SLI 2 x 260 is it worth it? is there a bottleneck at the cpu

[njareg]

Hey everyone,

I'm helping a friend to upgrade his system. He wants to make a gaming system and we've come to the graphic end. So far were going with either a gtx 260 or 280. My question is it worth getting 2x260's or 2x280's and SLI them together? I've been hearing some conflicting information such as that it's not worth doing that as you'd never get the full potential of the SLI as it bottlenecks at the CPU level. I was told that CPU's just haven't caught up yet to unlock the full potential of SLI'ing two of these cards together. I was hoping to get some feedback here on this.

Your answers are greatly appreciated.
thanks

 

[Kaldor]

Depends on what CPU he is running. I wouldnt use anything less than an E8400 in an SLI or Xfire system.

At this point in time, if I was going to run SLI, I would be running 2 260s as the 280s are still expensive for the amount of performance your getting. 260s have a nice bang for the buck if you really want to go SLI.

Myself Ill stick with ATI, with a single 4870X2 or a pair of 1 GB 4870s.

 

[coozie7]

NJAREG: KALDOR is right about the CPU, you`ll need a fast dual/quad core to keep those beasts fed with data.
And do n`t forget, a powerful PSU is a must if you`re not going to have stability problems with the system under load.

But...You`ll have to tell us what res your friend is using before anyone can give further advice, SLI/CF is wasted below 16x10 because many games become CPU limited (as you have correctly said).

 

[njareg]

Hey guys thanks for you replies. I believe he will be running at 16x10 or 12x10
He will be getting the Intel core E8500 with 4gb ram. I don't want to advise him on getting SLI if it's more of a waste of money then what the return is for performance.

Would SLI pay off if he was running 16x10 or 12x10 with full AA, AF and max quality?

 

[invisik]

2 gtx260 would be nice with that setup. if his playing at 16x10 then he will benefit from sli if his playing at 12x10 there is no point in sli.
i max out crysis @ 1680x1050 16aa and i avg 20fps with 1 gtx260. in sli i avg30+ fps. up to u usually 45-65% scaling depending on game.

 

[Superhal]

quiet honestly, the whole bottlenecking issue was discovered recently. your friend is in uncharted waters. nobody knows for sure what it is, why it happens, or what is the solution.

here's what you can do:
1. remove one card, and run benchmarks like 3dmark06, sandra, pcmark, etc. record the numbers.
2. put the card back in, and compare the benchmarks. in general, sli should give 50%-100% better performance (averages about 70%.)
3. if you are getting 0-10% improvement, it's a serious bottleneck.

Then, see if overclocking is the solution.
1. get an intel overclocking guide (sorry, i just do amd) and gradually raise cpu/nb/sb/memory performance, and see if there's any effect on the benchmarks.
2. if so, a serious overclock will get you the best performance out of that setup.
3. if not, then only raising mhz won't help.

You can read Tom's Q3 2008 graphics card roundup, to see what specs were used there, and what mhz you'll have to exceed to see an improvement. i think they used a Qx chip, so you'll need to have a relatively serious overclock to see a difference.

 

[roofus]

i am running 260's in SLI and he will want to run his CPU @3.6. that seemed to be the sweet spot for mine. it seems to be a nice, stable place to be with my e8400. as you clock higher, you directly gain in gpu performance it seems but i wanted to keep temps low and 3.6 is easy without any voltage bumps.

 

[njareg]

Do you think SLI would be better suited using a Quad core as opposed to a dual core cpu? the Q9650 is looking interesting