GPU upgrade? SLI GTX 260 BE

[MadHatter80]

Hello all,

I was debating the need to upgrade my video cards and am trying to get some feedback. I currently have 2 GTX 260 black edition in SLI that have worked well for me. If I upgrade, I am not trying to break the bank (<$200). Any thoughts/recommendations?

 

[Headfoot]

The R9 290 can be found for about $200. It's a pretty insane bang for your buck right now. Try to get an aftermarket version, with the Tri-X (or Vapor-X, but that's usually a bit more and its only a tiny bit better) being the best cooler for 290s. It will be an awesome upgrade from 2xGTX 260

 

[RussianSensation]

What's you CPU, resolution? Best cards for the money in that range are 280/280X and 290. There is nothing from NV worth buying between $120-300.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

A modern $200 gpu will make short work of 2 260's, used to run 260's in sli a long time ago, and switching to a single gtx470 felt like a good upgrade, even though it'd be a sidegrade in theory.

If you want to buy new you'd probably be looking at gtx760 or r9 280, both have been around for a while and might be replaced soon by hardware with better price/performance.
Used r9 290 is a lot of gpu for the money, maybe get a cheaper used gtx670 if you want an nvidia card, extremely similar to the 760.

 

[Leyawiin]

What's you CPU, resolution?

Power supply model and wattage would be helpful to know as well.

 

[toyota]

basically list ALL of your other specs in detail. seems odd to have held on to such a setup for so long. you could have replaced that with modern mid range or at this point even lower end card at some time and had better performance for fraction of the power usage and no multi card issues.

 

[tarmc]

maybe look into a used gtx770?

 

[MadHatter80]

Sorry for the late reply. It's a machine that I built back in '09 that has been working solidly for me, was just trying to upgrade the GPU on it to get some better performance in some newer games coming out. Also I am willing to go up to $300 for a GPU.

Core i7-920
Cooler Master V8 CPU cooler
Asus P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard
6GB Patriot Viper DDR3 1600 RAM
Corsair 850TX PSU
Antec 1200 case
Samsung 840 Pro SSD 128GB
Western Digital Black 750GB HD

 

[lehtv]

Asus R9 290 DCII $240 after promo and rebate. Your CPU will 'neck it though (clock for clock, it's about 2/3 the speed of Haswell), but the price is so good that a 280X isn't worth considering, R9 280 might be, R9 270(X) only has 2GB VRAM so that's out too.

Your CPU/mobo/RAM is probably worth about $100 right now. You could sell those while they're still worth something, and use that and what's left in the GPU budget towards a new CPU/mobo/RAM. Either a 4670K with a midrange Z97 board for OC-ing or a Xeon E3-1231V3 with a cheaper board.

 

[Arcanedeath]

Used X58 boards are expensive due to cheap 1366 Xeons like the x5650. I would suggest getting an Xeon X5650 and overclocking it along with a new GPU and you should be fine. Note heavily overclocked X5650's can compete with stock clock haswell save the 4970K.

 

[raghu78]

Asus R9 290 DCII $240 after promo and rebate. Your CPU will 'neck it though (clock for clock, it's about 2/3 the speed of Haswell), but the price is so good that a 280X isn't worth considering, R9 280 might be, R9 270(X) only has 2GB VRAM so that's out too.

Your CPU/mobo/RAM is probably worth about $100 right now. You could sell those while they're still worth something, and use that and what's left in the GPU budget towards a new CPU/mobo/RAM. Either a 4670K with a midrange Z97 board for OC-ing or a Xeon E3-1231V3 with a cheaper board.

yeah good deal. USD 270 after promo code . USD 240 after mail in rebate. Since the OP has a Corsair 850TX PSU he is well set. Overclock that core i7 920 to 3.5 - 4.0 Ghz and you have an excellent gaming rig. Sell the GTX 260s for whatever you can get (say $25 per card) and your nett cost comes below USD 200. Not to forget the NEVER SETTLE GOLD game coupon which he can sell to further cut costs.

