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560ti or 6950

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Last response: May 17, 2011 2:51 PM in Graphics & Displays

May 16, 2011 9:34:54 PM

I will make my question brief:

My motherboard is the ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3. After doing some reading, it appears that this motherboard does not support SLI. I kind of had my heart set on the Twin Frozr 560ti (the price on Amazon is excellent right now), but I'm wondering if it's foolish to buy this card when I will not be able to add a second one if wanted. I am not overly worried about maxing out graphics on games (I mostly play WoW and Starcraft II), but I DO wish to run a dual monitor setup (one is 1680x1050, the other 1920x1080). Will the 560ti run this setup well, or should I just go ahead and buy the 6950?

Thanks,
Adam

More about : 560ti 6950

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pacioli

Graphics card Expert

May 16, 2011 10:00:05 PM

Blizzard games tend to favor Nvidia chipsets over AMD chipsets. My single 560 Ti runs both WoW and Starcraft at 'Ultra' settings on a single 1920x1080 monitor at 60 fps. If you are running the games on both monitors at the same time you may suffer. If you only have a browser or light, non GPU intensive, programs open in one of the monitors you should be fine.

Your CPU may end up being the thing that slows down your gaming. Blizzard games are CPU intensive and will test your CPU more than your GPU in some situations.

The 6950 would be plenty of GPU and would give you future upgradability. But, Blizzard games are poorly optimized for multi-GPU set-ups so adding an extra card usually does not give any increase in performance. Blizzard doesn't really take advantage of SLI or Crossfire.

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bigmantenor

May 16, 2011 10:06:00 PM

Thanks for the quick reply. I don't plan on gaming on both monitors at the same time (I would only have games open on the 1920x1080), so I'm guessing that means that the 560ti should suffice? My dual monitor setup would be pretty much strictly for studying/browsing purposes.

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Helltech

Graphics card Master

May 16, 2011 10:29:02 PM

SCII greatly favors Nvidia cards according to benchmarks. Even the GTX 460 beats ATI cards well above their performance range in SCII.

If you only plan to play on one monitor a GTX 560ti should last you for a while. Maybe by the time you need a GPU upgrade you will be ready to get an AM3+ motherboard and a bulldozer CPU...

All hypothetical of course.