• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Buy now or wait?

B

BronxBartoni

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 26, 2005
Messages
410
So im building a PC for BC2, and Im a little undecided what I should do about the video card. My local MC has GTS250's for 117, and Im contemplating grabbing two for my i5 system. Good idea? Should I wait for Fermi to drop and then try to grab two 260's on the cheap? AMD is always an option, but I am just used to the green's drivers and what not.
 
These BC2 threads are getting annoying. Wait, it's not even released........
 
BronxBartoni said:
So im building a PC for BC2, and Im a little undecided what I should do about the video card. My local MC has GTS250's for 117, and Im contemplating grabbing two for my i5 system. Good idea? Should I wait for Fermi to drop and then try to grab two 260's on the cheap? AMD is always an option, but I am just used to the green's drivers and what not.
Click to expand...

Well, at that point you are talking spending about $240 - I would toss in another $50 and get a 5850. I definitely wouldn't bother buying two GTS 250s for SLI - performance just isn't there for the cost. If you absolutely want Nvidia, I'd look for a used GTX 260 in the $150 range, give or take. Nvidia's cards at the moment aren't really worth buying new...
 
Just wait sir. All videocard prices suck at the moment. Sadly when I had my GTS250's I got them for 60$ a piece so I can't recommend 117$ for one.
 
+1 grabbing x2 250's is a complete waste. also not all games scale well in SLI or Crossfire so grabbing a single GPU is the best option. Grab a 5850.
 
You can grab two gtx 260 core 216s for 150 new at microcenter.. $300 or just save up another $50 and get a 5870 for $350 @ microcenter
 
I'd wait to try to get a DX11 card unless you only care about multiplayer and don't care about graphics quality.
 
Dual cards are never best bang for the buck, and generally just add a lot of heat, noise, use more space, and require a more expensive mobo that supports SLI (not to mention incompatibilities with dual cards in games).

Always buy a single card, unless you can afford the single most badass card and it's still not enough for your needs. This has been my rule of thumb for the last several years, and I'm never disappointed. Get a 5850 or 5870 and never look back. :)
 
I am in the same boat. I have all the parts for my new system in transit. Everything but a video card.
I thought about a 5850 or 5870 but I am NOT paying the scalper prices.
The cards should be $229 and $299...that is more than they are worth.
the nvidia is going to be 40% faster(so the paper model says) BS and it will be $100-$150 more, and will not be available until May in quantity.

DX11 will bring nothing to a game like BC2... oh yea stand over here and watch that shadow...wow did you see it.Oh sorry you are dead...all hype and nothing to do with game play.

You didn't say what resolution you are running at.
Hell a 4850 can run it at most resolutions and eye candy turned on, look for a sale somewhere.


I will wait till some prices drop before buying, I can struggle with my 4870 for now.
 
Why don't they just create a sticky on this issue??:confused:

Its asked at least once everyday :rolleyes:
 
Same boat here not paying the gouge price for a 5850 atm. I will stick with my 3 year old 8800GTS 640MB for a couple of more months.

Then see what impact nvidia has. On the other hand if all that a 5850 is going to drop to is ~250 is it worth it to wait 2-3 months for a $50 drop?
 
crowat said:
Same boat here not paying the gouge price for a 5850 atm. I will stick with my 3 year old 8800GTS 640MB for a couple of more months.

Then see what impact nvidia has. On the other hand if all that a 5850 is going to drop to is ~250 is it worth it to wait 2-3 months for a $50 drop?
Click to expand...

I'd say it would be worth it if its not needed.
 
shaohui said:
I'd say it would be worth it if its not needed.
Click to expand...


Yep, that's kinda where my reasoning ended up. I don't need an upgrade now. It would be nice but not necessary to play stuff. Now it would be different if I could not play what I wanted.

And MW2 is putting my 8800 to the test. Not sure how BC2 is going to work.
 
crowat said:
Yep, that's kinda where my reasoning ended up. I don't need an upgrade now. It would be nice but not necessary to play stuff. Now it would be different if I could not play what I wanted.

And MW2 is putting my 8800 to the test. Not sure how BC2 is going to work.
Click to expand...

BC2 would definitely be more intensive than mw2, destructible buildings, 32+ players, vehicles.
 
ShagnWagn said:
Dual cards are never best bang for the buck, and generally just add a lot of heat, noise, use more space, and require a more expensive mobo that supports SLI (not to mention incompatibilities with dual cards in games).
Click to expand...

I would disagree. Just looking at recent generations, there were plenty of people who picked up two HD 4850s, 4870s, 8800GT/GTS, GTX 260s, etc. and ran a dual-GPU setup that would easily beat the flagship single-GPU card in framerates while costing less.

I won't argue the points of heat, noise, and space of course; those are obvious trade-offs to getting that kind of performance for less money.

X58 boards do tend to command a premium but aren't required for a multi-GPU configuration. Lots of less expensive boards support CrossFire if you want a multi-GPU setup and aren't dead set on SLI (I wouldn't bother with the 680i/780i/790i these days).

As for incompatibilities, putting two GTX 260s into SLI mode was my first time running a multi-GPU setup since running twin Voodoo II cards in the late 90s. I was a bit skeptical due to these "issues" I had read so much about but in fact I'd say 99% of my games worked just fine with SLI enabled. Even much older games like Thief, Red Faction, etc. I can't comment on CrossFire's incompatibilities since I've never run twin ATi GPUs but my experience with SLI was that it works the vast majority of the time and can make some games MUCH more playable...Crysis at 2560x1600 being one of them.
 
Last edited:
Sure SLI works. And if you buy the "flagship" card, you'll certainly pay through the nose for that usually.

But you can still get a good single GPU card that will certainly be much better than a couple old GTS 250s and not have to pay that much more for it.

I'd even pick up a GTX 275 before messing with two GTS 250s... if you can find one in stock.
 
Agreed. It depends entirely on the cards in question; namely their performance and what you pay for them. All things considered I would rather have a single powerful card, but it's not like multi-GPU setups are as terrible as ShagnWagn made them out to be. There are scenarios where multi-GPU setups just make sense. Sometimes, one card just isn't enough if you're running extreme resolutions or detail levels. Other times, gamers looking for max performance on a budget will find that two cheaper cards will get them better performance than a single card that costs more. My main point was to refute the statements "Dual cards are never best bang for the buck" and "Always buy a single card". The first is blatantly incorrect and the second assumes that there is no advantage to a multi-GPU setup.
 
Wait, 260's are only 150 at mc? I might as well just wait a month or
so, looks like prices on DAMMIT's cards are gonna drop after nvidia
launches next month.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top