Raw power against early Fermi cards is actually pretty good but they start falling behind vs a good clocked 460 (good luck finding one that isn't roasted). A GTX 280 is about the same bang as a stock 460 1gb with about 5% difference with very similar power draw. For coolness factor two 9800 gtx+ in sli is nice while two 8800GTS (G92) if you are looking for something a little more rare. Anything else 9800 GX2 (if you find one working at a decent price) is good for bragging rights.

Epeen :8800 GTX/Ultra, 9800 GX2, 9800 GTX+, 8800 GTS (G92), GTX590
For performance and economy: GTX 460 1GB, GTS 470/80 (cards are cheap but are power hogs) GTX580.

Avoid buying the 570 due to vrm issues (Nvidia got cheap and removed one or two phases).

SLI of course has game compatibility issues, efficiency limitations and also a frame latency issue that reduces apparent fluidity compared to the frame rate numbers you get. Might be fun to mess with though.

If going for g92 look at gts250 1gb cards they are the same as 9800gtx+ just 55nm, and double ram and tend to be cheaper

Although single core is more 2004/2005

candle_86 wrote:

If going for g92 look at gts250 1gb cards they are the same as 9800gtx+ just 55nm, and double ram and tend to be cheaper

Good tip. It's the final version with that chip 😀

The GTX 285 gets mentioned all the time, so definitely worth checking out. It is indeed on the level of the 460 1 GB.

Interesting going with socket 940 instead of 939. But that makes it very unique right there.

I think he meant AM2 motherboard (time period 2006-2007), and not Socket 940 from servers (2003-ish).
AM2 was released in Q2 of 2006 so best GPU at that time would be X1900XTX.
Later in the year 8800 GTX was intoduced, and 8800 GT (first G92 card) is from Q4 of 2007.
Last card of 2007 worth mentioning is 8800 GTX 512MB.
But I would avoid ALL G80/G92 series cards, since they tend to have baking problems.
So if U want time period correct (up to 2007), I would advise to go for X1950XTX or Radeon 2900 XT (dat 512-bit memory bus 😜).

If you want a better cards not period correct, it all boils down to your budget, PSU, and what exacly you want to do with this setup.

agent_x007 wrote:

I think he meant AM2 motherboard (time period 2006-2007), and not Socket 940 from servers (2003-ish). AM2 was released in Q2 of […]
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I think he meant AM2 motherboard (time period 2006-2007), and not Socket 940 from servers (2003-ish).
AM2 was released in Q2 of 2006 so best GPU at that time would be X1900XTX.
Later in the year 8800 GTX was intoduced, and 8800 GT (first G92 card) is from Q4 of 2007.
Last card of 2007 worth mentioning is 8800 GTX 512MB.
But I would avoid ALL G80/G92 series cards, since they tend to have baking problems.
So if U want time period correct (up to 2007), I would advise to go for X1950XTX or Radeon 2900 XT (dat GDDR4 😜).

If you want a better cards not period correct, it all boils down to your budget, PSU, and what exacly you want to do with this setup.

why would you recomend an HD2900XT, its not Winter

on the other hand I'd sure love to see an ambient case temp for a Pentium Extreme Edition 965 with Cross Fire HD2900XT 🤣

Because HD 2900 XT should survive to winter to keep your house warm, 8800 GTX would probably need at least one oven-o-therapy before that 😁

2006-2007 sounds really weird for true socket 940 system. At that time socket F (and AM2 of course) was already around...

Guys, I mean Opteron socket 940, not AM2.
In fact I said that the motherboard has nForce professional chipset.
This review is from 2006:
http://www.ninjalane.com/reviews/motherboards … k8aa/page2.aspx
This is the motherboard:

I think that a VGA from 2006 or 2007 could be period correct. That said, GTS250 could be included only because there is the old trusty G92 in them.
Going with dual GTS250 could be pretty sexy, but I need to use two HR-03 GT otherwise there is no room for optimal airflow (I have one, I think I could find the second for cheap).

Just to play around, I could go with a SLI of GT640 passively cooled (or GT730) with modded drivers (they do exist).

I am not sure if the raw power of two entry level Kepler card on DX9 games is Greater than two G92.
I am not entirely sure.
I can try and see myself... But hell I definitely have not all the money in the world...

