All right BITCHES. I had one of my 8800GT 512mb go out on me (on its way to BFG). Hopefully I'll get a new one back. Once I get it back I'll SLi again and run some benchmarks and see if I'm still happy with them. If not, its card pickin time.

Here's my setup.

Q6600 @ whatever speed I want it at.
EVGA 780i mobo
2 GB Ballistix tracers 1066
blah blah blah blah

I do not plan on going Tri-Sli. Now thats a waste of money there. Sure dual sli can be to but i dont give a chit.

So for my price range (when I name the cards I'm interested in, dont go shouting out your *** holes expensive *** cards.) is the 260GTX 216 core or the 9800 GX2. They are both $280 right meow. I do not mind buying one now and one later. I do not care about having the latest and greatest. I'm not a 15yr old with parents that buy me whatever the fudge I want.


Sooooooo. After reading about 40 reviews on both cards I still can not decide. I game at 1920x1080 (I use my hdtv). Most reviews do 1920x1200 so thats close enough for fps info.


The card I choose needs to make **** look so good that if you look at if for more than .4 seconds, your head explodes. So ya, this could be a one time new card/s usage.

 

Are you kidding me, there are mobos with three x16 PCI slots for video meow?! Tri-SLI?! Guess I haven't been keeping up wit mah readinz.

 

Ya. Nvidia's chipsets 780i (uses DDR2 ram) and 790i (uses DDR 3 ram)

Is it needed: From what I've read and seen. NO. Drivers are still not mature and it seems like vid card developers are depending on multi gpus too much.

 

I have one 8800GTX so I dunno lol

Can I SLi it with a 7300GT?? lol

 

Ya, but you have to pack to slot full of mac & cheese first. It charges the crystals.

 

lol I threw it in the corner sum place. Figured it would just slow up the 8800GTX.

 

^no they need to be the same core i think.

what games are you playing? you set up should play games that don't exist yet, and as you said, you are not a 15 year old with daddys money.

I have a simalar set up

-Q6600 (not overclocked)
-4gb ram (XP only runs 3, but it was on sale so i got it)
-single EVGA 8800GTS 512mb 670hz (i think)

I can play COD4 on highest getting atleast 40+ FPS if not better.

crysis ran fine, but i didn't like it, so i haven't played it in like a year. I seriously haven't played computer game in over 6 months, but i dont think **** has changed enough to warrent droping 300 bucks on a new card when you already have 2 good ones in sli.

 

wow ive been out of the game for about 9 months and obviously got left in the dust. guess the 680i and the 8800s are old news now.

 

XP uses all 4gigs. It just doesnt show it.


I fried my 680i's ram power. I hit 3.8GHz on my q6600 and guess the o' voltage regs for the ram slots got a little hot. A lot of people said they hated that board but I got some good scores on 3dmark06. But its what it does in games that counts.

 

I was actually going to recommend the 9800 GX2. Im running a 7800 GX2 and this is one bad video card; runs BF2 on high without a hitch. nothing special inside the box, 3.0 X2, 3GB, 7800 GX2. Ive wanted a 9800 GX2 for sometime now myself. If you get a 2nd card later its dual-sli; 4 cores...the one card already gives you 2. Im 95% positive my card uses DDR3 so the 9800 should as well.