Another excellent deal is the XFX R9 290 DD for USD 250. very low noise fans. The VRM cooling is not so great. But you can run the fans at 100% and keep the VRMs well cooled. there is no disturbing noise even when fans are maxed out.

http://www.amazon.com/XFX-Double-947...dp/B00HHIPM5Q/

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...1-xfx-r9-290-double-dissipation-review-7.html

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/xfx_r9_290x_dd/16.htm

"The value of an improved cooling solution is evident in the thermal results. Running the stock clock speeds at both idle and under load, XFX's Double Dissipation cooling solution delivers improvement over the reference cooler. At idle, there is a 14.5% improvement and under load I see an almost 18% improvement in thermal performance. That equates to a 6 °C reduction at idle and 16 °C reduction under load when compared to a reference-cooled card, like the comparison R9 290X.

Overclocking shows that when the fan speed is maxed out, the reference cooler is actually the better performer based purely on the thermals. That's a good thing, but when you add the noise generated to the equation, while the XFX R9 290X is 10 °C warmer, it's in another league altogether. By comparison, the Double Dissipation equipped card is quiet. Even when the fans are maxed out, the XFX R9 290X is, by definition, a quiet card."

 

[notty22]

It looks like you can grab Civ: BE for 4 dollars when you buy a r9 290 at newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-230-_-Product

Purchase any AMD Radeon R9 290 Series graphics card and get BOTH a Radeon Gold Reward AND Civilization: Beyond Earth.

 

[SimianR]

Yeah for $300 or under, the best performance is going to be an R9 290. If you want to specifically stick with NVIDIA you could throw in $30 more and grab a Geforce 970. But NVIDIA has a bit of a gap in their lineup right now between $200 and $300.

 

[RussianSensation]

ASUS R9 290 for $240 on Newegg and a Xeon 5650 drop-in upgrade + overclocking. Right now an after-market 290 and the 970 are too close in performance but you could use the savings towards a CPU upgrade!

 

[Magic Carpet]

ASUS R9 290 for $240 on Newegg and a Xeon 5650 drop-in upgrade + overclocking. Right now an after-market 290 and the 970 are too close in performance but you could use the savings towards a CPU upgrade!

I just did that for one of my friends. Even at stock that Xeon provides much smoother gameplay in Far Cry 4. He is happy, considering how little $ he has invested. 290 Gaming is also very cool running and quiet.

 

[lavaheadache]

there are a couple nice nearly new 290x aftermarket cards in the classifieds right now that can be had for $250. I would go that route. They should have a good warranty behind them

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2413907

 

[Mondozei]

Hello all,

I was debating the need to upgrade my video cards and am trying to get some feedback. I currently have 2 GTX 260 black edition in SLI that have worked well for me. If I upgrade, I am not trying to break the bank (<$200). Any thoughts/recommendations?

You can get a 290 for 240-250. Try finding a used one, you should find one below 200 quite easily. If you absolutely have to have a new card, get a 280 for 140-150 as there are several in those ranges at newegg. You can go Crossfire later on as your budget would permit. The driver issues for Crossfire are resolved.

I'd want to recommend an Nvidia card but the reality is that under 300 dollars, and certaily under 200, there isn't a compelling alternative. The GTX 960 is a flop, because it performs on par with cards that are 50-60 dollars cheaper than it is and some of its custom-cooler versions are only 30 dollars cheaper than a new 290.

Further, since budget is a priority for you, you may want to buy a Freesync monitor as they come down in price 1-2 years from now and you'll save 150 dollars or so over G-Sync. Nvidia might support Freesync in the future, but for now, don't count on it. Freesync/Gsync is the biggest thing to have happened to gaming in a long time, imho a much bigger deal than SSDs. And unlike SSDs, it's primarily made for gaming.