To sli or not to sli
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Hello to all,
I guess most of you guys have already installed and utilized either a SLI or crossfire inside your pc.
Would it boost sketchup performance installing another geforce 8500gt 512mb (since my original videocard is also the same thing) or would it better buying a brandnew 1gb videocard (no brand yet, just looking first if ever recommendations would lead into buying a 1gb vc).
I just thought that since my old 8500 is not really crappy, buying another one would be cheaper. Or buying a 1gb vc would be off the hook compared to 2 sli vc.
thanks in advance.
Tesmeko
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SU is CPU bound, so the speed of the CPU is most important.
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I also remember reading that OpenGL does not work with SLI, so the power boost would be for DirectX games only. I cannot be sure, though.
Anssi
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I know that CPU is important also, but I also know that video card is as important if I want to look around a high complex sketchup model 32mb or more in size. Years back I made a jump from 32mb vc to 128mb running in an athlon xp 2000 and 1.5gb ram. It felt like a more breathing room back then.
I have an athlon64 6000 x2 right now because it is useless to have a nice vc when your processor is being left behind.
to anssi,
i like your point about opengl not working in SLI mode maybe I should make more research regarding this matter. (or maybe i should just use the other slot for another screen so my display has more room while doing sketchup and rendering huh?)
thanks also.
tesmeko
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Personally id just go for a new card. Any speed increase you get by getting another 850 will be pretty small compared to getting a 9000 series card. You should be able to drive multiple monitors of it pretty easily as well.
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@remus said:
Personally id just go for a new card. Any speed increase you get by getting another 850 will be pretty small compared to getting a 9000 series card. You should be able to drive multiple monitors of it pretty easily as well
that may not be entirely true as most of the architecture between the nvidia 9000 series and 8000 series is actually the same
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The 9000 cards are faster though, and sli setups do not increase the speed linearly. So overall i think hed be better of getting a 9000 instead of going for another 8500.
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I am questioning the same thing right now, I want to Crossfire....
Except I am looking at ATI HD 4870. They are the best bang for your buck video card out right now.
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