GTX 560 SLI upgrade to GTX 660 SLI?

[rayf01]

Current specs.

i5-2500k
2 x Gigabyte GTX-560 1 GB
Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3
4 x 4GB (16 GB) Memory DDR3 - CL9

I currently only play BF3 at 1980 x 1080. I find that even with the SLI setup I cant run it on ULTRA and every once and while the frames slow down a bit. I know that's a limitation of VRAM.

I was considering selling my GTX 560's and upgrading to 2 x GeForce GTX 660 OC 2GB PCI-E. I do not overclock ever.

Do you think the upgrade would be worth it to last another 1-2 years? I'd like it to be able to run the next release of Battlefield, but who knows what those requirements will be with it being so far out.

I was also considering selling my i5 and sticking an i7-3770k in here as well.

 

[blazorthon]

Why not just get a 670? For example, this 670 would be almost on-par with the 660 SLI in performance, but is much cheaper:

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/zotac-video-card-zt6030210p

I don't recommend an i7. There're no games where they really have an advantage over the i5 in most situations. There are a few where thy do have a performance advantage ,but the i5 already performs so well that it's hardly any different and the i7's advantage is only Hyper-Threading, not a huge deal when you already have four cores. Maybe some future games will change this, but that's the way it is right now and for the foreseeable future AFAIK.

 

[Amuse_UK]

Looking at the latest drivers from Nvidia, the 670 is now back up with the 7970 in certain titles.

If you are in the USA, i suggest this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127675

 

[Derza10]

Bah they all beat me to it, but yea you are better off getting a single high end card - it will perform the same and cost less, and you will have less issues with it. Only reason to really SLI is if you need higher performance than a single card can give you, so SLI'ing lower end cards to match high end cards is not recommended, and most of the time more expensive.

 

[killerhurtalot]

Looking at the latest drivers from Nvidia, the 670 is now back up with the 7970 in certain titles.

If you are in the USA, i suggest this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127675

Why would you go with a slightly overclock MSI....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130787

Same price, same mail in rebate, but on a GTX680 PCB w/ better cooling and factory overclocked to 1006 mhz core....



But ya. OP. You'd be better off going with a single card set-up. SLI/CFX set-ups still suffer from stuttering (although Nvidia's new Adaptive Vsync does solve some issues, but stuttering still happens)

 

[sam_p_lay]

I'd say you can expect a good 50% framerate gain over what you have (they are non-Ti right?). The GTX670 is a strong option for future-proofing - although there's no way it could compete with dual GTX660s, it is cheaper than two cards and allows you to add another a year or two down the line for a much lower price. GTX660 offers best performance for money, but GTX670 will give more longevity if you're leaving a slot free for another.

 

[Amuse_UK]

Why would you go with a slightly overclock MSI....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130787

Same price, same mail in rebate, but on a GTX680 PCB w/ better cooling and factory overclocked to 1006 mhz core....

No need to quote me, just give the OP the link.

Glad you could find a better price/perf 670.

 

[rayf01]

Here is the interesting thing. I can get a 670 around here for $380-420. I can get two 660's non ti for around $420-440.00. You still think it would be better to get a 670?

 

[bryjoered]

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of SLI, many games just don't utilize it very well. I'm not sure why because it should be double the power, but most of the time it isn't. A better solution, if you were to get an additional card, is to have one card run dedicated physx and the other be something like the GTX 670. It feels like a paltry amount of games actually support Physx, but it truly does bring some awesome effects and is very hardware intensive, hence the value of a dedicated card. You don't need to spend big on the dedicated card either, something like a 480 should do fine. One 670 will simply crush anything on the market currently besides super CPU intensive games. Maybe like Metro 2033 on full max, or Witcher 2 with ubersampling on would cause it to drop to sub 60 frames. I honestly can barely tell the difference sometimes between ultra and the extra super intensive setting, maybe it's just me. Also, kind've unrelated, but I can't even tell the difference between getting 60 frames and 40, if the framerate is constant, hell even 35 frames is playable to me if it never dips below 30.

 

[Amuse_UK]

670 is a lot better than 2 non Ti 660's, you simply have no issues with SLi...

Should be a no brainer.

SLi with the 6 series or 7xxx series from AMD, is best spent when using surround, or 2560x1600 res.

 

[blazorthon]

The 670 that I suggested beats all other 670s except maybe Asus' 1.3GHz GPU clock model (but probably that one too) and is available for under $383. It has a significant GPU factory overclock to ~1.1GHz base frequency and a far more important 10% memory factory overclock to ~1.65GHz that alleviates the memory bandwidth bottle-neck. It does in fact compete well with two 660s in SLI, much better than a reference 670 or a 670 with only a moderate GPU factory overclock.

 

[Amuse_UK]

All that can be attained on any other 670.

Got my 670's at 1290mhz core, and 7100mhz on the memory right now, and these are reference models.

 

[blazorthon]

That's manual overclocking. No one said anything about manual overclocking, so no, it can't be attained on reference 670s. My numbers are stock for the card. It can also be pushed farther on average than any reference 670 anyway should you opt for manual overclocking.

