new graphics card dilemma

[Avanarius]

So right I'm thinking I should probably get rid of my pair of 8800gts's (320mb) before they're worth absolutely nothing on ebay when the 9800's come out. I'm thinking I can probably get $300 ish for the pair since I still have the boxes and original everything that went with them to make them look new. I'm selling them not because the performance is mediocre but because sli is a joke for not supporting multiple monitors and I have 2 and a TV.

My problem is if I sell both of them, I would still need another card to run my tv on it since it's pretty much always hooked up for watching movies. So hypothetically, lets say I get $300 for my cards and I put out another $300 for a total of $600. What would be the optimal choice to improve on performance and not go broke at the same time while still having a half decent card to run my tv? Or is there any better options for 3 connections?

I'd likely buy the cheap card temporarily so I can sell my previous cards, then buy the new card.

Should I wait for the 9800's?

edit* forgot to mention the tv is 720p 32" and monitors are 19" 1280x1024

[shaddix]

to improve on sli performance? o rjust one card? get you one of them 200 dollar HD 3850s or whatever the hell they are

[Avanarius]

I want one card that will be equivalent or better then two 8800gts's, because the support for SLI is a joke as well, this shouldn't be too hard to accomplish.

[shaddix]

an ultra is your only option lol and even then i don't think iut will outperform the two 8800s in sli if it does its very close

maybe that BFG watercooled ultra could do it

[Avanarius]

an ultra is your only option lol and even then i don't think iut will outperform the two 8800s in sli if it does its very close

maybe that BFG watercooled ultra could do it

To be honest, that would depend entirely on the game, sometimes SLI fucks up everything and halfs the FPS (hello bioshock), or does absolutely NOTHING AT ALL.

It's sad but true that Never Winter Nights 2 is the only game that I ever noticed a huge performance increase with sli (nearly double), and I hate the game.

Maybe it's just my resolution, but I can't do shit all with 320mb's of video memory if I even wanted to run at a higher res.

[shaddix]

hmmm, dunno then, my experience with sli has been great so far, i get a very significant increase in fps in most every game i play, except crysis... which still runs like shit even with the latest patch and drivers. sli doesn't seem to do shit for me on that game'
i do have the 640mb versions of the 8800s though

[Avanarius]

I stopped using SLI entirely because there's not many games out there that will stress the card very much at 1280x1024, and if anyone tells me otherwise it's complete bullshit. The only game that doesn't cap out at 60fps is Crysis (save some parts in CoD4) which you mentioned doesn't support sli very well at all.

[Don Katsu]

Posted this in another thread. If you haven't heard the news today. ATI released the ATI Radeon 3870x2 it outperforms the 8800GT Ultra by about 7% but costs 30-40% less.

Get ready for 8800GT prices to drop again.

[Vertabreaker]

So right I'm thinking I should probably get rid of my pair of 8800gts's (320mb) before they're worth absolutely nothing on ebay when the 9800's come out. I'm thinking I can probably get $300 ish for the pair since I still have the boxes and original everything that went with them to make them look new. I'm selling them not because the performance is mediocre but because sli is a joke for not supporting multiple monitors and I have 2 and a TV.

My problem is if I sell both of them, I would still need another card to run my tv on it since it's pretty much always hooked up for watching movies. So hypothetically, lets say I get $300 for my cards and I put out another $300 for a total of $600. What would be the optimal choice to improve on performance and not go broke at the same time while still having a half decent card to run my tv? Or is there any better options for 3 connections?

I'd likely buy the cheap card temporarily so I can sell my previous cards, then buy the new card.

Should I wait for the 9800's?

edit* forgot to mention the tv is 720p 32" and monitors are 19" 1280x1024

You can use the Matrox TripleHead2Go adapter/converter or you can use the 3 card trick which allow you to run SLI on your main monitor/display but still allow you to use multiple monitor setup(other displays/TVs won't be SLI...only main will be)

**Edit, that's if you want to keep your current cards and still keep them in SLI.

[Avanarius]

$300 for the matrox thing seems a bit much... Does it support separate resolutions? Because it would need to be something like 1280x1024 , 1280x1024 , 1280x720/1360x768.

Ugh I'm not sure what I want to do anymore, I'm leaning towards getting rid of sli.

Any recommendations for good passive htpc video cards for my tv?

[Vertabreaker]

$300 for the matrox thing seems a bit much... Does it support separate resolutions? Because it would need to be something like 1280x1024 , 1280x1024 , 1280x720/1360x768.

Ugh I'm not sure what I want to do anymore, I'm leaning towards getting rid of sli.

Any recommendations for good passive htpc video cards for my tv?

You could do the 3 card trick if you have an open PCI slot that isn't being covered, but some people don't like doing it because it requires you getting a cheapo ATI card to install. It's kind of a sketchy work around but it works.

[Avanarius]

$300 for the matrox thing seems a bit much... Does it support separate resolutions? Because it would need to be something like 1280x1024 , 1280x1024 , 1280x720/1360x768.

Ugh I'm not sure what I want to do anymore, I'm leaning towards getting rid of sli.

Any recommendations for good passive htpc video cards for my tv?

You could do the 3 card trick if you have an open PCI slot that isn't being covered, but some people don't like doing it because it requires you getting a cheapo ATI card to install. It's kind of a sketchy work around but it works.

I have read about doing this but you have to remember I'm not desperate in the least bit to keep the performance of lolsli.

[Vertabreaker]

$300 for the matrox thing seems a bit much... Does it support separate resolutions? Because it would need to be something like 1280x1024 , 1280x1024 , 1280x720/1360x768.

Ugh I'm not sure what I want to do anymore, I'm leaning towards getting rid of sli.

Any recommendations for good passive htpc video cards for my tv?

You could do the 3 card trick if you have an open PCI slot that isn't being covered, but some people don't like doing it because it requires you getting a cheapo ATI card to install. It's kind of a sketchy work around but it works.

I have read about doing this but you have to remember I'm not desperate in the least bit to keep the performance of lolsli.

Right on. I just listed it as an option in case you wanted to keep SLI.

[Avanarius]

My course of action seems to be something like this:

1. Buy crappy card that will be dedicated to watching movies on tv, preferably passive/low noise.

2.
Option A: Sell one 8800gts and keep second so I can play games until I decide on something better. This would mean the second card would likely depreciate to being worth nothing when 9000's come out.
Option B: Sell both cards and likely get the most $$ back for them since some sucker will be like "Woooooo, now I can SLI and get mega FPS!!!" similar to what I said when I bought them. This situation would mean I would have to live with a single htpc video card until I decide on what I want to buy.

3. Buy 9800gx2

4. ???

5. Not so much profit, as I waste too much money on computer shit lol....

edit* reading more stuff on the 3870x2 and it seems like a bitching good deal, but I don't know if I can even fit it inside my case (tsunami dream).

[Yangsing]

Posted this in another thread. If you haven't heard the news today. ATI released the ATI Radeon 3870x2 it outperforms the 8800GT Ultra by about 7% but costs 30-40% less.

Get ready for 8800GT prices to drop again.

Except that it doesn't outperform the ultra in real world games. There's alot of reviews out now that shows that the lower priced GTX is slightly ahead of the 3870x2 on average. The ATI drivers are a work in progress at the moment. 3870x2 is still a good card though but nothing earth shattering.