Athlon 64 Dual-Core Upgrade and NVIDIA's GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB SLI

[MikeC]

Question:

What do you get when you upgrade to one of these,

http://www.nvnews.net/articles/athlon_64_dual_core_upgrade/images/x2_logo.jpg

and two of these?

http://www.nvnews.net/articles/athlon_64_dual_core_upgrade/images/card01.jpg


Answer:

Some serious kick-ass performance!

http://www.nvnews.net/articles/athlon_64_dual_core_upgrade/index.shtml

[BrianG]

About time you went dual core...

[OWA]

Nice job Mike!

Heh, a little while ago I was trying to find the max temp for the 4800+ and never found the info but it was in your chart. :)

[superklye]

That was a great read, Mike...very informative and well written. :)

[Clay]

Tons of great info in there. I especially liked this summation about SLI on the bottom of the fifth page:The frame rate analysis gives us a better understanding of how SLI differentiates itself. For example, with a single GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB, there are only four cases when 100% of the frames rendered exceeded 40fps. In SLI, there are seven such cases, two others at 98%, and one at 94%.*Smack* to those that said SLI didn't provide considerable performance gains. :) Great review as usual Mike.

[mikechai]

Very useful and excellent article Mike. Now if someone asks me whether SLI worth the money, my answer will be a definite "YES"!

[Rytr]

Excellent, good info from the first to the last!

Your conclusion, mind-boggling...:D I have to agree!

[jAkUp]

Excellent article mike!!!

[heatlesssun]

Intresting article to me as you should understand from my sig. I've just built last month a nearly identical system, but I did get the A8N32-SLI, from eBay actually in early November for $300 which actually wasn't too bad at the time as it was nowhere to be found any where else.

So what do you consider the playable frame rate for F.E.A.R. on this rig? Actually, I love this game and its one of the reasons I built this system. I play at 1600x1200 4aa/16af with everything at maximum, no soft shadows, and the game runs quite well. There are some parts that do get a bit sluggish though. I've noticed it when looking at particular surfaces like glass for instance, the frame rate drop is quite noticeable. So I'd love to hear your comments.

It looks like however the X1900 is going to own this game, but I guess I'll have to be happy with my dual 512's until nVidia comes out with the 7900.

Any other words of wisdom?

Thanks for the article!

[Capt. Picard]

I'm going to give Mike's article to my grade 4-7 pupils to read. After my expert computer studies tuition last year, they will gobble it up as light reading. :D

[GlowStick]

Wow, great article for the dream pc market. I love the comparisons!

[OWA]

Tons of great info in there. I especially liked this summation about SLI on the bottom of the fifth page:*Smack* to those that said SLI didn't provide considerable performance gains. :) Great review as usual Mike.

Yeah, it's nice to have some ammo for those that keep insisting that SLI is a waste. :)

[SH64]

Lots of interesting info .. well done!