SLI or Crossfire?

CabbageThe1

Ok my fellow techs.....question. I am going to build a multi video card system for myself (finally), but, I don't have any experience with SLI or Crossfire. I have built systems with both platforms so I know how to set them up, but it has always been for other people and I have never had time to play any games on them so see how well they work.

From reviews I have been reading Crossfire seems to be the more stable platform, but SLI is pumping out better frame rates. The SLI and Crossfire systems that I have built for people have never had any problems. So my question is to those how have SLI or Crossfire systems or bloth, which one do you like better and why? (Please no "I like SLI better because it's Nvidia! :P " kind of answers)

The system that I am looking at right now has the following specs:

Intel Quad 2.45GHz 45nm CPU 8GB OCZ DDR3 RAM 3 x Nvidia 9800GTX 512MB w/770MHz Core Clock 4 x 500GB Hard Drives 74GB WD Raptor (for Windows) NZXT Tempest Case 1200Watt Power Supply More bells and whistles and so on

I am half tempted to liquid cool the video cards to make room for a Physics Card, but I'm not sure. Thanks Guys
- Cabbage

Mishra

Nvidia is the better choice because they have the more powerful video cards out now.


Why are you wanting to spend 3000-4000 dollars on a desktop?

hetty

Mishra wrote:

Why are you wanting to spend 3000-4000 dollars on a desktop?

+1 Gaming machines loose value really quickly!

Also the 9800GTX has onboard physics after NVidia bought Ageia. There is or there will be driver to enable physics acceleration using some of the cores of the GPU.

CabbageThe1

It is good to know that the 9800GTX has onboard physics, I knew that Nvidia bought Ageia but I didn't know that they had already integrated the physics on the video card.

Why are you wanting to spend 3000-4000 dollars on a desktop?

Because I have always been one of the guy how has to have everything maxed out no matter how old/new the game is, and because I have always had to settle for sub par next to what I want. It would just be nice to build a system for myself that is just plain awesome, because I am always building high end system for other people and I'm just like "arrrg...... why cant I have this".

Mishra

To each his own but I just want to say that I would rather have a 2,500 SPA/hot tub and a 1,500 desktop.

dynamik

Now I'm curious as to what kind of car he drives. I'm guessing it's either going to be something really expensive to keep in line with his personality or it's going to be dirt cheap because all his money goes to his PC

BTW, my vote is for SLI and no physics add-in card.

CabbageThe1

LOL, you guys......keep in mind that I'm not getting this right now it will be in about 4-6 months. (of course I will have to update my configuration)

Dynamik I am actually dirt poor, I just had to quit my job and am starting a new one today (less glorious than the first one but better than nothing) and building computers for people I just do on the side and don't make a ton of money doing it. I would like to turn my hobbie into a business but who know I still need to finish High School.

As to the kind of car that I drive well, its a 2001 Dodge Stratus that I ended up with after my grandfather passed away. Nice little car though, an AUDI S5 is my dream car.

JDMurray

Is there support for physics accelerator cards in DirectX 10 or 10.1? If not, that means game software developers must use the card's manufacturer's SDK. I not sure how many gaming companies will bother to do that, unless they believe the majority of their customers will stay with Windows XP. I'd prefer using graphics cards (dual SLI) with built-in physics acceleration anyway.

I have no money to spend on a new gaming system this year, so I honestly haven't been keeping up on all this.

undomiel

It's the same thing they would have had to do anyhow for using an aegia physx card. So far I've seen only problems coming out of the thing. Took a number of calls where there would be crashing related to the physx card even without it being used i.e. driver crashing at random blue screening the entire system. It seemed to be very picky about the quality of the memory in the system because we would usually end up replacing both the ram and the physx card. Also there was at least one game that had horrible performance if the physx card was enabled. Ghost Recon 2 I think it was but I could be wrong. No idea if that was ever fixed and whose fault it was either.

Tyrant1919

I spent a total of $4,000 into my current system. I'm never doing that again. It's over two years old and still rocks my socks, but it's one thing I've learned not to do. Ever spend $1300 on a processor? FX-60 back in January 06...

dynamik

Somewhat off topic, but check out what happens when you have three physics engines in one game: http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/26/the-three-physics-engines-of-the-force-unleashed/

undomiel

Pretty. But to be honest I'm not really sure I like the effect. The movements of the limbs when someone is being lifted up feels very unrealistic. It seems more like a doll than a living creature. I also don't like the implementation of the hands holding onto another person. It felt more like magnets being used. It is still impressive looking and I applaud the technical side of things, I just personally don't care for the effect.

Soulreaver

Intel Quad 2.45GHz 45nm CPU 8GB OCZ DDR3 RAM 3 x Nvidia 9800GTX 512MB w/770MHz Core Clock 4 x 500GB Hard Drives 74GB WD Raptor (for Windows) NZXT Tempest Case 1200Watt Power Supply More bells and whistles and so on

i have been building my gaming rigs/pcs since i was a child and i have to say that is the most ridiculous waste of money i have ever seen


but sticking to the spirit of the moment why not drop 1 video card, and put in an areca raid card, you can have something like 4x raptors raid0, a harddrive drive raid 1 on the board itself (redundancy for the system drive) , and those 500gb drives raid 5

dynamik

I just found a better CPU for you: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115051

Since you're going all out, you might as well get a $1500 processor.

Core: Yorkfield
Multi-Core: Quad-Core
Name: Core 2 Extreme QX9770
Operating Frequency: 3.2GHz
FSB: 1600MHz
L2 Cache: 12MB
Manufacturing Tech: 45 nm
64 bit Support: Yes 

SPARKS wrote:

Pros: How's about 4.27 GHz on air 24/7. 1.4125 Vcore. SuperPi in 10 seconds. Sandra scores in orbit. 1200 jump in 3DMark 06. If your not an Intel fanboy, this thing WILL convert you. Resistance is futile.

Cons: Do You have extra 1500 bucks lying around? Do you want the fastest CPU on the planet? Cough it up, the best of anything ain't cheap.

Other Thoughts: Don't even think about buying this thing without a motherboard that can't handle 1600 FSB native! ASUS P5E3 (X4Prem. will take you to 1800 to 2000, no sweat. DDR3-1800 is a MUST! SuperTalent X Project 1800, 55ns latency @ 7-7-7-21, If your keeping score, that's IMC territory (Mem bandwidth 9576 m/sec)

CabbageThe1

Nice but the most that I have ever spent on a CPU is $170.00 which is my current CPU, it's an AMD 6400+ 3.2GHz Dual-Core. I just don't see any point on spending $1500 on a single part, I know it sounds weird because when and if I build this beast I will already be in it around $4500. I am already taking a big leap out of my comfort zone because I have only ever had problems with Intel, so I think that I will keep the CPU on the lower end and upgrade it later. Besides the one that I wan't to put in it is more than I need for right now.

Now nobody think that I am putting Intel down because I'm not, it's just I have had some bad experiances with them so I would like to give them another chance before I go and spend a ton of money on one of there processors.