HELP! Nearly no improvement adding second 8800GT, suggestions???

I just added a second BFG 8800 GT OC to my rig, and the difference is really a lot lower then I expected, I went from 3dmark06 9288 to 1055

Any suggestions on what it might be? I'm using the newest .21 drivers, stock clocking.

Is this what I should have expected? Or is it low??

I have an fx-60 clocked at 2.7
2GB ram

2 x 8800 GT OC in SLI.

Any help would be appreciated!

 

what psu?

 

750 watt

 

I'd also like to know what is a safe reccomended % to increas the fan speed via riva tuner? I think I get best performance with it at 100% but is that a major strain on the card to run at that?

 

There is nothing wrong with running the fan at 100%, I do it all the time.

 

You'll get the best cooling with it set for 100% but for noise levels I found 55% to be the sweet spot with the EVGA 8800GT anyway (old cooler), balancing noise and cooling performance. If you have a GT with the new 75mm cooler then by all means crank it to 100% as the cooler runs at a much lower rmp.

 

Hey, congrats on the new card Deadman. When did you move-up to the GTS 512MB? Did Santa drop it down your chimney or did you knock him over the head and take his Sleigh?

 

I tried SLI w two MSI 8800GTs but switched to a single Palit 8800GT 1024mb model. SLI didnt really seem to improve things too much & system was unstable w frequent Crysis crashes. Much better now and I can play forever!

 

Maybe even a Q6600 bottlenecks a pair of 8800GTs...

 

Maybe, but i am also working on a friends sytem; Q6600, SLI w two 8800GTS 320mb & it seems to run OK...

 

Hey DeadSlash, it looks like your CPU can't feed your hungry video cards. I have very similar hardware and have noticed the same thing with my setup.

I had two 7950GT's in SLI and adding the second card made a big difference in performance. I went from 6800 to 10032 in 3dmark06 @ 660/810 by using SLI.

Then I bought a ZOTAC AMP 8800GT and this card blew both my 7950GT's away, scoring 10851 in 3dmark06 @ 700/1674/1000 (I ended up having to lower the memory clock to 900 when I got my second card).

I decided to get another card for SLI, thinking I'd get around 12-13k, but I only scored 11576 (700/1674/900).

Looking around on the net for systems with ZOTAC AMP 8800GT's I saw many Core 2 Duo (dual core) systems getting a much healthier 14-15k 3dmarks @ 3GHz to 3.2GHz.

Looking at the older dual-core AMD CPU's (90nm) at a similar clockspeed range (3GHz to 3.2GHz) they only score around 11500 in SLI, which I can confirm with my CPU @ 2.94GHz.

Looks like we both need a new Penryn + 780i/790i setup to get the most from our SLI...

 

CPU bottle neck. 3D mark 06 loves the CPU a core 2 or a quad would yeild a better result.

 

BTW, are you guys using Vista or XP?

 

Boo! It makes sense, but it's depressing all the same

 

I moved on up last week, I see you traded in your GT for a GTS, the G92 8800GTS is the best damn card for nVidia. The GT is good too.

 

Are you saying it's not apples to apples the improvement in 3dmark06 compared with the improvement in games?



Thanks all for the input and info btw

 

3DMark06 is just a benchmark, it lets you know how well your system is performing compared to similar systems. The CPU of any system can be a bottleneck and 3DMark06 will really show that bottleneck(if you have one).

So, a lower than average benchmark score will let you know that you have a CPU or other component that maybe needs an upgrade. If you can game at the resolutions you want and you see no real lagging or anything then I would not worry.

As for the SLI thing, I don't know, IMO SLI is a suckers game but that's just me.

 

It's def the CPU because I overclocked it a little and the improvement in 3dmark was far greater now then it was when I oc'd it before when I had the 7800's when I had them, I oc'd from 2.6 to 2.7 and I gained like 100 3dmark score, when I went from 2.7 to 2.73 just now, it aded 500 points, so it is def processor related.

As far as SLI being a suckers game, it is, clearly for me at this stages, but when I was dealing in 7800's the improvement was well worth the investment, nearly 40% better.

 

DeadSlash what resolution are you gaming at? You will barely notice a difference with SLI if you are on 1280x1024 or lower.

If that's not it it's most likely a cpu bottleneck like people said

 

Hilbert got 13k with his 8800GT sli setup with an intel X6800 @ 2.93 GHz. http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/468/11/
That's why i said it was your CPU holding you back.