Say I'm one of those people that value the "bang" more than the "buck", which type, SLI or Crossfire?

0

With respect to dual card harnessing, NVIDIA has the edge since they got a headstart on the process and thus seem to have a more profound objective and much better driver/profile support. ATI's Crossfire can be a little daunting for a novice trying to set it up because some things have to be done in a certain order while NVIDIA's SLI will be more or less a no-hassle task for such a person. Computer Components

0

Well, since you have that kinda money to burn, you may as well get two 7900GTX 512MB cards...about $1000 for the pair. Then you'll need a board that supports SLi & I'm sure you'll want full x16 support, so the ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe is probably the board you'll wanna go with...about $190. And since you have such high powered video cards, you'll need a high powered CPU, otherwise the cards will be bottlenecked. So you'll probably wanna go with either the FX57 San Diego single core or the FX60 Toledo dual core...about $810. And you're definitely gonna need a decent SLi certified PSU with 500W or more...about $150. And don't forget RAM. You'll probably wanna get 4GB (4 x 1GB) of CL-2 PC3200, so there's another $350 or so. That puts the sub-total at $2500. I'm sure you're gonna want a decent case, the best HDDs you can find (dual raptors?), DVD burner(s), LCD monitor, etc....Cha-Ching! All that cash just to play your $40 video game...LOL!

0

hahahahahaha. Its just that I don't like buying hardware upgrades for my computer every now and then b/c of new games, etc.. So thats why i'm trying to get a computer that won't require upgrades for a while.

0

Try add in these... Dual PC-Power cooling power supply... 2x Geforce 7950GX2... Vapochill cooling for stock FX60.... 750GB x 4 Raid 0.... SB LIVE 24 bit w/ 7.1 Speaker.... 50+ in HD LCD Screen.... Most expensive case with custom paint on it.. T3 connection.... Then play starcraft on it... Wow... TMP-Man Asus P5P800-SE P4 506 @ 4100Mhz 1.525v Thermaltake CLP0024 w/ 2000RPM FAN + AS5 1GB Corsair 2-3-3-5 DDR400 40GB 5400RPM/120GB 7200RPM HD Radoen 9500 mod 9700 @ 375/600 CHS+RHS

0

Oh I forgot to add in 1 thing, since starcraft is a synchronized game, so be prepared to get lag down by a 486DX 75Mhz 8MB Ram and 300mb HD system w/ windoes 98 and 14.4k dial-up in it... TMP-Man Asus P5P800-SE P4 506 @ 4100Mhz 1.525v Thermaltake CLP0024 w/ 2000RPM FAN + AS5 1GB Corsair 2-3-3-5 DDR400 40GB 5400RPM/120GB 7200RPM HD Radoen 9500 mod 9700 @ 375/600 CHS+RHS

0

I think SLI is more of a developed soultion than CrossFire, there are more boards, I have an Sli board with 1 7900GT, which I now think was a mistake! Why? Well, by the time 7900GT's drop to a price I'm happy to buy another one, it will be cheaper and better to simply buy two '8600s', or whatever nVidia will call their DX10 cards. If I had thought it through, I would have Sli'd two 7600s... Do a google for Sli'd 7600 vs 7900GT, wish I hadn't!!

0

IMHO, SLI would be the choice. However, I agree that it is just not a smart decision at this time. "Its just that I don't like buying hardware upgrades for my computer every now and then b/c of new games, etc.. So thats why i'm trying to get a computer that won't require upgrades for a while." SLI or CrossFire will NOT negate the need for upgrades. If you get an SLI rig with two 7900GTX cards now, you will get better framerates than a single card solution. But, unless you are running at a very high resolution you would never notice a difference - except in benchmarks. By the time games have advanced to the point where the 2nd video card would really make a difference, there would be new technology avaiable that those cards would not support. So either you would have to have many of the features of the game disabled or the game would not be supported on your system. Think of it like this. Suppose you had spent the money a year or so ago on two 6800 cards. Well, a year later with the money you saved on the 2nd card you could have bought a singe 7900 card today - which would outperform the dual 6800s. Michael J

0

It's still worth getting an Sli board if you believe all the hype about PhysX processors ;-)

0

If you're gonna get a top top of the line computer that you want to keep for a while, wait for the DX10 cards come out. DX10 will be around for a long time (as long as DX9 I supposed...) and it will have PhysX-like capabilities. If you don't mind upgrading, then buy now. -Matt

0

Direct X 10 will support higher end physics but not initialy unless the video cards will actually support their own physics processors which for now, they won't. Direct X 10 vidoe cards also wont come out until around early 2007. As for SLI or Crossfire, I say SLI however, Crossifre it the more efficient technology. The thing I don't like about ATi right now is that any Radeon cards that support SM 3.0 are missing an SM 3.0 feature called Vertex Texture Fetching and was replaced with a per pixel shading technique dedicated to vertex shading which hurts their SM 3.0 performance. But ATi's new generation technology is look much more promising than its predecessor X1K series as well as nVidia's G80. The G80 is featuring Direct X 10 support as well as SM 4.0 support however doesn't have as many pipelines as ATi's R600 and some of the pipelines on the G80 aren't all unified unlike the R600 that SHOULD be exclusively unified pipeline architecture. Plus, ATi is pushing clock speeds to an intense level, almost achieving 2Ghz on the memory clock as well as having support for over a gig of dedicated memory.

0

Hmm, maybe I should just wait for DX10 cards to come out and get 1 of those instead of dual cards. Any idea how long till these come out?

0

Get 1 top of the line card... unless u have money to wipe your behind with, it aint worth it...

0

Choose the same as my config: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2,2Ghz Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe s939 2x ATI Radeon X1900XT CrossFire 1GB Corsair TWINX2048-4000PT DDR-DIMM 2048MB 2x Maxtor 250GB SATAII OCZ GameXstream 700w Plextor DVD burner IDE Creative SB XFi Fatal1ty FPS Thermaltake Black Armour that config owns ATI FTW!!!!!

0