Do you do Dual GPU?

Sovereign · Post by **Sovereign** » Sat May 06, 2006 7:13 pm

So, do you have a dual-GPU setup? I'm going SLI soon with the 7900GTX. If you do dual GPU, post what you have (or are getting). You're welcome to post benchmark info as well.

bubba · Post by **bubba** » Sat May 06, 2006 8:25 pm

will most likely never will, can't afford it.

Now if there is some rich person out there that whats to pony up the cash then what the hell.

hainer36 · Post by **hainer36** » Sat May 06, 2006 9:42 pm

nope, cuz im an intel and nvidia fanboy (i know, ati in sig, but it was too cheap to pass up) and theres no point if ya dont game

pointreyes · Post by **pointreyes** » Sat May 06, 2006 9:43 pm

I don't use computers for much gaming. I mean Myst V and Civ IV are about the most demanding games I play. However, my NLE machine does have a relatively powerful GPU for when I'm ready to encode in HD with Avid Liquid.

Kerii · Post by **Kerii** » Sat May 06, 2006 9:57 pm

What about... I have an SLi motherboard, but only one graphics card, and don't plan on upgrading anytime soon?

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Sun May 07, 2006 1:30 am

no plans on SLI/Xfire... may get an X1900 but no Crossfire. antime soon.

Zelig · Post by **Zelig** » Sun May 07, 2006 6:40 am

No dual video cards for me either. It isn't cost effective for me, I upgrade fairly often, but never with top of the line parts, so dual video cards would be more expensive than a full computer of mine.

Immortal · Post by **Immortal** » Sun May 07, 2006 8:26 am

to be honest, since its double the price and NOT double the performance, the bang to buck ratio drops significantley... so unless ur eyes can make out the difference between 60FPS and 100FPS ... then i dont see what the point is....

Sovereign · Post by **Sovereign** » Sun May 07, 2006 1:10 pm

The point is the bragging and futureproofing. While one generally cannot futureproof with vid cards, I am able to buy two now, or buy one now and NOT buy another....cause once that chunk of change I'm using for the PC gets put away, it's staying there. So buying two cards is as futureproof as I can get....sadly enough. Can't do the sensible thing....and I don't want to anyway.
YAY SLI!

Immortal · Post by **Immortal** » Sun May 07, 2006 3:21 pm

still, looking at it ecnomoically, its not worth it... maybe braging rights etc... but you have to calculate the total cost of ownership.

Lets assume you have built yourself a PC with an SLi mobo and you have 1 high end vid card. For sake of simplicity we will assume CPU and RAM are top of the range.

In order to go SLi, you MUST buy a new equivalent/faster GFX card - say £250
Then you must upgrade the PSU, in order to support the bigger demand for power - say £50
Thirdly, your cost of running the system increases since the PSU rating has probably jumped 200W or 300W, thus lets say at a cost of 9p per kWh, thats an extra 2.7p per hour (for a 300w jump).
Lets assume you run your computer for 10 hours a day, a conservative estimate at best, this gives us a daily extra power cost of 27p. This multiplied by 365, gives us: £98.6 extra total cost per year.
Now assuming youre not gonna upgrade for 3 years as you say, due to future proofing, thats: £295.8 extra.

So total cost of ownership = 250 + 50 + 295.8 = £595.8
Convert that into dollars: 1,109.97 USD

This is by no means an accurate represntation (varying prices, electrcity costs, PC time used etc..), but just tells you that other things need to be considered.
Remember than In this case i assumed you have fastest available CPU to get most out of SLi and also large amounts of RAM, if you dont that cost can easily double.... thats why i dont like dual GFX, dont get me wrong itl be the dogs bollocks to have, but $1100, I mean damn, thats almost the cost of my WHOLE PC back when it was top of the range!

Zelig · Post by **Zelig** » Sun May 07, 2006 5:21 pm

Immortal wrote:Thirdly, your cost of running the system increases since the PSU rating has probably jumped 200W or 300W, thus lets say at a cost of 9p per kWh, thats an extra 2.7p per hour (for a 300w jump).
Lets assume you run your computer for 10 hours a day, a conservative estimate at best, this gives us a daily extra power cost of 27p. This multiplied by 365, gives us: £98.6 extra total cost per year.
Now assuming youre not gonna upgrade for 3 years as you say, due to future proofing, thats: £295.8 extra.

