GTX 480 SLI vs GTX 295?

It's better by miles, it's dx11 too so will last for ages, get hot though but will rock your world  

But a cheap 295 will rock your world too they are decent cards.

LOL, pee all over. Nice  . True about 2 GTX 480's, would cost 1k.

You think this 295 is a decent investment? Im trying to sell my system and buy an i7 one now, but if I don't I would assume my E6750 will bottleneck the crap out of this 295 lol.

Yeah that CPU (E6750) will bottleneck a GTX295.

I think its a good deal, you have to decide whether or not your bothered about DX11, If not then I would say go for it. (Providing you get a faster CPU that wouldn't bottleneck it, like an i7).

Hmm, you think DX11's gonna be a BIG thing?

hmm... hard to say really, I think in a year or two it will be huge and perhaps the standard (DX9 being the standard now).

Trouble is game devs develop games for consoles which are DX9, then they port them over to PC's and sometimes add some DX10 or DX11 effects, but nothing fancy, for example take the DX11 games that are out now, Dirt 2 is meant to be DX11, but I struggle to see a difference between DX10 and DX11 mode in that game.

Another example: BFBC2 is DX11 but only uses it on some terrain and on characters. Not a huge difference.

We may have to wait for consoles to catch up with PC's before we see a large amount of DX11 implementation.

Not for a year or so. Some games already have it, but in them it's really not adding very much (it is nice, though). I would go for it because in a while it's going to become more standard, so developers will spend more time making awesome DX11 features.

BTW, the 4xx series SLI tends to perform very well, nearing double performance. Compared to the Radeon 5xxx cards, the new Fermi SLI is awesome.

Go for the GTX 295?

Also im running at 1920x1200 resolution, so a few benchmarks i've seen makes it seem the resolution scaling is better with a GTX 295, I assume its because of the memory + dual GPU.

Best answer selected by hwing91.

Hey, what do you think of hardware degradation over time? Ive heard from some people that hardware degrades and from some its only through software/operating system junk building up overtime that slows it. Well, will ocing/volt modding not only shorten the life, but make it perform worst as well over time?

hardware degrades over time even if you don't overclock/overvolt, but overclocking and overvolting will make the hardware degrade faster. I wouldn't worry though, as long as you stay within the thermal and voltage limits set by the manufacture your hardware will last a long time.

Hmm thanks alot fatal, my worry is because im buying this as a used GTX 295.

Yeah, thats always a risk, Perhaps you could ask the seller how long he/she has had it for.

Is their any return policy?.

The GTX 295 trades blows back and forth with the GTX 480. Don't let the fanboys tell you otherwise. I have a GTX 295 and decided not to upgrade based on this among other benchmarks.
http://www.techspot.com/review/263-nvidia-geforce-gtx-4...

That particular benchmark gives me a couple questions:

1) Was the GTX 480 tested only with DX11 for that FPS result? And the GTX 295 with DX10? The chart says DX10/10.1/11 so I assume they used the highest capable DX version for each card. So although the GTX 480 was lower FPS in that benchmark, it was probably a better quality image.

2) How does the GTX 480 stack up in that benchmark now that nVidia released new drivers? That article is from March 2010, with the original release drivers. So the GTX 295 was using mature drivers, and the GTX 480 was using infancy drivers.  

All that being said, the GTX 295 is obviously no slouch. So if the OP doesn't mind using DX9/10 (and not DX11) it sounds like a much cheaper way to get a similar level of performance over all.

+1
Had the same answer as well. Even with launch drivers, the 480 managed to 'beat'/faster than the 295. That was part of design  . Of course nobody would ditch a rig with one 295 for one 480. Unless monetary (reselling) circumstances made it worthwhile.

If it doesn't work I can return it but that's basically it lol.