GTX 460 Recommendation

[Fmaj731]

Hi all,

I'm looking for a recommendation for upgrading my GPU. My current system is

i5-2500k
Asrock P67 Mobo
Corsair 550W PSU
8 GB DDR3 1600
Nvidia GTX 460 768 MB

I've been looking to upgrade my GPU for a while. I only game on a single 1920x1080 monitor, so I'm not looking for super-high resolutions. My GTX 460, while an awesome card, just isn't quite powerful enough to play all games at 1920x1080, and therefore I'm looking for a recommendation for upgrading. I was able to procure my 460 for $159.99(USD) a few months back, with $90 in mail-in rebates, bringing the total down to $69.99 - an outrageous price. Since it's a 768 MB version, there are often deals that bring the GTX 460 768 MB down around this price point ($70-$90 USD).

My question is this: would it be worth it to upgrade to two GTX 460s in SLi, or should I wait and get something else? I've been reading around online, and it seems that a pair of 460s scale extremely well, bringing their performance close to a single GTX 580 at my resolution. Would it be worth investing in the new PSU/upgrade at this point? It seems to me that a pair of 460s for ≈ $160-180 would be a hell of a deal. I'm always looking to upgrade on a budget, and I love to see how much "bang for the buck" I'm able to get. With that in mind, I'm looking to get the best price/performance ratio.

Is there anyone out there with experience with GTX 460 768 MB in SLi? Here's a review for the 768 MB version, and it seems that the lower memory doesn't have a large effect at resolutions at or below 1920x1080 http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-460-sli-review/.

As always, thanks for any and all recommendations.

 

[BloodyBonzai]

http://benchmarkextreme.com/Articles/GTX%20460%20ANALYSIS/P1.html
I would buy a GTX 570 1.28GB or a GTX 560 2GB and use your current card as a physics card. Having two 460 768MB in SLI is going to bottleneck your cards due to lack of VRAM in the majority of the games that have come out over the past couple years. But if you play with no AA you will be able to play the majority of games at max settings that are currently out. As far as games that will be coming out, your limits with those cards in SLI will become much more apparent. Best examples of the existence of a VRAM bottleneck in those cards in the link I provided above are primarily in Far Cry, but also Batman.

Your psu would need to be upgraded for my above recommendation, but if you're tight on cash you should be able to get away with a 570 and hold off on putting your 460 in as a physics card until you upgrade your psu.

Regarding SLI, the scalability is relative to the game and the brand of card. For example EVGA releases SLI patches to improve the scalability.

But on a more conservative viewpoint, nvidia's next line-up of cards will be released before the end of the year. And the difference between the 500s series and the Keplar series will be better than the difference between the 400 and 500 series. I have a single GTX 275 1792MB, and that's when I intend on upgrading.