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should i swap 2 9800gx2's for 2 gtx 260's

Truebrit

Truebrit

Truebrit

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25 Apr 2009
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I currently have 2 9800gx2's but quad sli has never worked properly,so i'm thinking of swapping them for 2 gtx 260's which i can get for a straight swap with the company i bought my pc from.What do you think?
 
Yeah. One 260 will be give or take as fast as a single 9800GX2, so two will be about as fast as two 9800GX2s, without the SLi issues or heat.
 
reflux said:
Yeah. One 260 will be give or take as fast as a single 9800GX2, so two will be about as fast as two 9800GX2s, without the SLi issues or heat.
Click to expand...

Well i had SLI 8800GTX's ( about the same speed as a 9800GX2 ) and i swapped them both for a GTX 280. I was pretty unimpressed really although i did have less of a room heater afterwards. in most cases the GTX 280 was slightly slower than the SLI setup, so a GTX 260 certainly will be.

I think if you went from SLI 9800GX2 to SLI GTX260 youd be dissappointed really
 
MeatLoaf said:
Well i had SLI 8800GTX's ( about the same speed as a 9800GX2 ) and i swapped them both for a GTX 280. I was pretty unimpressed really although i did have less of a room heater afterwards. in most cases the GTX 280 was slightly slower than the SLI setup, so a GTX 260 certainly will be.

I think if you went from SLI 9800GX2 to SLI GTX260 youd be dissappointed really
Click to expand...

Wait, if an 8800GTX is the same speed as a 9800GX2, and he has two 9800GX2's, then that means his setup is similar to yours. If you went to a single 280 and noticed a slight performance drop, surely that means that SLI 260's should be an increase in performance?
 
I went from one 9800GX2 to a 280 and thought the diffrerence was amazing. Just depends how much money you have and what sort of difference you are looking for.

What res do you game at?

Why not look for some 2nd hand 280s and sli them. They can be had for sub £180 now.
 
A single 260GTX will be slightly slower than a single 9800GX2 in many games - but in some games it will be faster, its also a much better architecture with better image/color quality and when idle runs much more efficently heat, noise and power wise.

Swapping to a 260GTX SLI setup would show big gains at higher resolutions - but if your playing at 1680x or below you probably won't need the 2nd card.

I went 8800GT SLI->260GTX->260GTX SLI playing at 2048x res and I don't regret it one bit.
 
D D Danneh said:
Wait, if an 8800GTX is the same speed as a 9800GX2, and he has two 9800GX2's, then that means his setup is similar to yours. If you went to a single 280 and noticed a slight performance drop, surely that means that SLI 260's should be an increase in performance?
Click to expand...

A 9800GX2 is two downclocked 9800GTXs on one card, so it's roughly double as fast as an 8800GTX, although its difficult to compare due to the differences between the 8800 and 9800 architecture (small bus, but faster clocks etc.).
 
2 x 260gtx'x afaik is about on par with 1 gtx 295, albeit slightly under. That's very fast, you can't get that much faster than that, save tri sli 285gtx's or dual 4890's.
 
D D Danneh said:
Wait, if an 8800GTX is the same speed as a 9800GX2, and he has two 9800GX2's, then that means his setup is similar to yours. If you went to a single 280 and noticed a slight performance drop, surely that means that SLI 260's should be an increase in performance?
Click to expand...

He had two 8800GTs, up to one 280

As opposed to two 9800GX2s (4 9800s, in theory) up to two 260s.

I think it will make a difference, quad SLI doesn't scale as well as 2 card solutions. From the look of things a 9800GX2 is slightly better than a 260, but the 260s should scale a little better (the 3rd and 4th 9800 GPU aren't doing as much good)

If nothing else, when you come to sell the 260s should go for more than the 9800gx2s :-)
 
If you could afford sli 9800GX2's why doesn't he get a 295gtx? possibly two of them :P

MeatLoaf said:
Well i had SLI 8800GTX's ( about the same speed as a 9800GX2 ) and i swapped them both for a GTX 280. I was pretty unimpressed really although i did have less of a room heater afterwards. in most cases the GTX 280 was slightly slower than the SLI setup, so a GTX 260 certainly will be.

I think if you went from SLI 9800GX2 to SLI GTX260 youd be dissappointed really
Click to expand...

A 260GTX can be made to run the same speeds as a 280GTX and wityh two of them would effectively be twice the performance of SLI 8800GTX or 9800GX2. Of course it never works that way, but is therotical. As sli 8800GTX = 280GTX.

:EDIT:

Oo i didn;'t see he had two of them. I suspect sli 280GTX is still faster then sli 9800GX2 tbh.
 
8igdave said:
If you could afford sli 9800GX2's why doesn't he get a 295gtx? possibly two of them :P



A 260GTX can be made to run the same speeds as a 280GTX and wityh two of them would effectively be twice the performance of SLI 8800GTX or 9800GX2. Of course it never works that way, but is therotical. As sli 8800GTX = 280GTX.

:EDIT:

Oo i didn;'t see he had two of them. I suspect sli 280GTX is still faster then sli 9800GX2 tbh.
Click to expand...

Because he said in his post that he can do a straight swap for the 260s - i.e. free.
 
Definitely do it, the gtx260 even if it ends ups slower than a gx2 in the worse case scenario, sli scales much better than quad sli so in the end, you'll have a much better setup.
 
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