It's a common misconception that PSUs rated for higher max outputs automatically take more power. In fact though, it's only the consumption that really matters, top rated specs don't matter (other than efficiency) in calculating power usage.

I'm currently running a 520W PSU, a 1000W peak (~500W RMS) speaker system, a 100W+ (22" CRT, not really sure about the rating) monitor, a 1000W microwave and a fridge/freezer on the same outlet. If they all sucked up their maximum wattage, I'd be buying replacement fuses in bulk. ;)

Sovereign · Post by **Sovereign** » Sun May 07, 2006 6:40 pm

Immortal wrote:still, looking at it ecnomoically, its not worth it... maybe braging rights etc... but you have to calculate the total cost of ownership.

Lets assume you have built yourself a PC with an SLi mobo and you have 1 high end vid card. For sake of simplicity we will assume CPU and RAM are top of the range.

In order to go SLi, you MUST buy a new equivalent/faster GFX card - say £250
Then you must upgrade the PSU, in order to support the bigger demand for power - say £50
Thirdly, your cost of running the system increases since the PSU rating has probably jumped 200W or 300W, thus lets say at a cost of 9p per kWh, thats an extra 2.7p per hour (for a 300w jump).
Lets assume you run your computer for 10 hours a day, a conservative estimate at best, this gives us a daily extra power cost of 27p. This multiplied by 365, gives us: £98.6 extra total cost per year.
Now assuming youre not gonna upgrade for 3 years as you say, due to future proofing, thats: £295.8 extra.

So total cost of ownership = 250 + 50 + 295.8 = £595.8
Convert that into dollars: 1,109.97 USD

This is by no means an accurate represntation (varying prices, electrcity costs, PC time used etc..), but just tells you that other things need to be considered.
Remember than In this case i assumed you have fastest available CPU to get most out of SLi and also large amounts of RAM, if you dont that cost can easily double.... thats why i dont like dual GFX, dont get me wrong itl be the dogs bollocks to have, but $1100, I mean damn, thats almost the cost of my WHOLE PC back when it was top of the range!

I'm buying everyting at once....all $3000 of it.

Immortal · Post by **Immortal** » Mon May 08, 2006 1:08 am

That depends really, i dont know what the current draw on the US plugs are, but here in he uk we have 230v/13A, which is around 3KW draw.

What you say is true, however, i was assuming that an extra GFX card would need at least 200w extra power, and thus said 300w for headroom...

With respect to buying everyhting at once... fair enough but ur bills wont take notice of it! ;)

pcrobot · Post by **pcrobot** » Mon May 08, 2006 5:36 am

I'll probably get SLI after I get an AM2 mobo and CPU.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Mon May 08, 2006 11:22 am

undecided

If I do go with Xfire, it will only be for bragging rights....

a very expensive ego trip!

Tim Burton · Post by **Tim Burton** » Mon May 08, 2006 11:37 am

Can't afford it....

Immortal · Post by **Immortal** » Mon May 08, 2006 11:52 am

i think SLi and Xfire are meant to be the equivalent of the Pentium 4EE or high end AMD FX CPU's in that its only an exclusive club for the rich and fanatical, as shown by the price premium of both.... its for this reason why i cant and probably wont ever be able to justify spending that amount of money on it.

Zelig · Post by **Zelig** » Mon May 08, 2006 1:28 pm

kenc51 wrote:undecided

If I do go with Xfire, it will only be for bragging rights....

a very expensive ego trip!

My advice? Spend the money on a nice snowboard, and get good. Or alternatively, some skis. Being able to do flips is great for bragging rights.

That's just my advice though, I'm hooked on boarding, if I had to choose between video games and boarding, there'd be no contest.

Immortal · Post by **Immortal** » Mon May 08, 2006 3:05 pm

i would save the extra for a new car personally... a flash car always goes down well... but yeah i really wana learn to board too!

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