Graphics Why must decisions be so hard! (SLI advice).

So, I'm not after some seaweed that Nvidia have fashioned into graphics cards or anything that would do enough folding to find a cure for aids in 4.387 seconds, i'm after something with a little more 'subtley explosive'.

I'm currently gathering parts for an upcoming build, which will feature the cpu and mobo in my sig (not the ram, it really doesn't like being ran at non-native speeds which makes overclocking a nightmare and will be replaced with something more appropriate), but my poor old 460 just doesn't quite cut it. The whole build will have a general theme of being a bit 'old school', what with it being a 775 setup and there will be no ssd, just my raptor and a larger storage drive. possibly even a floppy! But what to replace my 460 with that stays with the general theme???

Now 2 460's in sli are fairly formidable, but with the increasing demand for vram in recent games 1gb wont be enough for longevity. there 2gb versions out there, but they're quite pricey due to their rarity nowadys so i gave up on that.

You can get 2gb non Ti 560's for a very reasonable £140-150, giving you 672 cores with 2gb vram for about £300! 560's are essentially 460's with higher clocks off less go-go juice so would fit with the theme. Then i spy the 480 on scan for £180. definately oldschool with a very healthy 960 cores for £360, but just the 1.5gb. i just couldn't decide!

Now all of a sudden a complete spanner is thrown in the works. I have an opportunity to get 2 GTX 560Ti 448 for under £300. but. they're not what i'd call old school so i'm not sure how well they'd go witht the overall theme and it'd be the least amount of vram of the lot. but they are an absolute bargain!

The cards will be watercooled (which will pretty much hide the fact there's slightly more modern gfx cards in there) along with cpu, nb, sb, and vrm. I've had my q6600 up to 3.3 on my p5k-e and i'm hopin my striker ii will get it higher, especially once i've got the ram sorted and the bios flashed to the extreme version and some serious cooling.

At the moment the highest res i play at is 1080, but will be getting a 1920x 1200 monitor soon.

My question boils down to this:
2 x GTX 560 2GB (672 cores total) for £300 approx OR
2 x GTX 480 1.5GB (960 cores total) £360 OR
2 x GTX 560Ti 448 1.28GB (896 Cores total) under £300

Help me please!

p.s. There's also a disticnt possiblilty of going tri-sli (in the case of the 560 it'd be just a physx card for the games that support it). i mean, i've got 3 pci-e slots that all run at x16, so why not!?

 

Yeh the cpu is probably the biggest bottleneck at the minute and i would LOVE some i5 goodness, but that's for another day and another build, when i can afford to spank out on a completely new system. most of my money on this one will be spent on the case mods and watercooling setup.

Besides, it's all about the old school cool, so i'm leaning towards the 480's. do you think i'd see much performance boost from 1 480 to 2 with my currently cpu?

 

I'll have 3 240 rads, 2 for the gfx, so should be plenty. i know that getting the best single card i can would most likely give the best performance and be the sensible option, but modding isn't about being sensible though is it? I think I'm gonna go for the 2 480's. They may be lacking in ram and get out performed by the latest gear, butthey're sure gonna look sweet for what I have planned

 

They'll be ordered on monday when i get paid then all i have to do is.... well,...... everything! lol

 

But then again.....

So, I was really happy with my decision to go for 2 480's. Till earlier this afternoon that is. sitting in my rocking chair watching the Maylasian GP highlights on iplayer. I glanced down to my pc as one of the HD's was making a racket and happened to ponder on my PSU. 620W. 480's in SLI and 620W. 480's in SLI and....... far-canal bar-stewrds! That's never going to be enough. Is it?

A quick check on Enermax's PSU calculator revealed no, no it would definitely not. Now i will need a more beefy PSU in the near fututre to run the watercooling loop off, but i'd want 850W at the very least, if not a 100W for longevity and future upgrades, so i'd be looking at £200 for that.

After a quick look round and for the price of 2 480's, I could get a 3GB 580 or a 7950! So i'll be waiting for the lower-end kippers, see which give best 'bang for buck' at about £350 and get me one of those. It'll give better longevity and I can always get another at a later date for SLI/Crossfire set-up if i want.

And yes bdigital, i know you said this a long time ago! lol