GPU Upgrade Advice for 9800 GTX+ SLI

Jeremy Cloutier

Honorable
Mar 17, 2013
5
0
10,520
Hello,

I am in need of some advice for upgrading my current system. It was built in 2009 and is starting to show it's age. I have been looking at the 660 Ti, but I need to input what would be best choice. To this point most of my problems with games are the GPU rather than the CPU but I'm not sure at what point it might create a bottleneck.

Specs
EVGA E758-TR 3-Way SLI - specs
Intel Core i7 Bloomfield @ 2.66GHz - specs
6GB DDR3 1600
2x 9800 GTX+ 512MB SLI

My reason for upgrading is mostly for ARMA 3 and the DCS flight sim series which both struggle on the limited memory of the current GPU's. My budget is around $300 and I'm not tied to either ATI or Nvidia. Any suggestions you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
 
And just to be different I'm going to suggest a 660Ti, keeping one 9800 for PhysX and the other for a spare.
OR, you might try for a 7870 LE (they're rare but around) and use the money saved to get a better cooler for that CPU, which is just crying out for some overclocking abuse ;).
 

Jeremy Cloutier

Honorable
Mar 17, 2013
5
0
10,520


Thank you guys for replying, and @coozie7 I already have a coolermaster v8 on it. When i bought it a lot of the reviews said the included heat sink was less than stellar.

Would using one of the 9800's for physx effect the performance dramatically?
 
With the cooling issue aside, either the 7950 od 660 Ti are going to be best bet for your budget.
Performance wise they're pretty well neck and neck with each coming out on top in different games although the 660 may provide a smoother experience.
As for PhysX...Well, you've already got the hardware, might as well give it a shot if you go for a Nvidia card although it can drop framerates and not everyone likes it.
Ultimately the choice is yours, all we can do is offer advice. Mine would be to go for the 660Ti and play with PhysX, although others may advise differently ;).
 

Jeremy Cloutier

Honorable
Mar 17, 2013
5
0
10,520
I ended up going with the 660ti. I was leaning a bit towards the 6950 untill I pulled out a tape mesure and realized I don't have a big enough case for it :). Thank you all for your responses.