Should I buy another Video Card..?

[Sell224]

Ok, I own an alienware ( i know blah blah shoulda built one haha) and I love it. Ive been working on it a bit lately trying to maximize its potential. Overclocked it from 2.21 Ghz (on an amd 64 bit 3500+) to 2.42 Ghz. Although i had a few problems at first (My computer woudlnt boot.. ) somehow i fixed them . I used AI booster, so i didnt really do much else besides set overclocking to AI 110%.


Well thats besides the point. My computer has an ASUS A8N-SLI DELUXE mobo that supports SLI. When i bought my computer i thought that two vid cards was used for 2 monitors, so i downgraded to 1 vid card. My vid card is NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Series GPU (256 MB), and its a pretty good vid card.

I got some money in my hands, and im not only thinking about upgrading my computer to get a watercooling system, but now im considering if i should buy another NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Series GPU
and connect them using the whole SLI technology.


So.. what do you guys all think? If i want better graphical performance from my comp, should i buy another NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Series GPU or .. should i maybe just get a great 512 vid card? Would it be more powerful to have two 256 MB nice vid cards, than one ultimate vid card? It would definetly be cheaper to buy one more NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Series GPU.

How much graphical performance increase would I see with another vid card connected via SLI technology? And lastly, how much would a NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Series GPU cost, and where should i buy it if i do?

thanks.

 

[Sell224]

farely simple question

 

[Vybuni]

What brand is your card? Is it a GT,GS,XT, vanilla or what. Is it AGP or PCI-E?

You should see about a 30-40% increase in performance.

 

[Sell224]

NVIDIA® GeForce™ 6800 Ultra PCI Express 256MB DDR3 w/Dual Digital and TV Out


there ya go.


I also heard from someone that some video games don't actually utilize both the video cards, and will only take power from one of them. Is this true? If it is i really dont see the point of having a video card sitting in my computer unused..

 

[MrZucchiniHead]

oh, good luck finding an ultra they dont make them anymore, i found 2 on pricegrabber but they're from websites i've never seen or heard of and they cost about 500$ for that amount of cash you could buy a X1900XT which would be way better than 2 6800 ultra's in SLI

X1900XT
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814131005

 

[maroon1]

if i were i would not upgrade 6800ultra because it will run most games at highest setting, so it's better to wait for 7900GTX or for geforce 8800 (G80).
7900 series will be availlable on march

and don't forget tht u can also overclock ur 6800ultra

 

[Sell224]

hmm.. i dont really know how to overclock video cards :/

 

[Vybuni]

Download Rivatuner, ATItool or Coolbits. All there is to do is move some bars, and make sure it works. Try a google search for some more specific walkthroughs if you need some help.

 

[Sell224]

thanks man.. i downloaded rivatuner.


Could you tell me what to do now? lol is there an option that i can set to automatically overclock my system and set everything for me, cuz i really dont knwo what to do.

 

[Vybuni]

After you open Rivatuner, look under "driver settings." There should be "customize" with a little box next to it. Click that box and a little menu will pop up. Click on the first choice (the picture of the video card).

Another window will come up. Check the box on the top that says "enable driver-level hardware overclocking" next to it. After you do this, go to the menu to the right of it and select performance 3D. You don't need to mess with 2D or low-power 3D.

Move the slider back and forth to set your core speed and memory speeds. Don't put it too far, otherwise it won't work. After moving it to a new setting, the "test" button at the bottom will be available. Click on that to see if your settings work. If it fails the test, you need to set your clocks lower. If you pass, you can set it higher until you fail. I like to keep mine a few MHz below the maximum it can run at.

When you get settings you like, check the box that says "Apply overclocking at windows startup" and hit save.

Thats really all there is to it.

If you start to notice artifacting during games or anything else, then lower the settings a little bit.

Automatic overclockers never work that well.