Should I upgrade?

[avalanche0316]

Hey Everyone,

I am selling an old camcorder on ebay and will find myself with hopefully between 500-700 bucks soon and I am considering upgrading my computer.

I currently have 6gb of ram, a i7 920 and 2 gtx 275s in Sli. I am a little under enthused with my performance in games like gta4 (poorly optimized I know), metro 2033, STALKER 3 and Just Cause 2. My question is, should I go ahead and upgrade to 2 GTX 460 1gb's? 1 GTX 480? DX11 would be sweet though its underused at this point.

I can probably sell my 275s for ~150 each on ebay so its not TOO costly of an upgrade. Waiting is also a possibility but I start school again at the end of august and won't be playing games much.

What do you all think??

 

[avalanche0316]

Also, I game on a single 1080p monitor at the moment, but am looking at a NV surround setup some time in the future.

 

[rolli59]

The GTX460 SLI sounds interesting but is not a huge upgrade except in technology http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_460_SLI/25.html

 

[jyjjy]

Well, the performance of the GTX 460 at stock is actually very similar to a GTX 275. It's about 5% faster but the main advantages would come from that the card is more power efficient(especially at idle), DX11 and can overclock to a much larger degree than the GTX 275(30-40%). I also believe SLI tends to scale better on current gen cards.
If you manage to get $300 for the GTX 275s then the cost of the upgrade will be roughly $150. Whether that is worth it for you is something you need to decide yourself. My advice would be that if you plan to OC then it is a decent idea and if not then it isn't worth it.

 

[avalanche0316]

I haven't OCed before but its not out of the question. I am also thinking of getting the factory OC'ed EVGA version of the cards so hopefully that would be an even greater performance gain.
I am concerned of losing value in my current cards, as I tend to sell my cards every year or 2 and upgrade.

 

[jyjjy]

I would avoid paying extra for someone else to OC your video card. Factory overclocks are almost always pretty small and the cards are overpriced. It is quite easy to do on your own and you'll definitely get much better results.

 

[avalanche0316]

A thought just dawned on me.
Would it be wise to sell one of my 275s, and buy either a 470 or 480 and use that as a main card and use the other 275 as a PhysX unit instead?
I don't know if you've seen the recommended specs for Mafia II but they're pretty demanding and I am stoked for that game.

 

[Helltech]

A GTX 295, is basically 2 GTX 275's.
A GTX 295 beats a GTX 470, and is almost as good as a GTX 480. (Excluding DX11, obviously).

What I'm saying is your not going to find a single card that will give you to much of a performance increase. You're going to have to go with SLI. Not even SLI 460's will give you too much of an increase.

Also if you don't plan on playing games much when you start school why don't you wait till you will be playing games....

 

[avalanche0316]

I see your point, minimal difference for an upgrade. I do have six weeks left in summer to enjoy a new card with a few bells and whistles. I may sell one of my 275s and use the other as phys x and get either a 470 and 480, and use EVGA's step up program to get the (hopefully) better realized Fermi card that isn't a hot and loud mess by Christmas. Its a tough call though.

 

[jyjjy]

I really wouldn't recommend the GTX 480. It is not a good card for the money IMO. The dual GTX 460s you were thinking of would cost slightly less, give you better performance at stock and OC better. The GTX 470 at $300 is a much better deal than the 480. It can also OC a lot like the GTX 460s. It may be the way to go. Get one for now and OC the hell out of it. That will make it an upgrade on what you have now. Step up to a GTX 475 or GTX 485 when they are released and perhaps get another for SLI.
Also a GTX 275 is a bit much for Physx IMO. Really there's only 3 games I know of where GPU accelerated Physx makes a worthwhile difference(Batman:AA, Sacred 2, Mirror's Edge.) Perhaps hold on to one and go through those games if you are interested and then sell it. DX11 supports OpenCL/DirectCompute which should replace Physx with a non-proprietary standard going forward.

 

[asteldian]

If you really want to stick with Nvidia then go with the GTX460s, they are a bit weak individually but SLI and OC'd they are good. The 470 and 480 are just horrible designs.

Of course you could wait and see if they do to the 470 and 480 what they did with the 465 and get a well designed powerful card when released

 

[sailer]

Another thing to think about is how few games are out that support DX11 at all. I have a GTX 275 in one of my computers and have no interest in upgrading it until a lot more games come out that are DX11. By the time there are a fair number of DX11 games out, the 4xx series cards will either be replaced or be cheaper to buy. From my point of view, the next game I plan to buy is Starcraft 2 and its still DX10, so why buy a card for something I don't need?

Just a thought.

 

[avalanche0316]

Best answer selected by avalanche0316.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey