Upgrading from a GTX 285

[adwani7]

Hi Guys,
My first post here, so please be nice .
First my current system:
i7 920 2.66ghz
Asus GTX 285
6GB RAM
Asus P6T Motherboard
Thermaltake Toughpower 1200w PSU
Win7 64

I mainly only want to upgrade my GFX card (plz let me know if I need to upgrade anything else).

With all the upcoming new releases (BF3, MW3, D3) I was thinking my current card might struggle.

I want to spend around $400 +/- $100.

What card would you guys recommend? (I’d go with nvidia Or AMD, I’m not too fussed.)
Although I read on a separate forum that you can have 2 nvidia cards (Not SLI) and have one do physx and the other one do the rest... Not sure if that’s doable. And if it is, how much benefit would I get from that?
Thanks a lot, any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

[amuffin]

Why not sli? But anyways 400 dollars will get you something like a 580.

 

[adwani7]

I thought you couldnt SLI a 2XX GTX with a 5XX GTX?
If i was to go with a 580 would my CPU bottle neck things up?

 

[amuffin]

I thought you couldnt SLI a 2XX GTX with a 5XX GTX?
If i was to go with a 580 would my CPU bottle neck things up?

You can't sli different generations, however if you buy 2 of the same cards such as 2 gtx 560ti's and put them in sli, you will have higher performance than a gtx 580. Also if you were to get a single gtx 580, i am pretty sure your cpu will not bottleneck the card.

 

[amirp]

Other than a new graphics card, I would overclock your cpu, the i7-920 from what I understand is a highly overclockable cpu,
google "how to overclock i7-920 guide" or something like that

 

[adwani7]

You can't sli different generations, however if you buy 2 of the same cards such as 2 gtx 560ti's and put them in sli, you will have higher performance than a gtx 580. Also if you were to get a single gtx 580, i am pretty sure your cpu will not bottleneck the card.

oh i see, thanks. is SLI Consistent accross all games n apps? Or does it work better on some games n apps than it does others?

 

[renz496]

oh i see, thanks. is SLI Consistent accross all games n apps? Or does it work better on some games n apps than it does others?

i suppose the scaling is different between games. also for the new games that just comes out you're going to wait until nvidia update the SLI support before the games can properly utilize both card. and if you want to play in surround SLI is a must since nvidia card can only drive 2 monitor per gpu