 

[blazorthon]

So, as a closure, the OP needs to tell us if he knows how to OC GPU's, otherwise, the faster stock card will give a bit more performance, whereas a cheaper 670, can be tweaked to deliver the same as a more expensive product.

You can't tweak a cheaper card to perform as well as a superior card when you do the same tweaks to it.

 

[Amuse_UK]

So, as a closure, the OP needs to tell us if he knows how to OC GPU's, otherwise, the faster stock card will give a bit more performance, whereas a cheaper 670, can be tweaked to deliver the same as a more expensive product.

 

[lengcaifai]

+1 to gtx670

no SLI issue, better case ventilation, can further upgrade to dual gtx670 if u have extra $ later

 

[Amuse_UK]

You certainly can

 

[blazorthon]

No, you can't. Better binning and cooling as well as often better build quality on the better models means that you can't because they hit higher frequencies on average and do so with lower temps and lower noise.

 

[Amuse_UK]

None of Zotac's cards are highly binned, they just have coolers slapped on them.

EVGA's FTW/SSC/POV's TGT/ASUS's Matrix... these are highly binned chips.

 

[bryjoered]

Overclocking is not that simple and takes a lot of trial and error. It used to be that you could permanantly damage your card by messing around, but I think most newer cards have a fail safe in them that won't let the card heat up to dangerous levels without reverting or shutting off or something. So you have to reach the threshold in right before the card goes into fail safe, which takes a lot of time to get just right. I still believe it lowers the shelf life of your card to having it run at maximum power all the time, but that's just me.

 

[Derza10]

No, you can't. Better binning and cooling as well as often better build quality on the better models means that you can't because they hit higher frequencies on average and do so with lower temps and lower noise.

Well i have a reference model gtx 680 that clocks up to 1280, My friend bought an evga SC gtx 670, he can't even overclock his 20 Mhz over the factory overclocked speeds without it crashing... Don't just assume because you are paying more for a factory clocked card that the card can actually overclock higher than a reference card.

And as for temps my GPU stays around 70c at 1280Mhz and isn't to loud. Having the extra fans on a card that you can't up the volts on dose not really allow you to clock it higher anyway all it will do is make your card temp go from say 70-75c to 60-70c, and 75c still isn't to hot for GPUs.

 

[bryjoered]

Well i have a reference model gtx 680 that clocks up to 1280, My friend bought an evga SC gtx 670, he can't even overclock his 20 Mhz over the factory overclocked speeds without it crashing... Don't just assume because you are paying more for a factory clocked card that the card can actually overclock higher than a reference card.

A more expensive 670 is actually probably the superior card regardless of overlocking rates, it may have more MHRz or pipllines, filters or whatever. I mean I love graphics as much as the next guy, but is it really even worth it to push your card? I mean any version of the GTX 670 can crush any game in the market at 1080p. I'm also one to think that the differences between medium settings and high settings tend to be huge, but the jump between high and ultra is far less noticeable. I still can't for the life of me understand why some enthusiasts think it is absolutely paramount to get 60fps a all times. Very few console games on the planet run at 60fps and I've never noticed them chugging let alone being unplayable.

 

[killerhurtalot]

A more expensive 670 is actually probably the superior card regardless of overlocking rates, it may have more MHRz or pipllines, filters or whatever. I mean I love graphics as much as the next guy, but is it really even worth it to push your card? I mean any version of the GTX 670 can crush any game in the market at 1080p. I'm also one to think that the differences between medium settings and high settings tend to be huge, but the jump between high and ultra is far less noticeable. I still can't for the life of me understand why some enthusiasts think it is absolutely paramount to get 60fps a all times. Very few console games on the planet run at 60fps and I've never noticed them chugging let alone being unplayable.

And no. the price usually has little to do with what the card's quality is. Look at MSI. Their cards (GTX 660 ti and GTX 670) were utter trash because they overvolted them...And they still sold at a premium because the over volting gave them a good performance boost over the competition (at the detriment to the GPU's life span)



Wait 2-3 years down the road. It's definitely worth overclocking when it gets outdated.

I'm hoping that my GTX 670 would last maybe 3-4 years being able to game at least at 30 fps on 1080p...

 

[blazorthon]

Well i have a reference model gtx 680 that clocks up to 1280, My friend bought an evga SC gtx 670, he can't even overclock his 20 Mhz over the factory overclocked speeds without it crashing... Don't just assume because you are paying more for a factory clocked card that the card can actually overclock higher than a reference card.

And as for temps my GPU stays around 70c at 1280Mhz and isn't to loud. Having the extra fans on a card that you can't up the volts on dose not really allow you to clock it higher anyway all it will do is make your card temp go from say 70-75c to 60-70c, and 75c still isn't to hot for GPUs.

EVGA doesn't count. They don't make good cards nor good coolers. Furthermore, a great non-reference cooler can be far more effective than your claims. Furthermore, I don't just assume that a factory overclocked card is superior, I went with what is a superior card and said that it is superior. The same could be said for cards such as the Asus GTX 670 DCII TOP (although it's discontinued) and a few other 670s compared to most others This Zotac is simply the best stock 670 and one of the best overclockers.

 

[Amuse_UK]

Hahaha^^

I will have to remember that, "EVGA make bad cards"