Flappy
05-01-08, 02:05 PM
About six month ago I purchased a 5600+ and an Abit KN9SLI for a fairly reasonable cost from a local "big box" electronics retailer so I could actually use my X1900XTX which would not fire up on my P4 3.2 HT on a ASUS P4V800-DX with both PCI-E and AGP no matter what power supply I tried. Well, that went well but since I just took over the Business that I've been working for I took the plunge and bought Vista ultimate so I could run all the computers here at work remotely and not have to worry about upgrading OS's for a while. (You see where this is going, right?) Well, the damned itch just HAD to be scratched......SLI, huh?
The other thing I've got to mention is I've been a "dedicated" ATI user since the demise of 3dfx 2 wks. after I bought my Voodoo 5500 and I've held a grudge against Nvidia for over 8 years now!
But the mainboard has SLI and since I don't want to spend another hour or so talking with tech support in New Delhi the way I did when trying to re-activate my FSX and the fact that this board is PCI-E 1.0 and has serious problems with the newer 2.0 revision like the 3870 I decided older Nvidia G80 class hardware was the solution to getting my DX10 fix on my current computer.
So I ups and goes to a well-known online electronics retailer and after cajoling the Comptroller (My Wife) into giving me the necessary funds and spending the better part of a work night doing research I settled on 2 evga GTS 640Mb with 112 stream processors and are factory OC'd to 576 GPU and 900 memory .( http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/evga_e-geforce_8800_gts_ssc_review/)
After ponying up about 200 USD a piece for these I decide that 2.8 just isn't enough oomph so off I goes to the aforementioned "big box" retailer for a nice Zalman 9700 CPU cooler. (With a cool green Nvidia light and badge) Then I up the CPU to 3.2 with 1.4 volts and the Memory back down to 667 from 800 so as not to OC it too much by upping the CPU speed that much. That got me 5602 3dmarks with the X1900.
A few days go by and UPS delivers a nice shiny pair of Nvidia cards. Run Drivercleaner and ccleaner to remove the ATI stuff and install the cards. (Thank god I kept the SLI bridge from the mainboard!) Two or three blue screens later(1st I've seen in Vista) and we get into Desktop. Install the 1.74's,Ntune (Rivatuner 2.08's didn't recognize drivers), and away we go.
11,656 3dmarks out of the box and double my FPS in FSX accelleration with DX10 demo enabled under the same detail settings as the ATI. This looks promising....Lets try rFactor......needed some tweaking to get the image right but this is so far going VERY well! Tried Bioshock to see what it was about under DX10 and WOW what a difference! Then we try SH4.....a bit more fiddling to get rid of the missing eyes, transparency issues, etc. Still a good upgrade.
So then to ask a bit of help I go to the forum I frequent for FSX and all I get is "you messed up, should've got the G92 GT instead, GTS only has 96 streams and is slower than the G92". I replied that MY GTS's have in fact 112 and a factory OC and still I'm told that they only have 96 and that further FSX does not utilize SLI in spite of Nvidia's claim that it does, and that I really messed up in buying these cards. Well, since I have SLI enabled in FSX and it "appears" to work and Nvidia claims it does work in that app. I'm inclined to beleive them as I got a 100% increase in frames from low 20's to mid high 40's and those FPS have to come from somewhere.
So do you guys think I got rooked? I can't afford a complete overhaul to a nice C2Quad with 3870's on a crossfire setup right now as everything except my PS, HD and optical drives would have to be replaced and quite frankly since I'm seeing the performance gains I am I feel that this is a VERY appropriate upgrade for this particular PC. Also my burn-in temps on the CPU are 43 degrees C. at max after 8 hrs. on PCBurn 2008... OK, Right? Memtest got no errors over the same time and the Nvidia bench through Ntune says all OK after 8 hrs. Any constructive criticism from you folks would be greatly appreciated.
Godspeed,
Flappy Out
The other thing I've got to mention is I've been a "dedicated" ATI user since the demise of 3dfx 2 wks. after I bought my Voodoo 5500 and I've held a grudge against Nvidia for over 8 years now!
But the mainboard has SLI and since I don't want to spend another hour or so talking with tech support in New Delhi the way I did when trying to re-activate my FSX and the fact that this board is PCI-E 1.0 and has serious problems with the newer 2.0 revision like the 3870 I decided older Nvidia G80 class hardware was the solution to getting my DX10 fix on my current computer.
So I ups and goes to a well-known online electronics retailer and after cajoling the Comptroller (My Wife) into giving me the necessary funds and spending the better part of a work night doing research I settled on 2 evga GTS 640Mb with 112 stream processors and are factory OC'd to 576 GPU and 900 memory .( http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/evga_e-geforce_8800_gts_ssc_review/)
After ponying up about 200 USD a piece for these I decide that 2.8 just isn't enough oomph so off I goes to the aforementioned "big box" retailer for a nice Zalman 9700 CPU cooler. (With a cool green Nvidia light and badge) Then I up the CPU to 3.2 with 1.4 volts and the Memory back down to 667 from 800 so as not to OC it too much by upping the CPU speed that much. That got me 5602 3dmarks with the X1900.
A few days go by and UPS delivers a nice shiny pair of Nvidia cards. Run Drivercleaner and ccleaner to remove the ATI stuff and install the cards. (Thank god I kept the SLI bridge from the mainboard!) Two or three blue screens later(1st I've seen in Vista) and we get into Desktop. Install the 1.74's,Ntune (Rivatuner 2.08's didn't recognize drivers), and away we go.
11,656 3dmarks out of the box and double my FPS in FSX accelleration with DX10 demo enabled under the same detail settings as the ATI. This looks promising....Lets try rFactor......needed some tweaking to get the image right but this is so far going VERY well! Tried Bioshock to see what it was about under DX10 and WOW what a difference! Then we try SH4.....a bit more fiddling to get rid of the missing eyes, transparency issues, etc. Still a good upgrade.
So then to ask a bit of help I go to the forum I frequent for FSX and all I get is "you messed up, should've got the G92 GT instead, GTS only has 96 streams and is slower than the G92". I replied that MY GTS's have in fact 112 and a factory OC and still I'm told that they only have 96 and that further FSX does not utilize SLI in spite of Nvidia's claim that it does, and that I really messed up in buying these cards. Well, since I have SLI enabled in FSX and it "appears" to work and Nvidia claims it does work in that app. I'm inclined to beleive them as I got a 100% increase in frames from low 20's to mid high 40's and those FPS have to come from somewhere.
So do you guys think I got rooked? I can't afford a complete overhaul to a nice C2Quad with 3870's on a crossfire setup right now as everything except my PS, HD and optical drives would have to be replaced and quite frankly since I'm seeing the performance gains I am I feel that this is a VERY appropriate upgrade for this particular PC. Also my burn-in temps on the CPU are 43 degrees C. at max after 8 hrs. on PCBurn 2008... OK, Right? Memtest got no errors over the same time and the Nvidia bench through Ntune says all OK after 8 hrs. Any constructive criticism from you folks would be greatly appreciated.
Godspeed,
Flappy Out