GTX260 SLi - How capable?

[Rob200sx]

I feel really out of touch with graphics cards these days, the last one i bought was an 8800gtx when they were new and its done just fine up until recently, now its starting to fail more consistently so ive picked up a couple of Inno3d GTX260's (55nm).

i understand these aren't exactly new either but was wondering just how capable these are with todays games particularly as I will of course be SLi'ing them once the extra power splitter comes through from Corsair. CPU wise am running an i7 950 (bloomfield) and 12gb of corsair xms3 ddr3 (i do a lot of image editing)

ta!

 

[Tattysnuc]

That would very much depend on the games and resolution that you play at.

In my experience SLI really only comes into it's own in resolutions above 1080P. The main constraint you'll hit will be that the 260 is not DirectX11 compliant.

For performance benchies see:

http://www.anandtech.com/print/2673 - perfomance vs a single GTX 260

and vs a GTX 470: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/292068-15-benchmarks-core

The 260 on it's own us clearly a very capable card, and from my experience with them folding, 2 of them in SLI is nearly as good as a GTX 295 in benchmarking - my ONLY issues with going down this route are:

1. Power consumption.
2. Heat (shouldn't be a problem if you only game occasionally)
3. Noise
4. Performance is driven by SLI drivers.
5. Not DirectX 11. But most games aren't so that shouldn't be a biggie.

Does that help answer your question?

 

[chipachap]

I feel really out of touch with graphics cards these days, the last one i bought was an 8800gtx when they were new and its done just fine up until recently, now its starting to fail more consistently so ive picked up a couple of Inno3d GTX260's (55nm).

i understand these aren't exactly new either but was wondering just how capable these are with todays games particularly as I will of course be SLi'ing them once the extra power splitter comes through from Corsair. CPU wise am running an i7 950 (bloomfield) and 12gb of corsair xms3 ddr3 (i do a lot of image editing)

ta!

As the guy above me says it's all about the games you play. BF3 and other new titles are DX11 but your cards are not, older games such as CoD and WoW are all DX9 or DX10 which is more suited.