Crossfire is out of the question for me – My system is built on 780i EVGA board. What I’m having trouble is deciding to go with GTX 260 or two 9800 GTX cards… or a similar setup.
I want to stay under $350 – The GTX 280 is too expensive. The GTX 260 seems tempting @ $300
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Is the 260 really not close to a 280? My though was that have a single card with 896mb of ram would do the Job for most games (except Crysis). I run resolution @ 1680 (but may buy @ 24” soon) and definitely want to have high details.
too many prices in flux right now, They are allready taking pre orders for the 9800GTX+ on EVGA and BFG websites. They will be cooler then the 9800GTX for the same price now. But the pricies will drop on the ones that are out now. I still have a 7800GTX and I keep comming close to upgrading then the prices plummit. I would wait a little longer to wait for some stability in prices and product performance, unless you get a great deal.
Nothing wrong with gtx260, at least compared to other latest generation cards. It performs about the same as 4870, and cost around the same. If you have sli motherboard and don't plan to change, gtx260 is fine.
While it's true 2 g92 8800GTS in sli cost $150 each, outperforms gtx280, and far outperforms gtx260, it's different generation, and the latest bleeding edge always cost more. It not fair comparasion. With gtx260, you still have a second slot left for sli later.
@ OP: I was in your same situation with a 780i mobo preventing me from using ATI xfire, as much as I'd have liked to. But I ended up stepping up both my 9800 GTX's to 260s (was only 60 bucks for both, including all shipping). Personally, I think a 260 at $300 is a fine deal for what it buys. According to I think overclockersclub, they OC'd a 260 near the limit and it came pretty close to the 280 at your resolutions. I'd estimate 260's SLI will last you for sure about 2 years, if not more. Buying one now and adding a second later as prices drop is not a bad way to go, especially if ATI is out of the question.
@ OP: I was in your same situation with a 780i mobo preventing me from using ATI xfire, as much as I'd have liked to. But I ended up stepping up both my 9800 GTX's to 260s (was only 60 bucks for both, including all shipping). Personally, I think a 260 at $300 is a fine deal for what it buys. According to I think overclockersclub, they OC'd a 260 near the limit and it came pretty close to the 280 at your resolutions. I'd estimate 260's SLI will last you for sure about 2 years, if not more. Buying one now and adding a second later as prices drop is not a bad way to go, especially if ATI is out of the question.
it's different generation, and the latest bleeding edge always cost more.
However, since there really wasn't any architectural changes at all between G92 and GT200, (unlike RV670 to RV770, where, as a prime example, AA performance can be seen to have been vastly improved) it CAN be used as a fair comparison... Especially after the price has already been slashed by 40%.
Literally, GT200 doesn't really offer anything new over G92; the differences can be pretty much entirely summed up by saying that it has a lot more units copy-pasted: twice as many memory controllers, 25% more TMUs, 87.5% more SPs... Though their design, as far as can be seen, largely remains the same.
The advantage of one GTX260 card now is you can get another one later for SLI. If you get two 9800gtx now, you're locked into that level of SLI performance.
I'm an ATI fan and wouldn't want another Nvidia chipset board after a bad experience with a low end 405 chipset, but I won't begrudge Nvidia and SLI fans their choices.
The GTX260 is a good card. It's not as good a price performance leader as the 4870 right now, but we don't live on Aircraft Carrier Number One and really don't have to be in lockstep with what everyone acknowledges as the best.
The best changes every generation. I stick with ATI because I like image quality and AVIVO over pure framerates, which Nvidia often has. Get what makes you happy and optimize it for the best performance possible.
Then enjoy!
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Athlon X2 4600+ MSI K9AGM2 690V 2 gigs Kingston DDR2 800 MSI 3870x2 850/901 100 gig Maxtor SATA 2x 160 gig WD SATA 400 gig Seagate IDE Memorex DVD R/RW Antec Neo 650 PSU Antec Nine Hundred case.
ALL - HERE IS MY FINAL SETUP - THE GOOD THING ABOUT BUYING @ RETAIL STORES IS I GET IT NOW AND IF PRICES DROP WITHING ONE MONTH - I CAN GET THE DIFFERENCE. ALSO - IF SOMETHING BIG COMES OUT . . . well... no comments.
