9800GTX vs. SLI 9800GT!!! Help

Hey guys,
I am about to order the 9262. The one problem I am facing is which video card(s) I should get. Money is not an issue. Xopc offers either 98gt or gtx... what is better for performance? it both has 1gh of memory, but one is sli and one is ... well one..... however, sli costs more... is it better?

 

I dont think anyone knows... the 9800gtx isn't even out yet
I'm guessing that the sli 9800gt will be better, but it's just a guess

 

SLI is better in this case as long as your games supported.

 

@stephan129, we do know, GTX is about 25% faster than GT

 

@Nirvana...
not sure what you mean.... The games like crysis, UT3, COD4, Age of Conan, etc... it doesnt exactly says wheather it supports sli.... how do I know...

On the other note:

Would you personally order sli or gtx?

 

oh ok
I'm kinda slow to pick up on stuff lol

 

you don't know until you actually try them. different drivers could resulted in different ways. I personally would go for SLI 9800M GT.

 

thanks for the input...
however, from reading this forum, I realized that it is better have perfect drivers for sli, or it will not work great... like in m17x, where this guy says that one works at 90C and another at 93C....

 

I think you better wait for some SLI expertise to drop in, since I have never used SLI before. unlike clevo, it seems like AW machines only work with their own drivers only, which are decade-old.

 

The way SLI works is that you will see a perfomance gain in ANY SLI system with any game. The performance gain in a game that has no native SLI support can range from 5% to 35%, usually.

When a game is coded for SLI and the drivers work toward that end also you can see performance gains usually in the 30%-45% range.

Most games these days are written with SLI in mind. Nvidia will update its drivers to reflect this fact as soon as the game launches.

The problem arrises that these drivers released are not for notebooks but only for the desktop side. In moving these drivers over to the notebook side of the field, and is more evident with SLI systems than single GPU systems is that SLI will 'break' when the drivers are ported over. They will not perform correctly or at all in some cases.

What you are left with is having to wait longer for 'official' supported drivers to be released or accepting lower performance in the interim, or trying to use non certified drivers and dealing with the resulting headache of installation issues to performance in game issues.

 

I am by NO means an expert in this, but more so then now when I am trolling a forum, do I see posts regarding to the hassle of using SLI. If your drivers are not correct, which is masterfully explained in the post by Wu Yen, your SLI wont work and you will, at best, be stuck with a 9800GT. I would imagine at worst your GFX cards would be interfeering... unless there is a dedicated Port1 and Port2, and if SLI does not work the notebook is told to use Port1 only.

That said... I am also in this boat slightly. I have decided to wait for the single version GTX card hoping that, later on down the road, the upgrade to Dual 9800GTX cards will only require a MB software upgrade or perhaps some kind of firmware flash, and not a full MB revision. Then again... you never know with computers.

Since the GTX is not out yet... I would honestly wait to see what the single GTX can do before making your decision. One dedicated 1gig mem card as opposed to 2 SLI 512 meg cards. If you go to www.nvidia.com you can already see the spec difference between the mobile 9800 models... and the GTX is twice that of the GT. Understandably so.

My .02
~E

 

Erlend83, give me one game that can utilize full 1GB vRAM, or even close to it?

 

SLI, when it's working and supported can almost double your fps.(games like Crysis, Fear, Far Cry ,quake 4 etc), whereas in games like UT3 , SLI makes things worse.
It`s all a matter of tweaking.

 

Future proof is what I was really thinking of. Lets face it, with a quad core CPU and dual 9800GT's you will already be pushing the limit on most available games. I am trying to think further ahead, and although that is all speculation, I would like to attempt to stay somewhat ahead of the curve in the GFX department, since games may sooner start pushing the limits of the GPU rather then the CPU, especially with a quad core processor.

If we add together some numbers that have been thrown out in previous posts in this topic by people who know their stuff we get this equation, roughly.
Nirvana stated that the 9800GTX is 25% faster then the standard 9800GT.
Wu Yen stated that the increase when both the game AND the drivers are working properly is usually as much as 30-40%.
So... 25% faster off the bat for the 9800GTX -30-40% on the 9800GT and you end up with anywhere from 5-15% faster for the 9800GT running in SLI. Could be less, could be more. However having the possibility to go for dual 9800GTX cards in the near future is a more thrilling idea imo.

I guess to summarize real quick... Get the Dual 9800GT cards now and you should have a system that, under propper conditions, will get higher FPS in current games then the single 9800GTX card, but in return is not upgradable at all unless you get a motherboard revision, this information comes to me from a Sager Tech who I called the other day asking this exact question. Wait a month and you may have the possibility to add a second 9800GTX card to your setup which would vastly outperform the dual 9800GT. And if price really is not an issue, I would wait. ETA from Sager is early to mid August.

My personal oppinion is that with only a hypothetical 5-15% FPS gain, I would rather go for the less hassle of having a single strong gfx card right now, with the potential option to go SLI when catch up to my system, but thats just me.

 

OK< thanks guys, I appreciate the input....

basically, what I got, is that I am better off waiting little bit (1-3 months) for future GPU update... is that true... again, time or money is not an issue.... I can wait for a while if it worth it...

 

If money is no option, you like being on the "cutting edge" and do not mind experimenting and tweaking (some of us love it) with different drivers and softare options, then SLi is for you.

If you prefer a safe, stable and reliable system and do not have the time to fuss with drivers and what-not, then get a single GPU setup. Too easy.

 

I would get the single card since SLI is not worth the performance overall, cause a lot of trouble.