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2x GTX285 SLI or GTX295 + 9800GT for Physx

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As title says. I know 2 GTX285's a more powerful that a GTX295 but I game at 1920x1080 so will i really need the power of 2 285's?
 
No, a GTX285 on its own will kill any game at that res (Except Crysis lol) if your into benchmarking then yeah get 2, or another one, not sure if you actually have one or not?

You dont say what processor your running either, it may not be able to keep up with the two of them :)
 
Yeah, there's no need for two cards really except in Crysis. Adding a 9800GT just for PhysX is a waste of time too.
 
Well that'll be able to keep up :) but yeah, at the end of the day 1 285 will be enough, and you can get them at a good price on here now, i think its 234.99 inc VAT for a BFG OCX.
 
Tough one really, depends how often you upgrade and if DX11 is important to you. Me personally i would get the 285, as the GT300 isn't to far away, it'll be DX11 and by the time it is released no doubt there will be DX11 titles avaliable.

However should you not be looking to upgrade for a few years yet then get the 295 if you got the cash.
 
A 295 is 2x 285 chipsets on the same PCB though... its the same card. A 295 runs in SLI mode because it does have 2 seperate GPU's.

You're pretty much saying shall I get a 295 or a 295 lol.

Don't forget if you upgrate to SLI you may experience micro stutter, depends how 'touchy' you are and how lucky you are though.

If your a hard core gamer then get a 295, otherwise stick with a single 285 because as said the only game that really uses more than a 285 is Crysis, even a 295 or 2x 285's will even struggle in Crysis.

If you want to run crysis at max EVERYTHING and keep a steady 60+ FPS then even 2 x 295's probably won't achieve it perfectly, if thats your aim, then you will be better off waiting for the 300 series.

If looking at getting either 2x 285's or a single 295, even though its the same thing, get the 295, first because it should work out cheaper, and secondly because it will draw less power then 2 seperate cards.

As for a seperate Physx card you also have to bare in mind, every graphics/physx card draws more power. Is your PSU powerful enough?

You also have to bare in mind the Physx card will only benifit you if a game supports physx, otherwise its just going to sit there doing nothing. With a 295 or even a 285, having a seperate physx card probably won't make much difference anyway because the cards are more than capable of handling the 'simple' physx that exist today. Remember Physx is only in its birth stage and there isn't a lot of benifits to having a dedicated card other than maybe 1 extra frame (+1fps).
 
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No it's not, the 295 is more akin to two 260s because it uses a 448-bit memory bus and each GPU only has 896mb of RAM.
 
Depending on your useage a single 285GTX will give you playable fps at 1920x with high or max settings in pretty much anything... but if you either like to max out FSAA something silly or play a lot of games online and like constant very high framerates for that purpose (I know I do) then deffinatly go for an SLI setup... 295GTX alone would be overkill but... if you have the extra money then the 285GTX setup with the extra VRAM wouldn't go amiss.

Forget about another card of physics at the moment... simply nothing out there now or the immediate future uses physx enough that a 295GTX or 285 SLI setup can't absorb the extra physics workload with very little penalty to rendering performance if any.

295GTX is closest to 2x 275GTX but downclocked a bit.
 
No it's not, the 295 is more akin to two 260s because it uses a 448-bit memory bus and each GPU only has 896mb of RAM.

Wrong. It's actually 2x 280 GPU's on one card.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/graphics/review/2009/01/09/nVidia-GeForce-GTX-295/p1

"If nVidia put two GTX 280 chips on one card, wouldn't that be faster?". Well, today that's precisely what we're going to find out."

9760-comparison.gif



Agreed the memory interface isn't exactly 'x2' but the core, stream processors ect, are all x2, it IS 2x 280's, just made 'slightly' differently.

I suppose coupe69 is probably about right that it is 2x 275's, but when they made the 295, 275 didnt exist.

But what the hell, its all 200 series GPU's anyway, its all the same lol, they are just clocked differently and given a few extra memory chips lol :)

When it comes to the memory side of the graphics cards, yes, its 2x 260's, but the core, including stream processors are 2x 280 - its like a mix of both.



Custom PC say it better:

"Called the GeForce GTX 295, Nvidia’s new dual-GPU card is a halfway meeting between a dual GTX 280 and a dual GTX 260 card. In terms of stream processors, it has the equivalent of two GTX 280 GPUs, with a total count of 480 stream processors, or 240 per GPU. However, the clock speeds have more in common with the GTX 260."

http://www.custompc.co.uk/news/605352/nvidia-announces-geforce-gtx-295.html
 
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The 295 is a hybrid card, it has the SP's of the 285 and the memory configuration of the 275

So essentially the 295 is two 275's in one box.

Two GTX285's would be more powerful than a 295.
 
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I'm Maxing out Crysis Warhead @1920x1200 Enthusiast 4xAA with 2 GTX275s in SLI, and The 4GHz i7 920 bundle.

I'd recommend 2 GTX275's over the 295 due to the higher clock speeds compared to the GTX295. (And more overclocking potential if that's not enough). Unless you can find GTX285s very cheap I'd suggest the the performance increase between a pair of GTX275s and a pair of GTX285s is not worth it.
 
I have a 285GTX and ive yet to find anything it couldn't handle at 1900x1200. Though im yet to try crysis on it. Going to go round my mates and ***** it... hes on holiday :) lol.
 
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