GTx260 SLI Worth it?

I

Iching

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 29, 2008
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Hi!

I am thinking about grabbing another GTX 260 Core 126 for $156 and doing the SLI. I am going to have to mod my drivers since I am running Asus P5Q Deluxe. Do you think it would be too much hassle? I may also add Q9550 soon. I am a casual gamer (too much work) but when I play I want to have all the eye candy. ;) Should wait and grab AMD HD5870.

Thanks!
 
that's 432 shader cores in total, that's alot of power there.

if you not interested in dx11 then go for it.
 
I'm running a 260 sli rig right now as I wait on Fermi, I even tried out Tri-Sli. I have seen no stuttering. For me it was a nice upgrade as I game at 1920x1200 and the difference was nice as it boosted my min frames up to a good level, around 60fps with everything turned up when there is long distance heavy smoke/mist which can really stress your GPU. (I mention minimum fps because for me that is how I judge a video cards power.)

I bought the 3rd 360 to test out a matrox TH2GO with 3 22" screens, I have an SLI mobo and didn't want to build a totally new computer to do eyefinity with decent frames, so I went with another 260. It had an effect, but not as much as I would have liked. Then Nvidia released info on their surround gaming drivers coming up for Fermi and the GTX 200 series, so I sent everything back for a full refund and am waiting on Fermi.

Depending on the price of the GTX 470 you could consider selling your current GTX and getting that for a hundred more, but if money is a problem, another 260 will increase your GPU power nicely.
 
Naieve said:
I'm running a 260 sli rig right now as I wait on Fermi, I even tried out Tri-Sli. I have seen no stuttering. For me it was a nice upgrade as I game at 1920x1200 and the difference was nice as it boosted my min frames up to a good level, around 60fps with everything turned up when there is long distance heavy smoke/mist which can really stress your GPU. (I mention minimum fps because for me that is how I judge a video cards power.)

I bought the 3rd 360 to test out a matrox TH2GO with 3 22" screens, I have an SLI mobo and didn't want to build a totally new computer to do eyefinity with decent frames, so I went with another 260. It had an effect, but not as much as I would have liked. Then Nvidia released info on their surround gaming drivers coming up for Fermi and the GTX 200 series, so I sent everything back for a full refund and am waiting on Fermi.

Depending on the price of the GTX 470 you could consider selling your current GTX and getting that for a hundred more, but if money is a problem, another 260 will increase your GPU power nicely.
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Thank you for your input.:) I game at 1920x1200 on my Dell. I am more than positive I will snatch another 260 for $160 and test it out.
 
Not only did DualOwn not understand my joke, he also doesn't know how to put multiple quotes in a single post.
 
Can't we all be friends?

Nothing wrong with picking up another 260, i think you'll be happy with the results. Do look up some charts to see how well it will scale and if the benchmarks are to your liking then you might as well grab another 260, BUT, do remember that there aren't very many games out there or that will be coming out soon that will kneecap your machine anyway, because of consolitis
 
Fail said:
Can't we all be friends?

Nothing wrong with picking up another 260, i think you'll be happy with the results. Do look up some charts to see how well it will scale and if the benchmarks are to your liking then you might as well grab another 260, BUT, do remember that there aren't very many games out there or that will be coming out soon that will kneecap your machine anyway, because of consolitis
Click to expand...

Yes, you are right...
 
I have compared two gtx 260's 192 cores against a single 5870 on my system. The 5870 beats out the dual gtx260 192 core cards by about 2-300 points in vantage. No real difference. I was having issues with eyefinity corrupt cursor and a few other issues because the drivers aren't where they need to be yet. When I had physx enabled my total score beat a 5870 but that was because my cpu score doubled - adding 3000 points to the total score.
 
I would go for another gtx 260, I sold of my hd 5850 for 280 bucks last month before they went down to that price and got a gtx 260's by bfg the maxcore version for 150 on sale, I had been looking for a good deal on gtx 260 core 216 for a month, and I am thinking they have a hundered day trade up so it might be worth it, I honestly dont game that much and I am very picky about my games, I will probably play BC2 when it comes out for sure, the only reason I am not picking another one up is because I wanna trade up to fermi, and I hope it is available for trade up with in hundered day period, thats over three months from now, I might ad another one but I am very unsure. Dx11 is irrelevent to me right now. I play at 1920x1200 so another one might help.
 
DualOwn said:
dont listen to him, he dont go a clue what he's saying, two 260's are more powerfull than a single 5870,
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not really, they are about the same.

Iching said:
Hi!

I am thinking about grabbing another GTX 260 Core 126 for $156 and doing the SLI. I am going to have to mod my drivers since I am running Asus P5Q Deluxe. Do you think it would be too much hassle? I may also add Q9550 soon. I am a casual gamer (too much work) but when I play I want to have all the eye candy. ;) Should wait and grab AMD HD5870.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

The only problem I have with SLI'in with an extra 260 at this point in the time is the diminishing price:performance. Since we havent seen a price reduction in the Nvidia line (not until fermi id assume) $156 will be a little to steep for the performance you get. My brother is in the same boat as you. We've talked a great deal about it SLI'in with another 216 core but at this point in the game, with ATI's offering and Fermi coming up relatively soon (we hope) it isnt really cost effective to stick another 260 in his system.

I would hold out and save a bit of money until Fermi is released (hopefully along with an ATI refresh) and sell you're 260 to help finance it when it comes (since videocard hit a price floor, e.g the 9800GTX runs around $120 on average. Point being, when cards reach that price floor, the retain a decent value and you'll probably be able to unload you 260 for fairly decent amount of money).

Yes it would be a nice bump in performance, but Id wait for a couple and sell it to help finance one of the top dogs in a couple of months.
 
how do you mod drivers ?

can you use a SLI motherboard for xfire

i am very interested in this but i dont no how to do it
 
edifyingkarma said:
not really, they are about the same.



The only problem I have with SLI'in with an extra 260 at this point in the time is the diminishing price:performance. Since we havent seen a price reduction in the Nvidia line (not until fermi id assume) $156 will be a little to steep for the performance you get. My brother is in the same boat as you. We've talked a great deal about it SLI'in with another 216 core but at this point in the game, with ATI's offering and Fermi coming up relatively soon (we hope) it isnt really cost effective to stick another 260 in his system.

I would hold out and save a bit of money until Fermi is released (hopefully along with an ATI refresh) and sell you're 260 to help finance it when it comes (since videocard hit a price floor, e.g the 9800GTX runs around $120 on average. Point being, when cards reach that price floor, the retain a decent value and you'll probably be able to unload you 260 for fairly decent amount of money).

Yes it would be a nice bump in performance, but Id wait for a couple and sell it to help finance one of the top dogs in a couple of months.
Click to expand...

That sounds good. I guess I will wait for the prices to come down.:)
 
For the time being I have decided to upgrade to Q9550 and then I will snatch ATI cards. (-:
 
I just discovered Microcenter, its about a 2 hour drive from me though.

They were recently selling i7 920's for $199 + tax. Now $229+ tax. ; (

I am seriously considering rebuilding around the i7 for my upcoming Fermi SLI, and surround gaming, but I just can't quite convince myself it it worth the $400 difference from what I can get back from my AM2+ P2 [email protected] with ddr2 1066. I know the i7 blows my rig out of the water, but in gaming it doesn't usually make that big of a difference with clocks above 3.5.

I really wish more of the comparison benches included minimum fps, as that to me is the real important part.
 
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