a couple of video card questions

[Zendrik]

I am looking into buying a new video card. I currently own a GeForce 7950GT 512mb. I was wondering if SLI'ing it would give me more power than a GeForce 8800 GTS. I went to Tom's Hardware but he only compares single card setups. He does have the 7950 GT2 as being more powerful, but I dont know if that would be a good representation of two 7950GT cards SLI'ed.

Next, I was wondering if a 7 series GeForce card(DirectX 9) would run DX10 games in Vista. I have been teeter tottering on installing Vista but I would only do it for the DX10 game. If I need an 8 series card to run DX10, then I'm just gonna buy an 8800 GTS.

 

[xcalibur]

you do that then
DX10 can only be run on 8 series cards because it uses a new type of architecture
i forgot the name but rather than having seperate pixel shaders and vertex shaders, it has many shaders which are dynamic and can be used as pixel or vertex shaders whenever is called for
this gives a substantial increase in efficiency and performance
DX9 cards wont be able to use it

also, SLI is a waste in my opinion, its much better to buy a single, more powerful card.
some games wont give you that much of an increase when using SLI setups even though they should

 

[TheNeck]

If DX10 games werent coming out, going with SLI would be an ok option to consider with you 7950 card, but unfortanately DX10 is going to be standard for pc games. So i recommend getting an 8800 series card instead of going the SLI route with your 7950 card even if it did give you more power than a single 8800 series card, you could always go SLI with the 8800 card later on.

I had a 7950 GT2 1gig card and its awesome, but with DX10 games like Crysis coming out, pretty much its going to be obsolete, i wish i had a 8 series card, and then i could have gone SLI with that instead.

 

[FAST6191]

First if we are talking this sort of thing on this sort of site then I assume you have some experience/knowledge in the area, therefore this may be of interest (there are other hacks but I have no links to hand): http://halo2pc.org/news/2007/06/24/halo_2_...m_the_community
It will have less and less of an effect as time goes on but still, by then Vista/linux might be fit to do what people want. DX10 is a new hardware revision but for the most part it is all in the name presently as the link above demonstrates.

Power, the 7950GT is in my opinion one of the best of the dx9 era cards, assuming you can SLI them you will have a great rig. I suppose technically you do not need the same model but go for it anyway.
Between the decent drivers, patches, high user base and the fact that stuff other than reference boards exist would entice me over an 8XXX series card right now.
By the time you overclock most "worse" cards will at worst near match the better ones. If you go even further and unlock pipelines and the like then you can expect even more performance.
Have a read:
http://uk.theinquirer.net/?article=34406

 

[Zendrik]

Well, I have Shadowrun with the XP patch so I know about those. But I am looking forwards to Crysis and any other future DX10 games.

Well, my 7950 just blew up and I think it is still under warranty. If not, then ill grab the 8800. If it is, ill wait until other time to grab it.

 

[gusto5]

Go for the 8800

the 7000s from nvidia will work with DX10 in vista, but they're not dx10-built cards