Is adding a second GeForce 9600 GSO Card For SLI Worth It?

[Apoptosis]

A friend of mine with an older 590 SLI based system brought it in to me this weekend for an OS update (XP to Win 7) and then wanted to add in a second 9600 GSO that they ended up buying.

I formatted the drive and installed the $200 copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit that he bought, slapped on all the drivers and windows updates, updated the DirectX files and got him all ready to go for SLI. I did some before and after testing with 3DMark Vantage on Entry level and the test results were a bit shocking to me:

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With the single EVGA GeForce 9600 GSO video card that has 96 shaders and a core clock of 555Mhz, shader clock of 1350MHz and a memory clock of 800MHz I got 15,660 3DMarks in the Entry Test.

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With a second EVGA GeForce 9600 GSO with 96 shaders installed into the system and SLI enabled the overall score only went up to 18,048 3DMarks... A jump in performance of just 2388 3DMarks or just 15%. This seems low to me. I wouldn't expect the system to be that CPU bound with the dual-core processor at 2.8GHz.

System Specs
AMD Athlon X2 5000+ overclocked from 2.6Ghz to 2.8GHz
4GB Crucial DDR2 Memory at 800MHz CL4
NVIDIA 590i SLI motherboard
2 x EVGA 9600 GSO 384MB Video Cards both w/ 96 stream processors and 197.25 drivers
Hitachi 320GB Hard Drive
650W power supply
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Here is the Windows 7 Experience Index Score... It went from 6.6 on the graphics with a single card to 6.9 with SLI...

[skier]

my GSOs in SLI outperform my GTS 250 in every benchmark... wish i still had a SLI board but i have 3 crossfire boards instead(and still no ati cards lol)

[XstollieX]

You could try to copare them in a better system see if that would make a bigger difference. Not sure if it would or not. I only have one gso or I would try it for you.

[Apoptosis]

You could try to copare them in a better system see if that would make a bigger difference. Not sure if it would or not. I only have one gso or I would try it for you.

The guy already picked up the pc, so it's long gone.

[geokilla]

Well it's a bit too late now, but in my opinion, they should've gotten a faster single card instead of running two GPUs in SLI. I'm not a fan of SLI and Crossfire and will never be.

As for the benchmarks, well it's a benchmark. What matters is what you get in games.

[skier]

GSOs with the E7200 at 3.5GHz



GTS250 with the E7200 at 3.7GHz

[XstollieX]

You could try to copare them in a better system see if that would make a bigger difference. Not sure if it would or not. I only have one gso or I would try it for you.

The guy already picked up the pc, so it's long gone.

Well guess its to late for that then

[UpskirtHeaven]

9600 gso is good card for mid end. two of tjhem would assume to be as fast as 8800 gts 512mb. go for it.

[deleted]

my GSOs in SLI outperform my GTS 250 in every benchmark... wish i still had a SLI board but i have 3 crossfire boards instead(and still no ati cards lol)

My GTS 250 kicks your card's ass

[skier]

My GTS 250 kicks your card's ass

pics or it didnt happen, run any bench, i'll post my scores after

[deleted]

I hardly even started my GPU overclocking yet. I win.

[skier]

gonna post a BENCHMARK?

[XstollieX]

Evasion I am not sure how a gpuz screenshot proves that your gts250 beats out skiers cards? I think you need to run a benchmark to compare

[deleted]

Benchmarks are worthless. My card's clocks vs your card's clocks is enough to come to a decision. If the benchmark was GPU only, I'd win. Rig wise, your processor is enough to beat my O/C'd E2220 @ 3.2ghz.

[skier]

Benchmarks are worthless. My card's clocks vs your card's clocks is enough to come to a decision. If the benchmark was GPU only, I'd win. Rig wise, your processor is enough to beat my O/C'd E2220 @ 3.2ghz.

LOL i love your logic

guess it doesnt matter much tho, im already getting a GTX 260-216 this week sooo....

[deleted]

Ordering a GTX 260 868mb here soon kiddo.

[skier]

Ordering a GTX 260 868mb here soon

pics or didnt happen.

[hark]

Hmm, I think overall that SLI and multi-GPU setups in general are a waste. Maybe it's because I never set one up, but looking at benchmarks, I think you're better off just getting a more powerful single card.

[skier]

Hmm, I think overall that SLI and multi-GPU setups in general are a waste. Maybe it's because I never set one up, but looking at benchmarks, I think you're better off just getting a more powerful single card.

it depends on the cards used, i mean i have 2x 9600 GSO 96sp which i got for a combined $140($110 if i would have actually received the MIR i sent out) and they performed ~30% above the GTS 250(MSRP $129) in several benchs so for apps that utilize SLI, the performance is unmatched, thats what its all about, you have to consider the uses for the card(s) before you get anything though, i used them primarily for Folding @ Home and light gaming so they were a steal at $70 each

(on another note, i have my pair of ASUS EN9600 GSO TOP for sale ($80 shipped for both) as i'm phasing out the 9xxx series in any of my future articles and do not have an SLI board )