Need some advice.

[juberberry]

Hello - first time posting on this forum. I stumbled here looking for some comparisons between the Nvidia GTX260 and some of the newer Nvidia cards.

I am building a new system for games, and will be turning my old box into a media server. My old system has a GTX 260 that has been running great. I have purchased a few pieces based on advice from others, but want to answer a question.

The motherboard I purchased supports NVidia SLI. Should I:

• Upgrade to a single newer NVidia card? (planning down the road to get a second card for SLI)
• Buy a second GTX 260, and SLI the 260's?

The new system has:

• Asus M4N75TD Main Board
• AMD Phenom II Black Edition Quad Core CPU
• 2x 2GB Corsair Dominator RAM
• Nspire PSH650V-D Power Supply

I have about $400 left on my budget for this thing, and am just looking for the best way to move forward. I have a feeling the power supply might not have the rails to support the power needed for multip[le GPU's, but cannot seem to find any solid documentation to confirm or deny this.

One thing to note is that I use a TripleHead2Go to run a typical Desktop Resolution of 3840x1024. I have a secondary monitor at 1920x1080, but I do like to play on the extra wide whenever possible.

Thank you for your time in reading and any respone you would care to make

 

[juberberry]

No responses.

Did I not shower?

Is there something missing, or did I ask incorrectly?

 

[blckgrffn]

You'll be better off with a more powerful, single card. Check out the GTX 570 - it should have the juice to play on the ultrawide on many more games than the GTX 260, the extra frame buffer should help as well.

Next up, your 260 should be able to net you $60-$75 (I think that is conservative) in the FS/FT forums here at Anandtech. That said, given your low post count you'd likely have to ship it before getting paid. Craigslist also works

Good luck!

 

[juberberry]

That was what I was leaning towards - the 580 is a bit out of my price range, but the 570 you recommended looks like a good bet - Amazon has an EVGA with a lifetime warranty for $350.

My SSD and RAID drives arrive tomorrow.

Thanks for your advice. I'll just keep the 260 in my old system for a backup.

 

[Ghiedo27]

I'd go with the 6970 personally (for the extra ram headroom and better 3 monitor support), but the 570 is a good choice too. Either way, you definitely want more vram than what's on the gtx 260 for such a high resolution.

As you're looking around at reviews keep in mind that your monitor setup has almost as many pixels as a 2560x1600 display, so those are the benches you really want to pay close attention to.

 

[juberberry]

My desire to stick with NVidia has to do with my motherboard supporting SLI (and not XFire). So down the road if I want to SLI I would need to buy a new motherboard and a second card, or buy 2 new NVidia cards.

Unless I am completely clueless when it comes to my motherboard (which is entirely in the realm of possibility) and it supports both SLI and XFire both - but I didn't think that was possible.

 

[blckgrffn]

My desire to stick with NVidia has to do with my motherboard supporting SLI (and not XFire). So down the road if I want to SLI I would need to buy a new motherboard and a second card, or buy 2 new NVidia cards.

Unless I am completely clueless when it comes to my motherboard (which is entirely in the realm of possibility) and it supports both SLI and XFire both - but I didn't think that was possible.

On the Intel side, yes. On the AMD side, no.

The upshot is that an AMD videocard will be native support for that many monitors. Given you already have the setup though, it's probably not a huge selling point.

 

[juberberry]

Yeah - the triplehead2go solved my needs for a time, but with the newer games the 260 is just no beefy enough. I am somewhat regretting not going Intel, but I really could not afford to when I was buying the Mainboard and CPU.

 

[juberberry]

Also you have both been very helpful. Thank you for the solid advice

 

[bryanW1995]

you're going to be cpu-bottlenecked in most games with that rig on an sli gtx 570 or 6970 setup, anyway. At that high of a resolution a single 6970 is closer to a gtx 580 than a gtx 570. It's your call, and a gtx 570 is a great card, but you need to plan for a platform upgrade sooner rather than later.

btw, I have a gtx 260 core 216 and a gtx 460 768. the 460 is about 30% faster after max overclocking of both cards, probably more like 20% without overclocking either one. It looks like this has already been addressed, but you definitely should go with a newer card instead of sli gtx 260.

 

[juberberry]

you're going to be cpu-bottlenecked in most games with that rig on an sli gtx 570 or 6970 setup, anyway.

So if I ever do a 570 SLI I should also look into upgrading to a 6 or 8 core Phenom II?

 

[blckgrffn]

So if I ever do a 570 SLI I should also look into upgrading to a 6 or 8 core Phenom II?

