One 6800 or Two 6600's

[pastulio132]

A bit of a noob question here.
I am running a nvidia 6800 and was wondering if running two 6600's in SLI would be better. The both have 256mb of memoryI don't know too much about the 6800 as I received it from an RMA from evga because my 6600gt crapped out. The only info I could find on it was from a cached ebay page.

evga Nvidia 6800 256mb (256-p2-n383-bx):
Core clock: 325MHz
D-SUB: 1
DirectX: DirectX 9
DVI: 1
Memory Clock: 600MHz
Memory Interface: 256-bit
Memory Type: GDDR3
OpenGL: OpenGL 1.5
PixelPipelines: 12
TV-Out: HDTV/S-Video Out
VIVO: No

PNY Nvidia 6600 256mb:
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?pfp=BROWSE&N=200105+401898+4294966260&Ne=303827&product_code=333895&Pn=GeForce_6600_Video_Card

 

[cleeve]

I believe that's a 12-pipe 6800.

Not a horrible card, but certainly not one of the best available in PCI express.

Two 6600s won't be sll that much faster than a single 6800. If you're considering Sli, another 6800 makes more sense.

Then again, a single $130 7600 GT will destroy two 6600 GTs or two 6800s. If you want some real speed, for under $200 you can get a 7900 GS, which is even better than the 7600 GT.

Keep in mind that Sli doesn't double performance, it's not 100% efficient.
Sli doesn't make alot of sense unless you can afford two higher-end cards, and play at ultra-high resolutions with eye candy.
At lower resolutions single cards will be as two fast in many cases.

 

[rodney_ws]

What Cleeve said!

One thing to keep in mind about SLI... not all titles properly benefit from it... and even when they do support it, you do not get a 100% gain in performance. I've seen some benchmarks where the SLI system makes no gains on the single card setup... for 99% of us, a single faster card is the solution.

 

[HowdyDoody]

Well hot dog! with all the help I have received here I may actually be able to contribute a tiny bit here. I just got a used rig that has 2 6800 GTs sli'd...

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/Game-Rig-ftopict210884.html

And from my experience in playing for the past 3 to 4 days, Cleave is correct. I can tell hardly any difference in FPS in 1024x768 then I can in 16x12. I'm a 16x12 junkie, so that is my number 1 need. But if you aren't then you will not see much difference in sli.

And something Rodney said needs some addressing. Not all the charts at TomsHardware I believe are correct. The charts for HL2 show no difference in fps for 16x12 with everything on. I can tell you from experience that isn't right. I don't know the exact demo they are using, but I am getting ~30 to 70 fps maxed out, and with the AA dropped to 2x (instead of 4) im getting ~60 to 100+. So I don't see how those charts can be correct. And if that is correct and the stats from the 2006 3d mark are a better comparison of the real difference in 16x12 performance then the 2 6800s are still a bit better then the 7600 and just a shy below the 7900. Again all this is 16x12.

I'm not disputing what the previous posters have said, as they have taught me a LOT since browsing these forums (and its obvious they know a lot more then me), I'm just saying I believe there is some discrepencies in the Toms vgs graphs from my own personal experiences.

Oh and keep in mind, I only play CS:S and WoW. I don't know how this relates to other games.

Doody

 

[cleeve]

Keep in mind HowdyDoody has two 16-pipeline 6800 GTs which are much faster than a 12-pipeline vanilla 6800.

Two 6800 GTs in SLI are formidable, but I wouldn't bother SLIing 6800s.

 

[skyguy]

^^^What the Master said.


Screw either 68xx.......get a 7600GT at least, it'll spank those, and it's very affordable too.

 

[rodney_ws]

Responding to HowdyDoody... I totally agree. I believe subsequent drivers may have addressed SLI issues for some (if not most) games out there. SLI has matured and is pretty well supported... that said, a single card is ALWAYS well supported. I still think the logic remains... a single 7000 series card (assuming we're not talking about 7600 GS or lower) would whip that 6600 SLI setup.

Maybe he just wants an SLI setup... I did that for watercooling... just did it for the hell of it. No real need.

 

[HowdyDoody]

Oh Hell Yea Cleeve, thank you so much for pointing that out. Holy smokes I didn't even realize how different some of the differnt "flavors" of the same card there are. Hell I didn't even know there was a 6800 that wasn't either a GT or Ultra.

Thanks again.

 

[HowdyDoody]

Oh I wasn't very clear thanks. yes I wouldn't buy two 6600s to sli, but since he already had a 6800 I thought it would make sense if you could get another one for cheap to sli those. But...

Then cleeve pointed out the differences in the 6800 and 6800GT, and also the 7600GT which does whoop an 6600 sli setup. And its 100 bucks (another post in here is stating that)..are you kidding me. Hard to argue with that.

What can you say, best forum with folks that give a crap is right here.

 

[kaotao]

I believe that's a 12-pipe 6800.

Not a horrible card, but certainly not one of the best available in PCI express.

Two 6600s won't be sll that much faster than a single 6800. If you're considering Sli, another 6800 makes more sense.

Then again, a single $130 7600 GT will destroy two 6600 GTs or two 6800s. If you want some real speed, for under $200 you can get a 7900 GS, which is even better than the 7600 GT.

Keep in mind that Sli doesn't double performance, it's not 100% efficient.
Sli doesn't make alot of sense unless you can afford two higher-end cards, and play at ultra-high resolutions with eye candy.
At lower resolutions single cards will be as two fast in many cases.

Totally agree.

 

[pastulio132]

Thanks everyone. Good advice. I think i'm gonna go for the 7900gs.

Now I have another question. Which manufacturer's card to buy. I have a choice between eVGA, BFG Tech, or XFX. I've had an eVGA crap out on me but they had fairly good customer service. It may not have even been the card's fault as other components failed at the same time.