anyone running SLI ?

[ripping]

I'm considering building a new PC soon., maybe.
The rig I run games on is getting a bit old with a Intel 1600 @ 2400 on a Abit BD7R wid 512Mb Ram and a Ti4600 card.
It runs FS2004 ok ish, but I know a new PC would give a big boost.
I do have a 'working PC' that is a P4P800 with Intel 2.8 @ 3.2, 1024Mb RAM and a crap video card, that I wouldn't even attempt to load FS9.
I may wait until the new Intel chips are released (initial reports look good) (may wait til Vista is here too).
But i spose the Q I have is, what are peoples experience with SLI graphics and FS9?
I'd either get a single 7900GTX or dual 7900GT in SLI mode.
I'd like to get the solution that would run FS9 better as I can see that taking up most of my gaming time. But then I spose FS10 will be here by that time, and may favour SLI (or not!)
My target resolution will be at least 1600x1200 but preferably playable at 1920x1200.
divulge your thoughts please.

[FridayChild]

Did I read somewhere here that FS9 does not support (i.e. benefit from) SLI at all?  ???

[Politically Incorrect]

FS9 doesn't support SLi itself but I run it in SLi alternate frame rendering2 mode, set via the Nvidia control panel, so yes you can force FS9 to use it.

Its a crap shoot basically since FS9 can't reap the full benifits of SLi, some get a improvement using it and some get better performance using just one GPU.

If your going to buy a SLi rig don't let FS9 alone stop you, FSX supposidly will be able to use SLI, but many games now days can utilize it and great performance boosts are easily seen and your gaming experiance will also.

You can read benchmarks if you wish (still boogles my mind so many spend so much time trying to achive numbers instead of playing and enjoying thier games) but that is a guide the only way you can really experiance SLi is to try it yourself  I did and am more than happy with it!

[NicksFXHouse]

I'm considering building a new PC soon., maybe.
The rig I run games on is getting a bit old with a Intel 1600 @ 2400 on a Abit BD7R wid 512Mb Ram and a Ti4600 card.
It runs FS2004 ok ish, but I know a new PC would give a big boost.
I do have a 'working PC' that is a P4P800 with Intel 2.8 @ 3.2, 1024Mb RAM and a crap video card, that I wouldn't even attempt to load FS9.
I may wait until the new Intel chips are released (initial reports look good) (may wait til Vista is here too).
But i spose the Q I have is, what are peoples experience with SLI graphics and FS9?
I'd either get a single 7900GTX or dual 7900GT in SLI mode.
I'd like to get the solution that would run FS9 better as I can see that taking up most of my gaming time. But then I spose FS10 will be here by that time, and may favour SLI (or not!)
My target resolution will be at least 1600x1200 but preferably playable at 1920x1200.
divulge your thoughts please.

Unless you have cash to spend and/or just can not wait, buying now would reduce your ability to be on track for the next gen of video games and/or their upgrades. I would wait, put the money into qual sli once the DX10 cards are out and have been proven.

If you can't wait purchase a single 7900GTX with the assumption of adding another one in SLI toward the end of the year or early next year. Do not buy the 7900GTX's that are factory overclocked. Nvidia has confirmed their partners who factory overclocked those cards screwed them up. BFG is the best bet for stable operation

The official quote from NVIDIA:

In working with our board partners we discovered the cause of the random slowdown and temporary lockup problems experienced by various users of certain overclocked 7900 GTX graphics boards. Essentially, it was a case where the core and/or memory clocks were driven a bit too high, and the overclocking margins weren't available on those specific boards. For users who experience the problems, the graphics card vendors will work with those individual users to fix the problem. We have learned from our board partners that the situation is now under control.



DX10-Quad SLI will be the the future and FSX will take full advantage of multicore processors and DX10 Quad SLI.

I would wait, save up,... and put the money into a better system and DX10 video early next year.

[ripping]

I would wait, save up,... and put the money into a better system and DX10 video early next year.

Thats probably what i will do then, thanks.  
In the mean time I may just spend a few bucks on a better agp vid card for my faster workhorse.  It could do with the upgrade anyway, as I've just thrown another 512 RAM at it.
Mostly spending money on hard drives at the mo for video editing. I'm making them all external drives so they are easily mobile. Just gone over 1.5Tb total storage but never seems enough with DV.
I'll look forward to a big spend up next year.

[NicksFXHouse]

[quote]
Thats probably what i will do then, thanks.

[ripping]

expect to spend at least 3000+ for the works..

yup, that'd be right (a good bit more in my $NZ tho! ). I spend around that every 2 or three years.. I usually buy at a little below topline hardware, as that extra 10-20% performance really costs,  but maybe this time I will go that little bit further, I'm dead set on trying watercooling this time round.
I sometimes compare my first PC with what I got now. It was a DX33.. that struggled a little to run DOOM!.

over 100 x the chip speed.
500 x the RAM
11,000 x disk capacity  :o


this sport is kinda fun!

:

[ctjoyce]

Woah there. Watercooling is fun, however very messy, and a bit complacated to setup. Unless you plan to do some serious clocking I suggest against doing watercooling and looking at something like a Zalman CNPS-9500.

Also know that watercooling will add another $300 ~ 500 depending on what you plan to use for parts onto your current $3,000 total.

Cheers
Cameron

[ripping]

Woah there. Watercooling is fun, however very messy, and a bit complacated to setup. Unless you plan to do some serious clocking I suggest against doing watercooling and looking at something like a Zalman CNPS-9500.

Cheers
Cameron

yeah thanks. I know most of the in and outs of the H2O cooling and of course I plan to overclock.
I'm running a Thermalright XP 120 on my workhorse PC, and indeed the cooling is very effective. But air has its limitations, and I'm going water. Its as much about staying quiet as keeping cool. thanks for your concern!

[NicksFXHouse]

yeah thanks. I know most of the in and outs of the H2O cooling and of course I plan to overclock.
I'm running a Thermalright XP 120 on my workhorse PC, and indeed the cooling is very effective. But air has its limitations, and I'm going water. Its as much about staying quiet as keeping cool. thanks for your concern!

Just an FYI: With the newer systems and the newer designs of heatsinks.. unless your planning on designing a system which includes a chiller and the design takes into account the condensation issues, the cost of liquid cooling is not worth the performance or the noise reduction (sometimes there is a noise increase). With todays hardware typical water systems do not do much better than a correctly designed tower/CPU/GPU/PSU air system. Unless the liquid system is designed with a chiller, the best you might see is a 10-15c reduction (= under full load once the system warms up and the liquid temp balances out) which equates to about 5-9% on the CPU. Every 10c you drop in temp will raise the headroom of the processor overclock 3-5%. $300-$500 is alot to spend for a 5-9% CPU increase.

It's not like it was 2 years ago where the processors ran hotter and the GPU's needed to be kept below 65c. Today, GPU's are running hotter, PSU's are being taxed more and although CPU's run cooler, the trade off with water cooling to use for overclocking is no longer close to quiet and cost effective, at all.

I am also designing a liquid chiller system... it will cost around 1200.00+ but is designed to be dead silent and uses a Thermoelectric (Peltier) radiator (no fans) which will reduce my full load temps (depending on the ambient air temp) by as much as 30c on all devices.