Should I upgrade from a GTS 450 to a GTX 460?

killamaker11

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I am going to get a second monitor from my dad here soon. Both at 1920x1080. I am wondering if I should upgrade to the 786mb version of a 460, or should I just SLI my 450? OR stay with my current setup. Ill be playing games like Borderlands, L4D2, BFBC2, Just Cause 2 etc. Also, My budget is 200 dollars max. If you need the rest of my specs here;

AMD Athlon II 445 3.12 Ghz
4 GB of DDR3 1333 Ram
GTS 450 1 GB

Thanks,
Caleb.
 
Solution
first of all what is your motherboard exact model? if you want to SLI you'll need SLI certified motherboard which is available with older AMD board with nvidia chipset. btw GTS450 in SLI is faster than GTX460 but not by much:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gts-450-sli-review/6

if you really did want to get GTX460 just go for the one with 1GB memory. just make sure you don't get the one with SE suffix. 768mb version will lack the memory in some games at 1080p. if you don't mind to get ATI card then you can look for this which perform much better than GTX460:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121418&cm_re=6870-_-14-121-418-_-Product

the price is well fit your budget after MIR. :)
first of all what is your motherboard exact model? if you want to SLI you'll need SLI certified motherboard which is available with older AMD board with nvidia chipset. btw GTS450 in SLI is faster than GTX460 but not by much:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gts-450-sli-review/6

if you really did want to get GTX460 just go for the one with 1GB memory. just make sure you don't get the one with SE suffix. 768mb version will lack the memory in some games at 1080p. if you don't mind to get ATI card then you can look for this which perform much better than GTX460:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121418&cm_re=6870-_-14-121-418-_-Product

the price is well fit your budget after MIR. :)
 
Solution
I found one site that compares the 460 to the SLI 450:

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/36152-nvidia-geforce-gts-450-1gb-single-sli-review-17.html

Based on this, it seems like you'd get the best performance going with the 450 SLI option (of those you list), though it may be hard to find one? You won't be able to turn all the details up, but you'll be able to play in the 1080p world with decent quality. Just keep the AA and the AF turned down.

Borderlands and Just Cause 2 are very demanding, whereas L4D2 will run well on most setups and BFBC2 is moderately demanding.

One other thing to consider, depending where you shop and what's available to you, you can get two Radeon 5770s for around $200 these days.
 

killamaker11

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Yeah, I have an SLI motherboard. MSI 750a AM3 etc. I looked at the AMD one; this can run more than 1 monitor at once right? Up to 2 without a display port adapter, I think.
I tetering between the SLI of the 450 or the 6870. I know the latter is a great card and pretty much future proofs me for my needs. I guess I could sell my 450 to the extra cash for the 6870. Thanks man, I'll be getting the 6870. ^_^
Surprisingly, Just Cause 2 and BFBC2 run fairly well on my setup with settings pretty high. Though, JC2 is windowed. But yeah, Thanks for the help.