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Upgrade advice

Starrbuck

Starrbuck

2[H]4U
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Jun 12, 2005
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Hi friends,

I currently have an SLI setup with 2x ASUS GTX 460 1GB cards on an ASUS P6T motherboard with an i7-930 2.8Ghz OC'd to 3.8Ghz. The primary card runs hot (in the 70s) due to it being right up against the secondary card making the fan unable to move much air. The second card runs in the 50s even in SLI games because it gets plenty of airflow.

Additionally, I am having some texture issues in SWTOR. After running for just a few minutes, some of the textures will be wrong, such as ground that looks like sky and walls that look like sky or the wrong wall texture. Resetting the game fixes it. I also play WoW and BF3 but don't have any issues at all in those games, other than the same temperature issues on card #1.

What is your advice for upgrading? I would like to find thinner cards so I can keep SLI (or CrossFireX? I've always been more of an NVIDIA fan) but where the first card can breathe better. I am not opposed to running a single card due the crummy design of the motherboard's PCIe slots being too close together. The goal would be better performance than 2x GTX 460s in SLI and running cooler.

Thanks!
 
70C is no cause for concern with modern GPUs, that's a perfectly acceptable operating temperature (though it's going to limit your overclocks severely of course).

Unless you go to watercooling there are generally no single slot cards that are worth running in SLI/CrossfireX. You really don't need SLI or CrossfireX to beat your current setup, though, just a single high end card.

To that end I'd recommend either a Radeon 7950/7970 in the $450-550 range, or a GTX 580 1.5GB/3GB if you must go Nvidia, but the 580 is often slower while still costing about the same at this point.

What you're experiencing sounds more like a driver issue or corruption of your game files, not a hardware problem. If the cards are giving you the performance you want and that's the only real issue I'd look in to reinstalling the game and making certain you have the latest drivers properly installed first.
 
Thanks for talking some sense into me! I agree with everything you wrote. The sad part is I know this card does overclock well, as I tried it when I had only one. I can't remember how much I got out of it but it was a decent amount and still stayed cool with just one card installed. I totally agree it may be the drivers or the game. Seems like SWTOR was released still in "beta" quality, as the AA settings still aren't even active yet.

Again, thanks! I think I'll stay with what I have for the time being.
 
HyperTension said:
Can you move the card down a slot to give your primary card more room / airflow?
Click to expand...

No, his board has two 16x slots, with one slot between them. The cards must be where they are. He could potentially put an aftermarket HSF on one or both cards, however. That said, considering we're talking about older mid range cards he could probably sell them both (roughly $100-120 each I think is what they go for lately?) and buy a single high end card from the current generation for only a little more than it would cost him to add two high end aftermarket HSFs ($30-50 per card, so $60-100), so that really isn't worthwhile in this case.

Sell both cards and you could probably get a 6950 2GB unlocked (6970 effectively) for what you get for them, no money out of pocket. I am seeing 6950 2GB unlocked for $200-230 regularly in FS/FT lately. Here is a comparison between GTX 460 1GB SLI and a single 6970 2GB (if you get an unlocked 6950 it will perform the same for about $50-75 less). Keep in mind most 6950s will hit at least 920Mhz, some 1Ghz+, so you will get pretty much the same performance as your current setup, higher in some cases, with substantially less power draw, heat, and no need to wait for SLI profiles in new titles since you'll have a single GPU.
 
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Just be patient and keep your setup for price drops in the future. As new cards are really pricey but if you got the dough then do it.
 
I ordered an MSI Radeon HD 6950 2 GB R6950 TWIN FROZR III today. Wish me luck! :)
 
No reason to be buying 6950s new lately. Hope you got a great deal. I saw one for $185 shipped the other day in FS/FT, and it unlocked to 6970.
 
Plenty of reasons. I'm very picky with brands, I don't want the card to have been mishandled, and I need a good return policy, among some other things. Thanks for all the advice. :)
 
Any XFX 69xx card should fill those requirements. Back when they still had the double lifetime warranty. Saw a few in the FS forum here and overclock.net. I just picked up an XFX 6970 with an EK block for $300.
 
silent-circuit, which procedure did you use for your unlock? I've found a few and wanted to get your suggestions.
 
Use a 6950 BIOS with unlocked shaders, not a 6970 BIOS. This eliminates the potential to damage your onboard RAM due to overvolting, but doesn't affect performance appreciably. Then just overclock as normal. If a flash goes bad (unlikely, but I guess it happens sometimes) just flip the switch back over to "safe", boot as normal, flip the switch once you're at the BIOS flash screen, and reflash.

This is assuming you have a card with a dual BIOS switch. If not, some are still unlockable (most are not) but I am unfamiliar with the procedures to test / unlock those cards, as both of mine are older reference models with the switch near the CrossFireX connectors.
 
Chances are good this MSI will be moddable. The first thing I check for will be the switch. Planning to verify for a couple of days that it works good at stock settings and then try the unlock & overclock this weekend.
 
The card arrived last night and I installed it successfully. I was able to set WoW to mostly the top settings and maintain 60 FPS. For BF3, I am using a mixture of High and Ultra settings for 60 FPS. In SWTOR, I manually set to 2X AA/ 4X AS and maintain 40+ FPS. (BF3 and SWTOR will require some more testing in the next few days to make sure there are no lag issues and such.) I am using Vertical Sync in all apps because screen tearing drives me crazy. Temperatures are 50-55C under load with the fans at 50% or less.
 
Unlocking of shaders successful!

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I got a successful overclock to 880/1375, temps <64C. Very happy with it so far.
 
I like my 3D Vision, but if I didn't watch 3D movies and game 3D sometimes with my Nvidia card. Then I would pick this card up for sure, basically a better version than 560Ti SLI in one card. So it would have to be far better than 460SLI, and if you read the Guru3D article it says these new AMD cards can power state down to 3 watts usage. That will help keep the electric bill in check a bit.

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