Hello fellow BitTechers! In a bid to boost my gaming performance (on the cheap), I decided to purchase another 260 GTX (from Pete J, thanks mate!) for SLI. I was a bit cautious and sceptical to see what kind of performance I would get, as I had a bit of a negative experience with a 9800GX2. I decided to use *the* benchmark we all know and love, Crysis. I picked this as it has a great benchmark too, as is considered as the peerless graphical standard. My rig is in my signature, but suffice to say, the game will not have been RAM or CPU limited, with an i7 930 @ 4GHz and 6GB DDR3 RAM. All the tests were performed at 1680x1050, DX10, 32-bit game executable (although I was running 64-bit W7). All the below FPS measurements are averages. High settings results: Single 260 GTX //////// SLI 260 GTX //////// Performance Improvement (no AA) 46.45FPS ///////// 77FPS ///////////////////// 65.7% (2x AA) 40.06FPS ///////// 69.57FPS ///////////////// 73.66% (4x AA) 35.74FPS ///////// 61.45FPS ///////////////// 71.93% (8x AA) 34.61FPS ///////// 59.86FPS ///////////////// 72.93 Very High settings results: Single 260 GTX //////// SLI 260 GTX //////// Performance Improvement (no AA) 25.51FPS ///////// 46.92FPS ///////////////////// 83.92% (2x AA) 21.83FPS ///////// 40.20FPS ///////////////// 84.15% (4x AA) 20.54FPS ///////// 37.9FPS ///////////////// 84.5% (8x AA) 19.74FPS ///////// 36.5FPS ///////////////// 84.9% As you can see, the performance increase was actually pretty damn substantial! I was expecting 70% as the very maximum increase I would get in any game, but in Crysis, it proved the bare minimum improvement, and in Very High settings, I was getting very close to the maximum theoretical increase of 100%. Rock on! Any questions, please ask.
Yes mate I would too! Sadly I'm not made of money hehe. I think multi GPU driver support has improved considerably, and it's actually very cost effective if you have a 260 GTX and want a big performance increase of the cheap.
I posted up in here about how a single 5970 seems to out perform dual 480s which is believable as dual 295s are beaten by a 5970 in some cases and as the 480 barely scrapes any lead over a 295 it would make sense... I have a pair of 5770s and a pair of 5970s here, I can also "emulate" a pair of 5870s by clocking a single 5970 at 850x1200 too... may have a play this evening. Andy
Thats why I went for it memeroot - I bought the second 260 GTX on these forums for £100inc, to get the same kind of increase in FPS I would have had to have gone for a 5870, which would have cost me £220+, thats assuming I sold my 260 GTX too.
Makes you wonder at the bit-tech view of single cards... Good move in my opinion, though it might be interesting to see figures for recent games where sly might no5 javw caught up.
Interesting, im looking into getting a 2nd GTX 275. I'm running the Nvidia 3D vision and the extra FPS would be nice.
*wipes a tear from his eye* Glad to see one of my 260s has gone to a good home. Remember to feed and water it. Remember fellow bit-techers, the other GTX 260 is still on sale here![/shamelessplugging] Exactly my thoughts. SLI has been nothing but excellent for me so far.
Well, there's no denying that if I had the choice of exactly the same power, for a exactly the same cost, in a single gpu card, I would choose that. But it's a hell of a lot cheaper if your using a card like 260/275/280/285 and 4870/4890, it's cheap to buy a second. The fact is that previous generation cards are fantastic value for money, especially when used.
Another +1 to that. Coming from a 9800GX2, to SLi 275's to my current CrossfireX system, I've never had an issue with GPU scaling. Ever. And all it can do is keep getting better, and closer to that 100%
Damn IT!!! i knew i should'nt of sold 1 of my 4870's as ill be getting my 24" Samsung monitor and ill be playing at 1920x1200.
the problem with scaling is that it's not for everyone. i, for example, if were to spend 2x the money for graphics, i'd expect 2x performance increase. or constant performance increase for all the latest games, new engine releases such as when Crysis and GTA4 were released will cause problems with multi-GPU setup. but second hand cheap add-on is another question all together. Ph4ZeD is basically getting about 5850's performance for a simple upgrade. now that's worth it.
Hmmmm. Do you have a link to some benchmarks that support this? It's my impression GX480 SLi pretty much destroys a single 5970. Also, you can't make the 5970>Quad Sli 295s> 480 SLi argument because a very key factor is scaling goes down with every GPU you add by a significant percentage. http://www.anandtech.com/show/2977/...tx-470-6-months-late-was-it-worth-the-wait-/9 480 SLi dominates the Cyrsis. http://www.anandtech.com/show/2977/...x-470-6-months-late-was-it-worth-the-wait-/10 480 SLi dominates the Battle Forge. http://www.anandtech.com/show/2977/...x-470-6-months-late-was-it-worth-the-wait-/12 480SLi dominates the HAWX http://www.anandtech.com/show/2977/...x-470-6-months-late-was-it-worth-the-wait-/13 5970 wins a couple at L4D http://www.anandtech.com/show/2977/...x-470-6-months-late-was-it-worth-the-wait-/14 480 SLi beats 5970 3 of 4 at BFBC http://www.anandtech.com/show/2977/...x-470-6-months-late-was-it-worth-the-wait-/15 480s back to dominating at Stalker COP http://www.anandtech.com/show/2977/...x-470-6-months-late-was-it-worth-the-wait-/16 480s owning Dirt2 http://www.anandtech.com/show/2977/...x-470-6-months-late-was-it-worth-the-wait-/17 480s dominating Mass Effect http://www.anandtech.com/show/2977/...x-470-6-months-late-was-it-worth-the-wait-/18 And 5970 takes Wolfenstein. That's a lot of games and the 5970 only beats 480 SLi on a couple benches. However, it really shouldn't as it costs a lot less and has different constraints as a single slot solution. If a dual Fermi card comes out it won't beat 480 SLi either.
That's why you get the 2nd card later. I might be doing that with my HD4850 soon.. Hopefully I'll get ~+50% performance, then again I'm only buying the card at about $100 anyways, -$80 from the original price.
Ph4ZeD as you got your new monitor, the Samsung 2433BW 24" (1920x1200. Could you please run them benchmarks again? Would also love some benchmarks for 3DMark 03/06 and Vantage if possible. The reason I ask this of you is because I'm building a system carbon copy to yours more or less and would like to know if going SLI, see what kind of a improvement in performance I would get. My current PC:- E8400 @ 3.8ghz, 4GB RAM, GTX 260 216 Core & Win7 64bit. Heres my current results:- 3DMark 03 3DMark 06 3DMark Vantage I will update these results when I build my i7 system, just waiting on Ram to start the build as I have everything else already. I look forward to seeing what kind of performance difference I will get from moving to a i7 system and then another patch of benchmarks to see going SLI.
Should test other games aswel as crysis. Crysis loves SLI and gives near 100% boost. Other games vary. But the scaling is fantastic these days compared to what used to be.
I wonder how a SLI of 260s would compare to a single 460 ... I already have a 260 and could get another one for 200$ whereas a single 460 would be about 240$. The cool factor of SLI however is well... very cool
