nVidia GeForce 8800GTS 320MB SLI Videocard

Ah, sorry. Didn't catch that you were directly referencing the article there. That is also another good point, I already have to tone down some games with my 320mb GTS simply because it lacks 512mb of RAM, which is the target buffer size for many of today's games, ie Company of Heroes. If CoH runs out of RAM it'll start showing RAM artifacts and corrupting the gameplay quickly, even if the average FPS is still high and smooth.

I thought they tested 320MB cards in SLI, which means they still are only 320MB. 640MB cards would raise the price of the setup a lot, making it even worse vs 1 GTX.

I folded once, but after an increase of €2000/year on the electricity bill I decided to stop folding on my machines

Jmke, I'm not disagreeing with ya. Infact I would agree with what you said. A GTX should outperform GTS cards in SLI, especially on power savings.

I'm a little surprised you are running such a power miserly GTX equiped C2D system though... I had to disable the various CPU power saving features to overclock, but I guess it's a small price to pay for it in the end run. My system is never sitting idle anyway, it's a F@H box when idle.

@Rutar: why would more memory play a role only in DX10 games?

only situation where memory pays off is extremely high resolutions with AA/AF; and running at 16xAA just to prove that memory does matter is quite dumb, as IQ is not that big compared to 4xAA

@Kougar: I was referring to performance, and since performance is more important than wattage, I think, SLI GTS is no match for GTX, not in performance category, not in power usage.

My C2D/GTX setup uses <300W at full load... anything over 500W at the wall outlet is really pushing the limits, you need quite a beefy PC to reach that

Rutar, GTS can offer 320mb or 640mb. GTX offers 768mb, not any appreciable difference over 640mb.

Well, Geoffrey I haven't actually tried pushing my system higher than about 320watts draw. That figure was with a single HDD and the CPU/GPU loaded with Orthos + ATI Tool and the below specs:

Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86ghz @ 3.5ghz 1.47v
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 Rev 1, F10
2 x 1Gb Corsair DDR2-800 RAM @ 1ghz 2.1v
Foxconn 8800GTS 320mb 660/1975
Seagate 320gb 7200.10 16mb cache
Antec NeoHE 550watt PSU + P180-B Case
Swiftech Apogee GT + MCP655 & Koolance EHX-1050BK

Switching from an air cooled setup to watercooling only added 30-35watts to my total figure. I have since added higher voltage 1067mhz RAM that lets me run 3.6ghz stable and boot 3.73ghz. Also have 3 other identical Seagate drives currently in the case but unplugged that I can add in for RAID, so my power draw should be higher now already. No voltmods or hardmods, I overclock to last Well, last a couple years, after that it doesn't matter... only 30 minutes Orthos stable at a 100% 3.73ghz overclock, the mainboard doesn't have the electricals needed to keep it chugging stable but I am still testing it when I have time...

plus a GTX has twice the memory which will play a role in future DX10 games

E6600 @ 3.6GHz 1.47V
P5B Deluxe
2Gb Teamgroup DDR2 @ 2.1V
Silverstone DA750 PSU
8800GTS stock loaded (voltmodded to 1.4V/2V)
2 HD's

Not above 350W here.

Tarantula was talking about the power consumption Jmke.

I run only a single GTS, but my E6300 system now draws ~320watts before I add extra drives. I measured a 70watt increase just from upgrading from a 7950GT. Therefore adding a second GTS would be the same as adding a 7950GT+70watts.

That pushes over 400watts, and then add on whatever power a 7950GT uses ontop of that to reach a final figure. 500watts all said and done sounds exactly right, especially with NVIDIA chipsets which draw way more power than my DS3's 965P/ICH8 combo. I gotta agree, a single GTX would be much more power efficient.

I don't think those numbers are correct, 2 x GTS and overclocked E6600 doesn't come anywhere near 500W, at least that's what I measured. Do they really found a CPU that draws about 300W?

EDIT: That doesn't change the situation though, GTS SLI will draw more power then GTX. It would be cool to test those at higher resolutions where the GTX might catchup again on the GTS SLI cards.

GTS SLI < 1 GTX, always; SLI is always worse performance/price than higher end single card.

in such a comparison they should also mention the power consumption, because one gtx uses way less power than two GTS cards

one MSI GTX according to anandtech uses 287 Watts at load

one ASUS GTS 320 uses 284 Watts at load * 2 = 568 watts