well im way too poor to afford 2 8800gt vid cards. but what im gonna do is use 2 8500gt silents with zalman coolers on them. now would this compair to 1 8800gts or more.

I suspect you're probably better off going with a single 8800GT or GTS. Though, I admit I haven't really followed video cards recently.

Well I personally had two 8500GT's. One thing to watch for with them is some models do not have a physical SLI connector so you have to use the driver software to make it work. Neither one of my cards had the physical connector (one was made by Sparkle, the second was BFG). It never did work for me and I ended up selling my second card 3 days after I got it.

I recently got an 8800GT and my performance definately MORE than doubled.

So my advice is to go with either a single GT or GTS. I think you will be much better off in the long run.

Single HD3870

Planning to have an SLI/Crossfire setup from the start is dumb IMO unless you want more performance than what you can get from the fastest single slot card. Adding another card to your system down the road is fine because then it makes some economical sense.

The only reason I see to have SLI/Crossfire from the start when the cards aren't the fastest available is when the person wants bragging rights but personally I would think less of the person if they did that rather then have the equivilent single card solution.

Hope that helps!

2 8500gt's are more like the performance of 1 8600gts
2 8600gt will get you 8800 series performance.

ok i get what yer sayin. i allready have one 8500 gt asus and it has teh sli connector on it. bought form mb and they have more in stock.
its the difference between me spending another 100$ and spending another 300$.
kind of a big jump.
im gonna look around abit see what i can find for used 8800 .this week im gettin a new socket am board ddr2 ram and a 2.2 dual core. upgrading from my s939 2.2dual core with ddr1 ram.

im not really lookin for braggin rights just small upgrades at a time type deal.
i was just figureing that if i spend another 100$ or so on another 8500 gt silent by asus. i would get close to or equil to a single 8800 gt(s,x, whatever)

thanks for teh advice guys!
much appreciated

in that case spend the extra $100 for the 2nd gt. its only a bad idea if you didn't already have the 1st card. don't expect 8800gt/gts/gtx speeds though. you will likley see a 30% speed increase.

I thought you were planning on buying two 8500's at the same time so I guess the above stil holds true for you.

What chip/board/memory are you going from when you upgrade to AM2? It might be that you'd be better off putting that monday towards a faster card instead. Just a thought.

I thought the same thing.

yeah some times i fail to explain myself fully on fourms. lol sorry if i confused yas abit.
here is what im gettin

13293 AMD - Athlon-64 X2 Dual Core (4200+) 2.2Ghz, 65w, AM2 32/64 Bit, L2 1MB

13036 ASUS M2N-E SLI NF500SLI, 2PCI, 2x IDE, 1394, 4SATAII, 7.1 AUDIO, GbL

13218 Super*Talent T8UX2GC5 DDR2-800 2GB (2x1GB) CL5 S-RIGID Memory Kit


rite now i have asus a8v-xe, 4200+ x2 and 2 gb of ddr1 ram. i shoulda just bought this stuff form the begninning.

No worries. I get confused really easily.

Now just as a personal opinion. I would get a different memory kit. Not that the one you picked out is bad but there are better. I would recommend the following

12202 Super*Talent T800UX2GC4 STT DDR2-800 2G(2X1G) PC6400 4-4-3-8 (2.2V) (Lifetime)

It's only ~$15 more and the timings are SO much better. Which translates to better perfomance overall.

But again, just a personal opinion.

If you are concerned about gaming performance I would skip that upgrade and put the extra money into the videocard. That's my opinion though.

hmm intresting. 15$ more well ill email mb now and tell them to change my order for that.

well gameing is my concern but i need to do this upgrade to ddr2 and i want sli someday in the near future.
and i figure (yes i figure)
i got this 8500gt overclocked to the max and i can get pritty good fps on cod4, dirt and nfsps. so if i have 2 of them over clock them, put a good cooler on it and if my math works out im pritty close to a 8800 gtxxx. onlything lacking is that im still working with dd2 video ram insted of ddr3

apparantly that ram u listed will not work on my main board. voltage conflict thanks for the sudgstion tho.
anymore sudestions are welcome. lookin like im not gettin over to pick it up till later today or tomrow .