New rig after X-mas/tax season. SLi or Single GPU?

[Krazeee]

First off, thanks to everybody who assisted in the building of my current rig some 2 years ago.

*Disclaimer: I didn't expect this to become such a long post, so bear with me.

It's about time for me to build another! I'm a bit anal about doing research, so while I'm still 4-6 months out on this build, I thought I might post my current picks for hardware. I understand that in 6 months time the latest and greatest will be all different, but I figure I can either switch to the similarly priced "new version" or just make this rig for even less than anticipated (which would of course make the wife very happy).

I have two thoughts for the rig I want to build as you can tell from the title. Each staying around the $2000 mark when it's all said and done.

First option I'm thinking of is a single high-end GPU on a solid P35 board that I can overclock decently (I'm still a bit of a novice, so I'm not trying to break that 4ghz mark or anything).

Second is to spend a bit more money and use two cheaper Vid Cards in SLi for slightly better performance and hoping that future games will take advantage of the multi-gpu setup. This one would also be mildly OC'd.

I'm basically looking for input as to which way would make the most sense for the future and any suggestions as to possible better hardware choices. Thanks in advance!

Here are the parts that will be staying the same regardless of which way I go. Unless somebody has some very compelling evidence to the advantages of using Vista, I plan to use XP Pro at this point (approx $130 most places). By the time I get around to building this, Vista may be more stable with new drivers etc, but right now I just don't see the point. But feel free to convince me otherwise if you wish. In fact any suggestions regarding reliability, performance and/or overall value are greatly appreciated.

Newegg has one of the best systems for browsing and researching parts, so all the links are of course to Newegg's database, but I'll be shopping around a bit for any significant savings on the parts I want.

Monitor: Chimei 22" 5ms Widescreen LCD - $240
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16824252008

I'm still not sure which monitor would best fit, I'm basically trying to stay sub $250 and get the best contrast ratio, brightness, colors etc...here's a comparison I was doing on Newegg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...e=3106%3A21400

Case: Antec P180 Case - $129
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16811129154

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo e6750 2.66ghz - $211
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16819115029

RAM: Patriot eXtreme Performance 2gb DDR2 1066 (pc8500) - $160
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16820220161

HDD: WD Caviar 250gb SATA 3gb - $68
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16822144701

Keyboard: Saitek Eclipsed Keyboard - $45
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16823175103

Mouse: Logitech G5 - $45...wish I could justify $100 for that new G9...
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16826104191

DVD Drives: Two Samsung 18x DVD+R SATA - $68
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16827151141

Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro - $35
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16835186134

Arctic Silver 5 - $6
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16835100007

--SLI Setup--

Mobo: eVGA 680i SLI - $210
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16813188013

Vid Cards: Two eVGA 8800GTS 320mb OC - $600...Interesting note, Tomshardware VGA chart shows this card ranking higher than the 640mb version in many tests and in SLI seems to only be beat by the GTX and Ultra cards...hence my choice here.
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16814130038

PSU: Enermax Infinity 720w - $219...I know the OCZ GameXstream is a great PSU for even less, but I want modular...I figure the tech has gotten good enough that it doesn't make a huge difference now between hardwired and modular...but please correct me if there are some definate pitfalls. The case I want will make any PSU fairly tidy anyways.
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16817194021

--P35 Setup--

Mobo: Abit IP35 Pro - $185
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16813127030

Vid Card: eVGA 8800GTX 768mb
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16814130072

PSU: Corsair 620w - $170
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16817139002

[Jimmy0]

If you are not going to be purchasing for another 4 months, then I would personally come back in 4 months with a list then, because like you said new parts may be out, old parts could be cheaper meaning you can get different possibly better parts.

So basically its OK having a preliminary list now, but there isn't a lot of point in picking it apart and scrutinizing it too much now because in 4 months things can change a lot.

[average650]

From what most people say here, it would be better to stick with the single GPU because you get better performance for the price.

[Katreat]

Originally Posted by Krazeee Second is to spend a bit more money and use two cheaper Vid Cards in SLi for slightly better performance and hoping that future games will take advantage of the multi-gpu setup. This one would also be mildly OC'd.

This is where your plan falls apart. Two cheaper vid cards in SLI have never performed better than one new generation card. If you look on Toms hardware you can see a couple of 7950s in SLI beating the 8800 GTS but they cant come close to the 8800 GTX flagship cards. Nividea has already speculated that the new 8900 (or whatever number they assign) will be twice as powerful as the 8800s. Since at best SLI can only give you about a 70% increase, and that is only in certain benchmarks, the average is closer to 50%, two older cards will not beat one newer if history repeats itself and the new card is twice as fast.

Dont get me wrong, SLI has its place. If you can afford two top end cards you will be faster then using one. But if it is a choice between one top end card or two lower models you will be money ahead getting a single card set up. Also, I dont think they build SLI around the new P35 chip you where planning on using, but I dont follow SLI much so not sure.

Kat

[HaloAddict19]

The cheapest EVGA 320mb 8800GTS on newegg is $269 after MIR, and the cheapest EVGA 8800GTX is $509 and the GTX outperforms SLI'd 320mb GTSs why would you want the GTSs? You would pay $30 more and have less performance, not to mention the difference in power consumption (link).

Edit: The power consumption should be close in that article but they used 640mb 8800GTSs so the performance earlier on wont be the same. Trying to find another link.

Take a look at this link (took forever to find one that compared SLI 320mbs to single GTX)

One other thing to mention, the higher your resolution goes the more video ram you are going to need on your main video card. At 1680x1050 the SLI'd 320MBs will get bottlenecked by the ram so the GTX seems to be the best choice IMHO.

[LeftyAce]

I'm going to agree with everybody on both issues raised. Prices change so much in 4-6 months that you really have to wait and see. For $2000 you'll get a killer system, the question is just what exactly constitutes a killer system that far in the future.
Stick with 1 graphics card. I got SLI, and planned to add the second card as an upgrade, but at this point, 7800s are hard to find, and the 8800 beats the pants off of it anyway.

The other advantage to NOT using sli is you have better options as far as motherboard chipsets (It's considered more stable to use an Intel chipset with an Intel CPU, and Intel chipsets don't do SLI).

[tomster2300]

The new 8900 line is coming out this Christmas. Like everyone's said, a new generation card always outperforms two from a previous generation.

Dump SLI unless you're 1) curious on running dual cards and don't mind the performance hit, or 2) you have the money to run two top of the line models.

Rebuild your lists this Christmas with a more powerful quad core than the currently available Q6600 (the extreme may drop in price, or other mid level ones may be released). Multiple cores is the future, with AMD's 8 core cpu waiting in the wings.

[Krazeee]

I really appreciate the input. I definately got caught up in the excitement of just configuring a system that I was slightly blinded by the obvious fact that it's a bit silly to configure now, when I know I'll be waiting till the new year to build. I think I will go with just one top end Vid Card and stick with an Intel based board though, so thank you for that insight. I suppose my only reason for considering two lesser cards in SLi was the mere hope that newer games would be better optimized, but to be honest, a single Vid Card will always suffice as long as it's fairly recent.

Also, I dont think they build SLI around the new P35 chip you where planning on using

That's why I had chosen that eVGA board cuz it's a 680i chipset, made for SLi.

In any case, I'll cool the engines down and just stay on top of the new Tech coming out. Thanks again all.