Graphics cards - SLI (+ dual GPU) or 1GB RAM?

[aerows]

I have a 28" monitor, and I can play two instances on one box @ 1920x1200 provided there is no antialiasing. When I open three instances, though, framerates begin to slide into the toilet. My system specs are as follows:

Geforce 8800GT 512
Intel Xeon 3120 Quad Core 2.0 @ 3.2 Ghz (Orthos and Prime stable for 24 hours)
Auzentech X-Meridian
4 GB 1066 DDR
Raid 0 320 GB 7200 HD
Vista x64

I try to keep the 1 instance at 1920x1200, and then scale the other two down. Unfortunately, I have to put them at 1280x720. Setting each WoW process for a different CPU core affinity, it is more fluid, but since I was interested in a new graphics card anyway, I'm wondering which graphics card would be better so that I could run all my instances at higher resolutions - one with 1GB of RAM or a dual GPU solution. I am not very impressed with the issues that crop up under SLI/XFire modes, and my motherboard doesn't have 2 PCI-Express slots. If I go with a dual GPU solution, I would have to buy something like the 3870 X2. The 9800 GX2 might or might not be good, but I don't know how much of an improvement it would be considering that it costs way more than I want to spend.

Suggestions from other tri-boxers would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: For clarification, I didn't include my monitor. It is a 1920x1200 28". I don't have room for a second one, so I have been alt+tabbing. It works surprisingly well, and I was able to do the entire Scarlet Monastery with a group of 38's - Prot Paladin, BM Hunter, Enhance Shaman. I leveled the Paladin and Hunter together from this box alt+tabbing and using AutoHotKey. I just bought Keyclone since I am beginning to need more hotkeys with this team. With just two 1920x1200 boxes, framerates are great, and I can even use 2X multisampling AA on one window. With 3 windows, though :(... AA goes, and the other two have to be reduced in resolution to very basic.

[entoptic]

I have heard nothing but bad things with WoW and dual video cards. I would just get a smoking video card and go from there.

I play in 800x600 all the time and it works like a charm. My concern would be that since your main screen would be higher res that switching from lower res toons to the high res toon would take some time to actually switch thus screwing your pve or pvp experience.

[aerows]

I can run one of them at 1920x1200, with the others at 1280x800 and no AA on any, but I'd like to have the resolution higher on all three. I run them all maximized, and after setting affinity it is okay.

I have heard some of the same things you have, though, about multi GPU setups, but I wanted to get more opinions before dumping the idea entirely. I think the low framerate is because I am using too much VRAM, that's why I'm wondering if anyone has used a 1GB card with three instances of WoW if it made a difference.

Thanks for your input. All input is welcome :)

[Anozireth]

I had been running my 5 guys on a single 8800 GT with the main on a 22" widescreen and the clones each on 1/4 of a standard 19". I recently got another 8800GT, and running the same screen setup I see almost no improvement in framerates. I was rather disappointed.

[aerows]

I had been running my 5 guys on a single 8800 GT with the main on a 22" widescreen and the clones each on 1/4 of a standard 19". I recently got another 8800GT, and running the same screen setup I see almost no improvement in framerates. I was rather disappointed.Eeesh, that is what I was worried about! SLI and dual GPUs aren't all that great from what I can tell, which is why I went for a MB that handled great CPU overclocking at a good price rather than worrying with Crossfire and SLI support.

Okay, let me change the question: Would more VRAM help me out with my goals. I can get a 1GB 8800 GT for less than $200. The GT 260 is a 896 MB card (weird ram size makes me nervous, is the wide bandwidth bus more than NVidia could handle in practice?). I've started eyeing the 4870, but I really want my next card to have enough ram to handle three copies of WoW. That might be specialized, so that's why I'm thinking the extra ram on 1GB G92 8800's would be the trick.

I'm also not adverse to adding another 4GB of ram. I have Vista x64 and my MB can accomodate it.

EDIT: I have a spare monitor that runs at 1680x1050, and a box that drives it that is a file server. It has an 8600GTS 256/X2 4800/2GB/XP-32. My issue is that this box is my file server, and is located in a different area of my house. I could swap out the monitor, I guess, to a spare 19" I have, but then I'm back to wondering which card can drive it.

[aerows]

I have heard nothing but bad things with WoW and dual video cards. I would just get a smoking video card and go from there.

I play in 800x600 all the time and it works like a charm. My concern would be that since your main screen would be higher res that switching from lower res toons to the high res toon would take some time to actually switch thus screwing your pve or pvp experience.I play in windowed/maximized mode so I don't have resolution switching, but there are times when my video card gets bogged...fights where heaps of spells are going off - which means 45% of the time in instances

[moosejaw]

Have you tried adjusting the background fps to improve the foreground performance? It sounds like they are all running at maxfps and that is draining your performance. You should be able to set foreground 60 and background 30 (or lower to improve foreground) and not see any adverse effects.

Also, running 3 instances at full fps is very taxing on the power demands of the card. Your card may be asking for more power than is available => it may be throttling performance on top of everything else. 8800gt needs a dedicated 30A of 12v at max load fyi. Single 12v rail power supplies are great for the newer MB/video card combos.



Hope this helps.

[-silencer-]

Okay, let me change the question: Would more VRAM help me out with my goals. I can get a 1GB 8800 GT for less than $200. The GT 260 is a 896 MB card (weird ram size makes me nervous, is the wide bandwidth bus more than NVidia could handle in practice?). I've started eyeing the 4870, but I really want my next card to have enough ram to handle three copies of WoW. That might be specialized, so that's why I'm thinking the extra ram on 1GB G92 8800's would be the trick.

I'm also not adverse to adding another 4GB of ram. I have Vista x64 and my MB can accomodate it.

EDIT: I have a spare monitor that runs at 1680x1050, and a box that drives it that is a file server. It has an 8600GTS 256/X2 4800/2GB/XP-32. My issue is that this box is my file server, and is located in a different area of my house. I could swap out the monitor, I guess, to a spare 19" I have, but then I'm back to wondering which card can drive it.
I have an 8800GTX (768MB) pushing both a 1920x1200 24" and a 1680x1050 22", and it runs 5 instances of WoW without too much trouble on an oc'd E6600 dual core with 4GB ram in WinXP. With your goals and setup, an 8800GTX equivalent or better should be perfectly fine for running 3 instances of WoW on your quad core with 4GB of memory on one 1920x1200 display. The only time I get significant lag is when I land in Shatt.. and it takes 5-10 seconds for everything to appear. Gameplay when I'm questing/instancing is fine.

[bugilt]

GeForce GTX 200 Series Price Drop In Effect
Monday, July 07, 2008 - by Marco Chiappetta
It looks like the news we broke last week regarding GeForce GTX 200 series pricing has already taken effect at a couple of on-line retailers. We just did a quick search at NewEgg and found that a handful of GeForce GTX 260 cards are priced between $299 and $339, which puts them right about on-par with the roughly $310 Radeon HD 4870. Although, the least expensive of the bunch (MSI's $299 GeForce GTX 260) appears to have already sold out.

Many GeForce GTX 280 cards have also dropped in price too. As you can see here, the $499 we quoted last week was right on the money, and a number of others are priced only slightly higher at about $519 to $539. And MSI's offering is priced even lower at $459 thanks to a $40 mail in rebate.

[wowphreak]

getting a better graphics aint gonna help.

first try this
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-aero-on-windows-vista/
try using vista basic or switch to windows classic.

get more memory vista is a major hog.

with the same hardware running xp yeh could easily run 5+ copies of wow