Buckets

SLI is great for extending the life of the video card you initially purchased. A second $50 card kept me satisfied with the performance of my GeForce 6800 for quite some time. After upgrading to a single, more powerful GPU, however, I don't think I'd go back to multi GPU unless I was well off enough to build a brand new system with two top of the line cards.

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Bamboo

I would not recommend going SLI either. Funny how a lot of older cards once they become hard to find still end up costing a lot. Why would you pay like $150 for a 2 year old card (look at some older cards on newegg), when you could get something like a single 8800GT for about that and have better performace as well as tons less heat in your case and hurting on your PSU for what, a usually at most %60-%70 increase in FPS.
I would only go sli if you have tons of money to blow and could start out with 2 top of the line cards from day 1.
And if you do decide to forget about the SLI, I would say look for a better motherboard (at least one that isn't an nvidia chipset). The amount of problems with something like the p35 or the very soon to be released p45 chipset is just way lower.

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Axis of Eeevil

I have the P900, and I love it's flexibility. The door hinge is a bit flimsy; mine is now held on with duct tape after 3 years. I have a 7800 GTX BFG, 2 gigs, a 70 gb raptor for OS and games and 160 gb "other stuff" HD, and an AMD CPU (pretty old now). Still runs POE2 fine...

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SharinganTH1422

Damn, you guys just made my decision on what case to get a lot harder...

On SLI, I'm not sure why, but when I was planning my system, I discarded any thoughts of SLI, due to it taking too much power, space and money, and for a lot of the time not a huge increase in power. Also, I'm planning to get a top range card, and a single top range card should handle whatever I throw at it just fine. However, if you seriously want to max out the time you have this rig, you may want to consider Tri-SLI with the 9800GTX or even Quad SLI with the 9800GX2, although I suggest you try to upgrade gradually in the next year or so instead of getting this all at once, as it will obviously cost a lot.

P.S. Sorry for throwing all of these suggestions for you to consider and maybe confusing you, I'm hoping the other guys here who are better at this stuff than me can tell you more about the things I've suggested, and say yes or no.

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Bamboo

Tri-SLI is one of the most ridiculous marketing scams and wastes of money ever.
I could have sworn I posted a review of it here that showed adding the 3rd card does almost nothing for FPS unless you are running at a rez like 1920x1200 or 2560×1600.
Not only that, but you have to buy a special motherboard (there are only 3 for sale on newegg) along with the 3 cards and 1000 watt PSU. Good-by bank account. I will be really surprised if tri-sli lasts very long in the marketplace.
Not to mention the drivers they still don't have strait. Hell, they constantly don't have regular SLI drivers right, let alone the tri-sli.
Bottom line is if you want a computer to last many years, you are going to have to put a little money into upgrades along the way, including a new gfx. card if you want to play the latest games. Technology changes way to much in 3 years for you not to. Look at the difference between Farcry and Crysis for instance.

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Long Bow

^^ Bingo.

Theres no way to build an uber system that is current in gaming terms two years from now.

However if you buy, for example a good quality case, psu, optical drives, monitor, keyboard, mouse.... you can always continue to use them and still have a good system. If you do the research and buy decent products you can save yourself allot of money by upgrading rather then rebuilds. Plus the upgrade path keeps you in the sweet spot more often then big expensive rebuilds farther apart.

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kin3

What monitor are you planning to use. If greater than 22" then you might think SLI. I may in the future add another card but right now I'm satisfied.

Motherboard: EVGA 780i
Graphic Card: EVGA NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 512
Monitor: Dell 2407WFP-HC
DVD: Philips SPD6104P SCSI DVD
Sound: Creative X-FI Audio
Power Supply: Corsair TX750W
CPU: E8400
Memory: Patriot 4G 2Gx2
Hard Drive: 500G
Case: Antec P182
OS: Windows Vista Home Preium 64

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kin3

gator skywalker

I disagree on SLI. I have spent countless bucks on SLI and felt like I saw improvement, but not for the cash I was spending. I recommend the 9600GT. I picked up one for $115 after rebate and it is a PNY with a 5 year warranty. Go to www.slickdeals.net and keep an eye out for deals.

Happy Hunting!

Bamboo

Slickdeals is ok, but no where near as good as http://www.techbargains.com/

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Long Bow

Damn you pentioners and your cash flow!

Very nice system Kin. Hows the 780i board?

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ImAWuss

Ordered the rest of my parts today! I'll take pics after it's all assembled next week!

One more quick question. My current system finally crapped out on me. The drives in my current comp are sata 1.5/mb connections. Can I toss those into my new system with the sata 3.0? Is it backwards compatable? I don't know that I'll keep them in there, I just want to be able to copy my files onto the new hd.

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Bamboo

Should be fine to use the old drives. But did you old computer crap out because of them?
Also be sure there are no viruses or something on them, just in case you have something nasty that could move to your new computer.

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kin3

Long Bow I have no complaints with this board. I thought I might need SLI with a 24" monitor but it works good without it. I will get another board if I find a bargain but not until.

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kin3

Long Bow

I can see a 24" monitor benefiting from SLI. I have done a bit more reading and it looks like the 780i is good chipset. Im very jealous of that setup of you have Kin

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