Nvidia GTX 285 questions

I'm not seeing a resolution there....news alert....resolution MATTERS!

For some reason, I was unable to edit the original message. Forgot to add resolution in original post.

Why would you recomend these cards rewindlabs? Just out of interest =)

Unless you think you need to MAX out aa and af/sampling etc and all of the time the extra 100/250$ isn't worth it.....you can throw all of farcry 2's settings to the highest and turn AA up to a decent level and get great performance.....i would rather keep 100/250$ in my pocket towards a cpu upgrade tbh....

Well if you think the difference between having some increased performance with HIGH levels of AA enabled situations is worth it and you have the cash to splash on it be my guest....you don't have that much of a cpu bottleneck...only in gta iv and soon to be quad core titles

@ madindehead: Which motherboard do you have? Some support Crossfire, some SLI, some support neither.
As Swifty_morgan says, the CPU is going to be a *emphasises* 'small' restriction, I would not worry too much about it, besides, for a gaming system it is usually better to have a small bias towards GPU rather than CPU power.
Depending on budget: GTX275/HD4890: More than a small bias or GTX260/1 Gb HD4870: A small bias. It really depends on how much AA you want, the faster cards handle it better, and have a longer service life, but at a price.
Me, I'd get one of the cheaper pair.

@ coozie7

I have a nForce 680i motherboard. I really want the card to hold out on me as long as possible, while still maintaining good performance for around a year plus. Why do things like this always need to be complex. Haha. Just wish there could be a high end card, and a low end card.

Ehm I think that you 3.25 gigaherz Dual core is not a bottleneck, maybe in GtaIV which uses 4 cores but most other games dont so your processor should give better performance than a crappy quad core with only 2.6 ghz or so...

@ madindehead: sounds like you could be in the UK.
Have a look at these sites to start: Overclockers, CCL, Novatech, Microdirect, Scan and E-buyer.
If you are not in the UK: WHY ARE YOU POSTING IN THE UK FORUM FOOL?

Crysis will play good with a GTX260 but............... If you get a stock clocked one it won't. I have/had an XFX GTX260 640/2300......... plays crysis ok @ 16x10 even in the snow... weather the quad core I'm using now makes a difference i can't remember. . Not with AA though.

I have been working on the MSI Lightning in the last few days. the card came clocked 6?/999......... crysis tanked at 16x10 with these settings. Tossing the MSI set up for over clocking and going to RivaTuner, Crysis came alive at 665/2200.... and this was with AA@8x. leaving the AA out of the equation you can see that the higher clock speeds help a lot. I try to tell people to get higher clocked cards and many posters say get a stock and over clock it. What some people don't realize is that cards come clocked higher for a reason....... memory that can actually handle it vs something that might not.

I have to add two things. I think your first choice is the wisest, getting the "bigger" card. Secondly, when I asked if you were getting the 2gig model........... the lightning has double the memory of the standard card ( 1792 vs 896 )......... this made a big difference in how much AA you could apply. In Crysis and FarCry2 the games really benefited from being able to "crispen" up what you could see while playing. Food for thought. Let us know what you do...Good Luck.

check this one out http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130476

I still think the GTX285 is too expensive compared with the GTX275.

Check out few reviews, mate.
Here's one someone prepared earlier:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews [...] ion/1.html

For others just type "GTX'XXX' review" into your browser.

*smug*: Told you so
*less smug*: Just remember it'll need a strong power supply, (how come I just thought of that!)
So, how big is yours? Amps on the 12v rail/s and total wattage needed.

Ah, at that Wattage it would have to be a hugely fraudulent piece of labelling for it not to run a pair of GTX275s' without breaking a sweat!
Be careful of warranties, I have heard mixed comments from those that have used both Amazon and, particularly E-bay. It may be better to pay a little more for the piece of mind of a good warranty.