Dual vs Single Video Card?

Question

I'm looking to upgrade my PC soon and am not sure which route to go. I currently have a Radeon 9800 pro - I want to upgrade it (I'm getting entire new PC) but am not sure if dual video cards or a decent single card would be better?

Or should I keep the Radeon and just get a smoking motherboard & processor, etc and upgrade video later?

I play online EverQuest 2, as well as Oblivion and The Sims 2

I only have about $1k (give or take) total to spend and will be ordering from cyberpowerpc.com

Any advice is much appreciated.

PS I'm already planning on going AMD with a sata2 hard drive

Cyberpowerpc has better prices than tigerdirect, so I'll definately be going with them.

Also, I already have a good 19" LCD monitor, so thats not an issue.

Thanks for the advice so far, keep it coming!!

Answer 1

You're not going to be able to afford SLI'd video cards on a $1000 budget. Stick with a single decent card.

You would probably be fine keeping your current card and upgrading at a later date. I would recommend switching to nVidia graphics when you do - most new games are designed for the nVidia chipset and radeon cards perform significantly worse.

Answer 2

SLI (dual video cards) is really only for high end gaming machines that cost $3500 or more, and goes beyond what a single high end card will do. A high end card will perform better than 2 midrange cards. On your budget I would get the best card for around $300 that you can find, and get the core2 duo processor and at least 2GB of DDR2 RAM. A nice big monitor would also enhance your experience a lot. Maybe you can find a good deal on a 22-27 inch widescreen monitor. $1000 is going to get a midrange system at best, so make sure you get a really good video card, like something in the radeon x1950 family.

Answer 3

the GTX 280 1gb is better than dual 9800 GTs, and the 4870X2 mopped the floor withn the GTX 280 a few months back. it's not just the video RAM, it's also the processing capability of the card that matters, the number of stream processor, shaders, and what have you along with the memory and stream proc clocks. the memory on the 4870x2 is also far superior to that of the 9800GT. this is a no brainer. GET THE 4870x2, I CANNOT EMPHASIZE THAT POINT ENOUGH, it's currently the second most powerful card on the market, the most powerful one right now being nvidia's GTX 295, but that had worse performance in crysis at a resolution of 2560x1600 than the 4870x2, so the 4870x2 scales a bit better. go with that one.

Answer 4

A good graphics card won't do you that much good if you don't have a good monitor to begin with. Your monitor when gaming or intense graphics should have a fast response time (5ms or faster), high resolution setting (1600x1200 or higher), digital connection (DVI or better) and high contrast ratio (800:1 or better). Once you have a monitor that has those specifications then you are ready for a good graphics card.

Now, your question on single vs dual cards. I believe one good graphics card is better for a couple reasons. The first is that with one card it will use less power from your power supply verses powering 2 separate cards. Second reason is that you run the possibility of the two cards conflicting with drivers and hierarchy on the bus system.

Note on your PS... SATA2 hard drives are smoking fast, be sure that your new systems bus speed is quick or you won't get the full benefit of the 3.G per second transfer speed.

When you price out your new computer, check out newegg.com. they always have deals of the day and have great service. I have used them many times when ordering parts to build computers or to get reviews on parts.

Hope this helps!

Answer 5

Get new intel core duo 2 e6400 processor for 300, one 512 MB nVIDIA(whatever spelling) 7600 graphics card for 150, a good motherboard for 250, 2gb ram (1 gb x 2) for 160, a 200 gb hard drive for 70 and 70 on other accessories (firewire port, dvd drive, etc)
What I really recommend is to buy a PC from the store. Find a good deal. Mine cost me 1300, with tax. If I got my PC from Alienware, it would be over $2900 and over $1700 from dell. Go find a good PC at the store.

Answer 6

$1k is a lot if you are going to build it yourself. I built my own gaming rig for a little over 500. It's a 64-bit amd. I suggest buying a barebones kit from tigerdirect.com and then supplementing it with pieces from newegg.com and tigerdirect.com. I promise you you'll find a way to make a better computer for the same amount of money! I, however, disagree with the first person who commented. Tigerdirect can sell you a package of two Crossfire graphics cards for ballpark of 450$ (depending on which ones you get). If you look up crossfire on wikipedia.org, they'll explain to you the pros and cons.

Answer 7

I have found out that its best to get 1 really good video card than 2 cheapos.

OK Hard Drive with SATA $100
Motherboard of Good quality(ASUS) $110
CPU AMD 64bit Athlon $110
Ram 1gb 2x512mb Dual Channel $135
1 XFX 7900GS Extreme $189.99
Case $50
PSU $80
CD/DVD Burner $40
____________________________________________
$814.99 (Decent System)

Answer 8

Boy you got more bucks to spend that us retired old geezers. I'd go for the hot new motherboard, processor and a ton of RAM.