AMD 790FX and SLI?

danball1976danball1976 Wichita Falls, TX
edited January 2008 in Hardware
Is this even possible? Can you do nVidia SLI on boards that support CrossFireX?

Also, how good are the ATI video cards, like the Radeon HD 3870?

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    1) No.
    2) Good, but not as good as the comparable NVIDIA products.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    Dan, a lot of reviews are saying that the 38XX series cards can be within 10% in performance as compared to their corresponding Nvidia cards. It's also stated by a number of reviewers that if you aren't a hardcore gamer that must have the highest frame rates in very demanding games, that the 38XX cards should be considered for their very reasonable cost. Very good bang for buck.
  • danball1976danball1976 Wichita Falls, TX
    edited January 2008
    Hmm...
    So, how does a 8800GTS compare to the HD 3870?
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    You need to find reviews and look at the games that you play. They all respond differently. The 3870 does will in many, and in some cases putting two of them together scales very well. In other cases the second card adds nothing.
    It is the same story with NV.
    Very inconstant results since the cards actually function differently.
  • danball1976danball1976 Wichita Falls, TX
    edited January 2008
    I mainly play WoW, simulation games like Sim City, and I am also on Second Life alot.
  • Your-Amish-DaddyYour-Amish-Daddy The heart of Texas
    edited January 2008
    I've got a 3850, and nothing on my computer even slows it down. Jericho, Stalker, anything. It all plays like awesome, and I've even got AA turned on to 2x in Jericho. My realtime sight is 100~ frames. Stalker runs in my realtime window, and Jericho probably doesn't fall short. The price difference from an 8800 to the 38XX line is 350 dollars at it's furthest point. I got the 3850 because I like to keep a low power footprint and ATI's been somewhat reasonable about that. Full load this card pulls around 80 watts. Granted it runs hotter than the 8800GT due to them both using a single slot cooler, but just crank the fan speed up to 65%. I never get over 72C and the card's maximum die temperature is 110.

    I had a x1900GT and I got 60FPS in wow at just about any point. Second life cannot be improved because the engine itself is not designed to handle that kind of implementation and simcity games can't get any better than being on a 6800GT since a new one hasn't been released since like 2004-5, that being Sim City 4. Your game listing tops at an x1800 for recommended card. Even when Wrath of the Lich King comes out, the graphical structure just changes to DX10, so an 8600 will be more than all you need, I figure.
    SKIP TO END TO PASS OVER RANT
    I hate second life. They bastardized something that was a big part of my life in my formative years. OpenGL. I spent so much time playing with OpenGL...It fascinated me. A hardware-based draw mode that was ALMOST entirely driver dependent. Sure the card itself had to support the GL_int codes, but that was fairly easy to come across. Then those retards at Linden labs just decided to hack together a basically OPEN engine that had so many holes in it, it took them a year to fix most of them. Oh well, you can't expect people without vision to plan ahead.

    My thoughts on multi-GPU scaling is as follows. Why in God's name do you need two video cards, when no game out there needs it? I consider myself a high-end gamer. I play alot of games when I have time. My x1900 gave me little problems and I paid just about the same thing for my 3850. 200 bucks. I don't understand the point in investing 500 dollars on a single video card when the technology changes, the card is almost worth nothing. Take DX9 cards now. DX10 is getting development in a grand scale now. STALKER Clear Sky is gonna be DX10. WOTLK is gonna be DX10 I believe. Linden labs is just going to screw second life up even more for people who don't even have a first life to begin with. I say the 3850 is more than you need, and would keep you squared away for a good year at least. There's no point in spending 150+ extra bucks on a video card when you can spend 200 and get 10% less performance on average.
    END OF RANT
    Recommended 3850 512MB NO CROSSFIRE! Require x1800 512MB.
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