What to pick...

[muggemelk]

Hello,

Im building myself a new pc and one of my friends just offered me
to buy his 2x EVGA GTX460 Superclocked 1024MB Video Cards.

For the price he gives me its "an offer i cant refuse"

but now im stuck at what kind of processor i should buy not to bottleneck the videocards, will the AMD Phenom II x6 1090T do fine or do I need a "more expensive" intel processor?

I will be using this PC for gaming.

Thanks in Advance !, Hope to hear from you soon !

 

[hunter315]

well whats your budget for the rest of the system? If you can fit in a better intel processor like an LGA 1366 based i7 then do it, if not a Phenom II X4 955 or i5 760 will do just as well(better than the 1090T) especially if you OC them.

 

[muggemelk]

I dont know the first thing about overclocking so i'd prefer not to do this.
I can afford to get an i7 but in general if i can spend less is always better

 

[rolli59]

You have better SLI solutions on Intel's side. Maybe socket 1156 I5 750/60 (less expensive than 1366)
AMD's nvidia chip set boards (SLI support) are few and the chip sets getting old.

 

[rlf3911]

i5 760 should be fine. That's what I would buy. $160 at frys right now.

 

[muggemelk]

How about intel's i7 875k or would that be an overkill?

 

[Twoboxer]

Assuming you choose to go Intel for SLI support, an i5 750 will be fine. A socket 1366 solution will cost more, and deliver a few more FPS, but many judge it not worth the cost or the heat. YMMV.

Performance comparisons:

750 vs 1090t http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/146?vs=109

920 vs 1090t http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/146?vs=47

i5 750 $335 with this x8-x8 mobo http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131599

i7 930 $485 with this x16-x16 mobo http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131599

 

[rolli59]

I760 combo $308 after MIR http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.495083 Great setup with the 2 x GTX460

 

[muggemelk]

Will it be a big difference in video performance between x8-x8 or x16-x16 ?

 

[Twoboxer]

The answer seems to be not much when it counts (eg minimum frame rates). Findings seem to show that when you can generate a high enough frame rate to "bottleneck" x8-x8, your framerate is so high the lost frames don't matter.

This article shows a test using a 4.0GHz 920 (to minimize cpu issues) and 2x480s (to provide "ample" gpu power). The mobo allowed choice of "bandwidth", ie, x16-x16, x8-x8, x16-x4. The results are interesting, but no one that I've seen has done the direct 920 vs 750, 2x460 , 1920 resolution comparison.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pcie-geforce-gtx-480-x16-x8-x4,2696-16.html

(The link is mid-article. This is one article where reading the entire thing, and the conclusion of course, may be needed for context.)

 

[muggemelk]

One more thing please dont laugh if its a stupid question

I checked on Intell's website for the information on i5 760 it says for PCI Express configurations it can only do 1x16 or 2x8.

What if I would put it on a mobo such as http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131640&Tpk=asus%20maximus%20iii%20extreme which supports 2x16 would this make the CPU also support it?

 

[hell_storm2004]

For i5 750, you have to get a P55 (LGA1156) board, which supports SLI/CF in 8x/8x mode. With the X58 (LGA1366) boards you can do a 16x/16x SLI/CF. But there is not much of a performance hit in there. So, no problem.

 

[Twoboxer]

Those boards use an NF200 to provide the extra "lanes". Tom's reviewed them in this article:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/p55-crossfire-nf200,2537-11.html

But if you're going to spend that much money on a mobo just to SLI at x16-x16, might as well go i930 instead.

 

[muggemelk]

Best answer selected by muggemelk.

 

[muggemelk]

Thanks for all the help