The GTX 260 is a beast.. How do I upgrade it?

[jlmdroid]

I've got a GTX 260, and i've been in love with it for two years. I've had to dismantle the body and add an additional fan mounted directly to the heatsink, just to keep it cool! It still hits 80c under loads, idles at 45c. It pulls 182W from my PSU, talk about power hungry!

Now, I've been wanting to upgrade to something better, but when I look at statistics side-by-side with other cards (like the 550 TI) in the $130-$150 range, my card is still kicking their asses! The only honest benefit I can see from that upgrade is Dx11 and OpenGL 4.1 compatibility. Take a look at the statistic comparison:

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=647&card2=568

I am amazed at how well this almost 3 year old card is still ahead of the game. Now, here's a series of questions I would love to hear you guys answer:

Is gaining Dx11 and OpenGL 4.1 a big deal?
I have an AMD processor.. Would getting a Radeon card be better for efficiency?
I want to SLI one day.. Should I just buy another GTX 260?
Do you think having 1GB is more efficient than having 2GB when only playing one game at a time, like Assassin's Creed: Revelations or BF3?

I would buy a GTX 580, but I don't wanna drop $600 into a graphics card, I doubt I'll be seeing intensive games for those cards any time soon..

Any advice, guys?

 

[AlienIsGOD]

a 560Ti or a HD7800 series would be the best bet IMO. SLI with another 260 is kinda pointless as its old tech and dx 10 only. If you are coming from a single 260, either of those cards would be a huge improvement in performance.

 

[jlmdroid]

That leaves a few questions unanswered, but thanks for the SLI on 260's one. You're right, old tech won't outperform new tech.

But would having an AMD supplied GPU be better for a AMD chipset and processor?
And do you think having 2GB is better than having 1GB at this point in time?
When you SLI, is it like combining those two cards entirely? (ex: 1GB + 1GB = 2GB? 800MHz + 800MHz = 1600MHz? 192 Processing cores.. Well, you get the idea.)

 

[Guest]

gtx 460

 

[MANOFKRYPTONAK]

Whats your price range? Prices just dropped on newegg! 560ti- 448 competes with 570 for 240... it too is a beast!!

 

[srafig4]

buy GTX 560 Ti SOC/6870 OC~ :lol:

 

[deadjon]

The 6850 is in your "$115-$150" price range and absolutely dominates the GTX260.

1.DX11 IS a big deal. Its amazing and I couldn't live without it.
2. Getting an AMD card for an AMD system, it doesn't bring any additional benefits.
3. Getting another 260 would be inefficient. Lack of support for DX11 is bad these days and the card itself is slow compared to most on the market today.
4. @ Resolutions of 1080p or lower, 1GB should suffice. Although a few games are beginning to ask for more and more VRAM for stuff like mods and Texture packs.

memory, it is NOT doubled when you add another card, because the information from one is duplicated across to the other.
Its easy to think of it like a Dual Core processor - the Amount of Cores are doubled, the Clock speed remains the same, and the cores share the L2 or L3 Cache.

Ive ran SLI since it meant Scan Line Interleave and not this Scalable Link Interface BS (back in the Matrox Mystique and Voodoo Card days), and each year the scaling gets better and better. AMDs Crossfire currently probably has the better performance scaling of the 2 multicard setups, but the quality is slightly lower. Both companies are now at the 60 - 100% performance increase mark for every game @1080p when adding a second card.

Here are some Sub $300 choices that are probably the best bet (since the Fermi price cuts there have been some excellent deals in this section)

At around the $230-250 mark you have the GTX560ti 448 (an excellent choice)
At around the $250 Mark there is the Radeon HD7850 (when released)
At around the $299 mark you have the GTX570, another excellent choice.

Heres where it gets fun though.

My overall recommendation as a best price/performance card is the Radeon HD7870 - ~$350 - Its a monster of a card for the price- OC it and it handily beats the GTX580. When its released fully, pick one up.

 

[jlmdroid]

Best answer selected by jlmdroid.

 

[jlmdroid]

The 6850 is in your "$115-$150" price range and absolutely dominates the GTX260.

1.DX11 IS a big deal. Its amazing and I couldn't live without it.
2. Getting an AMD card for an AMD system, it doesn't bring any additional benefits.
3. Getting another 260 would be inefficient. Lack of support for DX11 is bad these days and the card itself is slow compared to most on the market today.
4. @ Resolutions of 1080p or lower, 1GB should suffice. Although a few games are beginning to ask for more and more VRAM for stuff like mods and Texture packs.

memory, it is NOT doubled when you add another card, because the information from one is duplicated across to the other.
Its easy to think of it like a Dual Core processor - the Amount of Cores are doubled, the Clock speed remains the same, and the cores share the L2 or L3 Cache.

Ive ran SLI since it meant Scan Line Interleave and not this Scalable Link Interface BS (back in the Matrox Mystique and Voodoo Card days), and each year the scaling gets better and better. AMDs Crossfire currently probably has the better performance scaling of the 2 multicard setups, but the quality is slightly lower. Both companies are now at the 60 - 100% performance increase mark for every game @1080p when adding a second card.

Here are some Sub $300 choices that are probably the best bet (since the Fermi price cuts there have been some excellent deals in this section)

At around the $230-250 mark you have the GTX560ti 448 (an excellent choice)
At around the $250 Mark there is the Radeon HD7850 (when released)
At around the $299 mark you have the GTX570, another excellent choice.

Heres where it gets fun though.

My overall recommendation as a best price/performance card is the Radeon HD7870 - ~$350 - Its a monster of a card for the price- OC it and it handily beats the GTX580. When its released fully, pick one up.

Perfect form, my good man! Thank you for these answers, they will help much when I get to choosing my next card. I'm thinking maybe the GTX 560Ti.. I've always had a thing for Nvidia's video cards, but I HATE Intel cores.. Weird, huh?

I think why I don't prefer Radeon is because of all the damn numbers.. It seems like they're releasing new 4 digit models every weekend nowadays!

I might think outside of the box and get a Radeon.. But that's a scary step for me, lol. :lol:

Thank you guys for the great advice.

 

[jlmdroid]

Another thing I'm seeing while choosing a card is OpenGL compliance. What's the difference between the versions? I'm seeing the 550Ti has 4.1, and the 570 has 3.2.

What's this all about now?

 

[jlmdroid]

And when Crossfire-ing two radeon 6870's, would it be recommended to find a 2GB unit instead of a 1GB unit?