2 6600Gt's vs 6800GT

[oenone]

CPU speeds aside, does anyone know which of these 2 setups would perform better?
1) Nforce 4 chipset, 2 6600GT's (SLI PCI Express)
2) Nforce 3 chipset 6800GT (AGP 8X)

Thanks for the help! (sorry for the double post by the way....)

[rcrevolution]

umm it makes it sound obvious that the 2 6600Gt's will work better due to the double power and better chipset, but I really don't know.

Nvidia should be coming out with a 6800Ultra pci-e soon

[oenone]

umm it makes it sound obvious that the 2 6600Gt's will work better due to the double power and better chipset, but I really don't know.

I dunno, the 6800GT has twice as many pixel pipelines, and twice the bandwidth as the 6600GT models. Does anyone know for sure?

[rcrevolution]

yes but pci-e is twice the speed of agp 8x, and your getting 512MB if the 6600Gts are 256Mb each. Personaly I would go with the X800XT, or 6800Ultra if Nvidia releases a pci-e model.

[oenone]

6600GT doesn't come in 256mb... and as fast as SLI is I seriously doubt you can just double the specs of each card to find how effective it would be. Also, a PCI express connection certainly does not mean that the card will be twice as fast, it is referring to the amount of bandwidth, I believe. The reason I won't get an X800XT or an 6800 ultra is that the 6800GT is a much better deal than either, and I am pretty sure that SLI 6600GT's beat a 6800GT, but I am not sure. Does anyone know?

theoretically the Nforce 4 would perform better. The PCI Express has more theoretical bandwidth than the AGP. However, nothing today can throttle it enough through the north and south bridge to make a significant difference.

[Catweazle]

The 6800GT will outperform two SLI'd 6600GTs for most purposes. there are some situations where the SLI'd cards would outperform even a 6800 Ultra. I'd imagine that the SLI capable motherboards, when they appear, will be restrictively expensive anyway, so I'd go for the 6800GT AGP for now ;)