Sli'ing 7950gx2.. *Quad Core*

merlinxi

If I sli TWO 7950gx2 cards, would that outperfom a 8800 gtx?

Judas

you'd be hard pressed to see it imo....

probably under specific cercumstances..... yes you'd see possibly better performance.... but you'll likely see alot worse if not zero capability for various other programs....

Hawg should be able to tell you more though.

Lelisevis

For the most part no. Some nice easy charts to compare here

AnandTech: NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 (G80): GPUs Re-architected for DirectX 10

On top of that you get no DX10. In some games for example Prey 2x 7950gx2's in SLI dont even compare to a GTS let along a GTX.

Way I see it is the GX2's probably paid for the production and marketing of the 8800 series. Was a bit of a bad deal for those who bought them. Combine that with the very limited support for the GX2's i'd have been furious if i'd bought one which at the time I very very nearly did.

merlinxi

Yes, but I played Bioshock on Direct 10 and it looked fine to me. However int hat compare chart the only reason the 8800 beat the 7950gx2 is because it was SLIed. Notice the 8800 under it was not slied.

And in the compare charts under the 7960gx2 still beats the 8800.

Lelisevis

The 7950gx2 card is a directx9 card, you couldnt have played it on DX10.

That was one result, look at oblivion and prey. 7950gx2 sli is soundly spanked by the GTX

Try Googling 7950gx2 SLI or 8800GTX. Plenty of pissed off gx2 users complaining their 4 cores are getting beat by one 8800gtx core. Frankly I think it sucks and im sure Nvidia could have got more from the 7950's however it seems like a project that never really took off.

How about selling the GX2 and putting the money alongside your second cards money and upgrading for want of a better word to the 8-series.

merlinxi

But you think 4 cores, would still outperform a SINGLE core. ESPECIALLY with 2GB of Video ram, how does that make sense?

I really think in my head that the drivers are purposely keeping the card as bay. So as to actually buy the 8800. That would be really a mean move to do.

Or should I'd say, typical move to do.

kris23

dude.... 4 crap cores can be beat by a single powerful core.... and ram above 512mb doesn't mean crap for performance..... whats more important is memory bandwidth and speed as well as memory interface.


the GX2 cards are never going to be more powerful than the 8800 cards, sure they may get closer with better drivers.... but the fact is that there wont be any better drivers because all the research is going into DX10, into Vista, and into the 8800 series in general.

its impossible for a 7950GX2 to beat dual 7900GTX's due to it being a weaker version of the dual 7900s..... the 7900s have been easily trampled by the 8800GTX card

if theres something that isnt more straight forward 7950GX2 is WEAKER than 8800GTX
VGA Charts 2007 | Tom's Hardware

also, to answer your question about the anandtech guide.... YOU WERE COMPARING 2 7950GX2s in SLi TO A SINGLE 8800GTX CARD..... IN FEAR

if you want to look a the Prey guide, go here AnandTech: NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 (G80): GPUs Re-architected for DirectX 10


as you can see, the two 7950GX2s in SLi is infinitely crushed by not only the 8800 cards in SLI but the X1950 cards in Crossfire, the SINGLE 8800GTX kills them as well, then the 7900GTX SLI kills the GX2 SLI..

and lastly.... the lowly 8800GTS crushes the dual card quad SLI setup of two 7950GX2s
with this sad streak of losses, i cant understand why you're still clinging to that pathetic card..... its old and outdated now.... everything will eventually

CDsDontBurn

looking at the charts you provided, the way you seemed to explain it was that the even the 8800GTS 320MB decimates this card. although, you never specified which of the 8800GTS cards were the better of the two. we can only assume that you meant to say the 640MB 8800GTS. However, you compared the 7950gx2 to an 8800GTX, which asisde from the Ultra, is the best 8800 card out there.

take a step back and look at the whole picture. the 7950gx2 card is actually comparable to the 8800GTS 640MB, not the 8800GTX. Also, Tom's hardware doesn't list the 7950gx2 to be in quad SLI mode, it lists it as being in SLI mode so that 1Gb of video memory is being used, not 2Gb.

Now that this is settled, no matter what game you choose and at whatever the setting it may be at, the 7950gx2 will be fairly close in performance to a single 8800GTS 640Mb card no matter what the test. and depending on the game, either the 8800GTS 640MB or the 7950gx2 card will come out ahead.

VGA Charts 2007 | Tom's Hardware: Oblivion

VGA Charts 2007 | Tom's Hardware: FSX

VGA Charts 2007 | Tom's Hardware: BF 2142

VGA Charts 2007 | Tom's Hardware: Dark Messiah

VGA Charts 2007 | Tom's Hardware: Prey

as you can see in all the links above, the 8800GTS 640Mb and the 7950gx2 are really close in performance to one another. within 5 FPS in most of these, and i'm sure many more games as well. and i'm sure that these two cards in SLI, or quad SLI if using the 7950gx2, will still be the same or very similar result.

Lelisevis

Can I just add that these results where produced before recent improvements in the 8800 series drivers which would paint a different picture.

CDsDontBurn

if that's the case, then these tests should be re-done to provide the end user with the correct reflection of performance. although, i highly doubt that tom's hardware will ever do this.