Honestly? I don't think AMD is going to have CPU that makes 570 SLI relevant in that motherboard - unless you pursue 3D or something.

 

[juberberry]

Okay then - seems fairly cut and dry in that the single 570 is about as good as I can expect.

That will teach me to take the advice of friends before checking things out more fully.

Thank you guys for your help . Maybe I will go with the 6970

 

[blckgrffn]

Put that SLI board to use by running your fourth monitor off a secondary graphics card. Nothing wasted there A passively cooled 5450 or 4550 is just what the doctor ordered! Or a GT210/220 if you go the nvidia route.

Really, there is some solid overhead to running in "dual monitor mode" during games and I think to get that fourth monitor even with the 6970 you might need to shell out for an expensive/flaky active DP dongle.

 

[juberberry]

Well I can't cancel the 570 I ordered :| (already shipped)

Sooo - I can keep the 570 hooked to my TH2G and use the GTX260 on the secondary PCI-e slot - but then I run into the "not enough 6-pins" issue - choices choices.

 

[notty22]

Which cpu did you go with , the 955 ?

The gtx 570 is going to be a big upgrade to the gtx 260, your going to be happy imo. Come back and tell us the verdict on the upgrades.
Curious to see how this combination delivers.

 

[juberberry]

Which cpu did you go with , the 955 ?

The gtx 570 is going to be a big upgrade to the gtx 260, your going to be happy imo. Come back and tell us the verdict on the upgrades.
Curious to see how this combination delivers.

I got the Phenom, II x4 965 3.4 Ghz, 6MB AM3 (Black Edition)

The only reason I was considering redoing my order was that the 9670:

• Supports the widescreen resolution nativeky (I could sell - sell/repurpose my TH2G for another box down the road)
• Seems to have a slight advantage in the extreme resolution areas (3840x1024).

That said I don't think I'll be unhappy with this card. I will certainly come back and give you some Benchmark info .

 

[Arkadrel]

@juberberry

Its not as fast as a i5 something, but its a decent CPU.

Should definately overclock it though, see if you can get 3.9-4.0ghz out of it,
somewhere around 18.5 multiplier x 211 bus , or 19.5 x 200, depending on how fast ram you bought. To get those stable though you ll probably have to give it a tiny bit of extra voltage.

a Phenom II x4 @ 3.9ghz + 570 GPU is a very decent gameing machine.

 

[blckgrffn]

Sell the 260 to make way for another card.

Alternatively, the 260 would be a great (read: overkill) Physx card.

I have a 7300LE I'd ship you for $15

Phenom, II x4 965 3.4 Ghz, 6MB AM3 <-- Solid processor, I wouldn't regret it at all

 

[juberberry]

Alternatively, the 260 would be a great (read: overkill) Physx card.

Hmmm - Work it in tandem with the 570 and offload the PhysX there? Would I SLI them together somewhow? Anything to give me a little boost if I don't have to spend any money would be sweet

It wouldn't work in tandem with the 6970 would it - to give PhysX? - that seems unlikely

(Still considering getting a 9670 locally and returning the 570 when it gets here).

 

[blckgrffn]

Hmmm - Work it in tandem with the 570 and offload the PhysX there? Would I SLI them together somewhow? Anything to give me a little boost if I don't have to spend any money would be sweet

It wouldn't work in tandem with the 6970 would it - to give PhysX? - that seems unlikely

(Still considering getting a 9670 locally and returning the 570 when it gets here).

PhysX (IMHO, opinions vary here) is not that big of a deal.

It does not, to the best of my knowledge, currently work if you have an AMD primary card.

You could also figure that 260 is going to cost you $$$ every day you keep it running even if you aren't using it.

They would not BE SLI'd. I'd have to defer to others on how this is setup, but I imagine you specify what card card to use for PhysX in the nvidia control panel. I believe the baseline for "high" PhysX acceleration is a 9800GT, a card which below the 260 you have. Remember rendering the extra PhysX goodies will tax your main GPU that much harder, though.

The biggest hurdle is power. It's not worth it to buy some crazy 1Kw power supply for this setup (again, IMHO.)

The 6970 is still the best fit for what you are doing. If you have a microcenter (or Fry's, or whatever) locally, just pick up whatever $20 AMIR AMD card they have that doesn't have a fan and drive your separate monitor off of it.

 

[juberberry]

Ok cool - that logic makes perfec sense

Thank you one and all - I'll be back once I have the whole thing set up