And what CPU are you planning to use? Choice of GPU depends on that. Anyway - SLI (of any kind) will not work very well.

havli wrote:

And what CPU are you planning to use? Choice of GPU depends on that. Anyway - SLI (of any kind) will not work very well.

I will use an Opteron 285, hope I can reach 3Ghz with it.

Why do you think that SLI will not work well?

SLI suffers from frame synchronisation problems, which results in microstuttering. So the second GPU will double you fps (when not CPU limited) but the actual gameplay smoothness will remain pretty much the same. http://techreport.com/news/21625/multi-gpu-mi … ptured-on-video

Opteron 285 should be good enough for GTS 250 - in some games it could be CPU limited, but it is quite a good match overall.

havli wrote:

SLI suffers from frame synchronisation problems, which results in microstuttering. So the second GPU will double you fps (when not CPU limited) but the actual gameplay smoothness will remain pretty much the same. http://techreport.com/news/21625/multi-gpu-mi … ptured-on-video

Opteron 285 should be good enough for GTS 250 - in some games it could be CPU limited, but it is quite a good match overall.

And here is when my dreams are broken...

Why would you want to do a SLI from something as bad as GT 640/730 ?
For cheap SLI get a 9600 GT or something like this : LINK

Opteron 285 @ 3GHz should be around this (performance wise at least) : LINK 😉

What cooling you want to use on it ?
EDIT : I managed to found product page for this MB - LINK 😀

I am only curious to see what new entry level VGA can do.
That's all.

The Opteron will be cooled by a Freezer 13CO or a Freezer 64, it depends.

For performance I managed to find a beautifull Ichill GTX580 Hawk Edition for 60€.

But I want to find two gts 250 and see what such period correct system can do.

GTS 450 is generally faster than any G92 card, but still bellow a GTX 260, but it really varies from game to game (well, the distance).

but keep in mind, anything k8 based is not really high end for 2007...

I remember Athlon 64 X2 being pretty bad and causing some bottlenecks on some 2007 games compared to a Core 2 Duo.

I would be curious to see a GTS 250 1GB SLI with a modern CPU to be honest, k8 well be very CPU limited with fast GPUs, unless you go for resolution/settings no one was using back in the day

SPBHM wrote:

GTS 450 is generally faster than any G92 card, but still bellow a GTX 260, but it really varies from game to game (well, the dis […]
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GTS 450 is generally faster than any G92 card, but still bellow a GTX 260, but it really varies from game to game (well, the distance).

but keep in mind, anything k8 based is not really high end for 2007...

I remember Athlon 64 X2 being pretty bad and causing some bottlenecks on some 2007 games compared to a Core 2 Duo.

I would be curious to see a GTS 250 1GB SLI with a modern CPU to be honest, k8 well be very CPU limited with fast GPUs, unless you go for resolution/settings no one was using back in the day

The point here is not to build a PC high end for 2007, I have a QX6700 for that.
Is to build a system around the mainboard I found that is really hard to find and (for me) really attractive.
Given the fact that it is a K8 mainboard, I decided to stick with DX9 (and XP64 as well).

And still I am not convinced that two GTS450 are better than two G92 in DX9 games.

Personally, if I were to build a system like this, it would be meant specifically to highlight the end of the DX9 era and the final days of AMD's supremacy over Intel (in other words, pre-Core 2 Duo).

In this case, I would stick with Pre-G80 graphics and the best CPU the board could handle (probably an Opteron 285 or 290?).

If you wanted something extremely weird and powerful but not necessarily the "best" cards from that era, you could get a pair of Geforce 7950GX2s (meaning, 4 way SLI with two cards). Technically, the 8800GTX was the best card from 2006, but its a DirectX 10 card and signified the start of the next era of GPUs, where as the 7900GTX and 7950GX2 signified the end of the DX9 era. The 79xx series were fantastic cards, they were just kind of lost to time since the 8800GTX came out later the same year (I actually had a 7900GTX, then a 7950GX THEN an 8800GTX all in 2006... lots of reselling). The 7950GX2 was extremely potent in games that could use it, but SLI was pretty iffy in those days... IMO, that makes it perfect for a "period" build, since the point is obviously not to play the games at the highest settings possible, or you'd just play them on a newer system.

When I build systems, they have a very specific era in mind. You could build a really really uninteresting "2007" system that is 100% period correct that has no special significance, or you could build one that contains the best AMD had to offer before Intel reclaimed the crown for the next 10 years and has the most powerful Pre-DX10 GPUs available.