Changing from 2x4850 (crossfire) to a single GTX260 (216)

[Biglunn]

Am I mad?

If I was to sell both 4850`s I reckon I can get around £160, which would be enough to get the nVidia card. Am I to expect a significant drop in gaming performance? - Im not sure if crossfire really gives much improvement in performance and in real world scenarios there probably isnt much difference. I game mainly at 1920x1200

Im keen on the benefits of graphics card video encoding acceleration (eg CUDA enabled TMPGenc) and perhaps quieter and more electricity efficient.

 

[Rroff]

260 is certainly quieter and less power hungry... performance wise you might lose a bit but the performance you get would be more consistant.

 

[Biglunn]

Rroff, I certainly agree with your words - a single card generally is more consistent than a dual card setup.

My crossfire cards have been utterly reliable and stable, but as I use my PC as a HTPC as well, it needs to be a touch quieter. I dont game too much these days either. Im kinda torn between a 1gb 4870 or a GTX260, but the physics and encoding accelleration of the nVidia card is swaying me.

One other thing - the ATI card has native HDMI output, whereas the nvidia cards need a feed from the sound card to HDMI - is that trouble free?

Cheers in advance.

 

[Rroff]

If your playing HDCP content it will be a problem as it tends to break compatibility unless you use something like anyDVD HD. Other than that the HDMI dongle is fairly trouble free.