Duncan Kentar wrote:
Thass, didn't you say you have an SLI mobo? I would think dual 7800GTs will be a little bit better than a single X1900XT and you'll still be using that 7800GT. But I guess if you can sell that 7800 and get a X1900 for only a couple hundered bucks end price go for it.
I just hope your powersupply is upto it. I bought a X1900XTX and had to by a new PS just to install it. Got a RaidMax Volcano 630watt.
Thats a good point Duncan. I've considered SLI (especially considering I'll be upgrading my PSU) but my main concern is NOISE, especially considering I have silent fans and an acoustically shielded case this would be ruined by SLI. I'm also concerned that my PC room gets very hot anyway and the thermal output from two cards would make things even hotter than I initially anticipated. I bought the mobo to allow SLI but I'm waiting for it to mature a little more (performance is still erratic in some games EG oblivion).
My best bet in this case would be two
7900GT's with Zalman coolers... or maybe the new Asus TOP silent 7900GT's... as the
7800GT is discontinued in the UK so they are hard to get hold of (and overpriced on ebay) to the extent that I may as well upgrade the existing one too. However I can't afford to justify a whopping $800+ on PSU, aftermarket coolers, and two cards which would be very fast in certain games but noisy and hot.
The problem with those cards is also the architecture. ATI has looked hard at shader-intensive (ie modern) games, which is why the single cards perform very well vs even SLI in Oblivion and even FEAR. If you check the benchmarks, SLI gives great topend FPS but still divebombs to the same min FPS.
As I value my ears, I've decided to go with an X1900XT with an Arctic Cooling Accelero X2 cooler (much quieter/cooler than stock), remounted with AS5. The power draw and heat output are acceptable (slightly lower than the XTX) and I can sell the 7800GT to offset the cost.
As for my power supply, I've thought about that and I'll probably be upgrading my Antec model. I'm currently using the NeoHE 430w high efficiency silent PSU that came with my case.
I think I'm just going to go with the 550w model of the same PSU which is about $150 though. However, I can use the existing PSU in my old PC where the PSU has gone, so all is good
The great thing about Antec is that they have good noise level but also much higher efficiency than most PSUs (quoted is 83 percent) which means that the 550w model should be able to dish out 450w in pure power - which is enough to handle 2x 7900GTX in SLI for instance - and still keep my enclosure quiet.
Finally, I bought the motherboard so I can try SLI but I don't think it has matured enough in terms of the noise/thermal output of the solutions to justify yet. I think my next upgrade will be a bigger one to a pair of the new DX10-grade cards with aftermarket coolers, or more likely a single slot solution (eg whatever the 7950GX2 evolves into!).
In fact, im 95 percent sure that my next upgrade after the ATI card will be the single-slot SLI solution that replaces the 7950GX2 when nVidia releases their DX10 cards for Vista... and if I can get a better aftermarket cooler for it, even better! I'll also probably look towards a fast dual-core socket 939 CPU too as they will be cheaper by then. Everything else in my PC is fine (resists overwhelming urge to get 2x 150GB WD Raptors in RAID 0).
/me reads the above... OMG im a closet nerd
