, i will never get this offerr again.

My idea was to build the best machine I could possibly buy and now I'm thinking of skimping at the final hurdel, so what does everyone think ??

Thanks

[Rys]

Go for it. The rest of your system (2GB of mem and your Raptors) would finish it off nicely. SLI is good.

Rys

[BlueMagician]

SLI definitely offers an advantage, but many people are finding it a buggy one right now. I'm nearing the end of buildng a reasonably beefy SLI system, which will house 2 x 6800GT's (if I ever find them ) So I understand your need for the cutting edge...

IMHO, I don't think the Ultra's are worth the extra £100 ex.v a piece over their GT siblings.. You may find different with ur FX55 CPU, but many people are finding that GT's will O/C to Ultra speeds by spending £20 ex.v on a pair of coolers, saving ~£175.

Taking a step back - being a student, and saying you will be short of money, I personally wouldn't get caught up in the marketing hype, as it sounds like your life has other priorities at the moment... <man I'm getting old>

£0.02
S.

[0iD]

Yay! go for it. It's what most of us would do had we the money.

[Jon-E-Durex]

I would rather stick with my a8v and agp 6800 ultra, than get 2 geforce gt pci-e's and a new mobo, as that would save me £175.

As my mum said, if you do something do it properly

[BlueMagician]

As my mum said, if you do something do it properly

Well then, take a look at this post, detailing this mobo, and slap a couple of NVidia Quadro SLI's and a pair of Opteron 250's in it...

'properly' is such a relative, and ambiguous term..

£0.02
S.

[Jon-E-Durex]

if it was a dual fx-55 mobo, or if anyone has ever heard of one, then i might consider it

dual fx-55 and dual geforce 6800 ultra's, now that would be proper boooo !

All i use it for is to play solitaire on Win 3.1, but just think how fast it would be ...

[0iD]

Opteron 250's/FX55....don't suppose there's a great deal of diff in performance.

Tho I have read if you want true dual 16x then go for the Tyan. Apparently the Abit is 16x + 1x if you have one card or 2 x 8x if you are running SLi.

[BlueMagician]

Opteron 250's/FX55....don't suppose there's a great deal of diff in performance.

Tho I have read if you want true dual 16x then go for the Tyan. Apparently the Abit is 16x + 1x if you have one card or 2 x 8x if you are running SLi.

[Allen]

Yay! go for it. It's what most of us would do had we the money.

I certainly wouldn't, total waste of cash IMO, even when you're not paying 17.5% VAT (not 20% ). And as a student, you're gonna need all the cash you've got!

[BlueMagician]

Taking a step back - being a student, and saying you will be short of money, I personally wouldn't get caught up in the marketing hype, as it sounds like your life has other priorities at the moment... <man I'm getting old>

I certainly wouldn't, total waste of cash IMO, even when you're not paying 17.5% VAT (not 20% ). And as a student, you're gonna need all the cash you've got!

My thoughts exactly..

S.

[Butcher]

I have GTs in SLI, and they are very very fast. But ultras aren't that much faster. The only time you'll see the difference is in new games (like HL2/D3) at 1600x1200 with AA/AF enabled. If you're not planning to run that high then GTs will serve you just as well. Besides, I'm yet to find a game that doesn't run smooth at max settings on my setup. Is that few percent extra worth £100 to you?

[Jon-E-Durex]

Yeah, theres not a lot of difference now, but I won't be buying, upgrading or bascially doing anything with my pc for probably 2 and a half years, and in 2 years time I'm sure it will make a difference then.

I basically want use my machine for video capturing and editing, as well as games, programming ( nothing needed there ) & the net, maybe some sound stuff.

2 GTs don't perform that much better than 1 6800 ultra, but my idea is that I sell my agp card now to pci-e and means in the future it will cost me less to upgrade.

I always think that if you buy the best now I'll save money on upgrading in the future, so instead of having brought a 6, then buying a geforce 7 or 8 in a year or two, buy two ultras now which will match (hopefully) the performance in future cards. Meaning I won't have to upgrade the card as soon and save that £175 buy not having to spend £350 on a new card in 2 years so I save the £175 in the future

[BlueMagician]

...2 GTs don't perform that much better than 1 6800 ultra...

S.

[Jon-E-Durex]

I'm trying to rationalise spending £800 pounds here,

[BlueMagician]

I'm trying to rationalise spending £800 pounds here,

LOL..

S.