SLI question

[smogsy]

you may remember my thread, about if going to a single GPU solution, because sli seems poor on the games i play.

everyone recommended a 480GTX to replace my 280GTX SLI

i was thinking, as i've heard of this somewhere

can you SLI two different cards or do they have to be the same model/series?

also if you cant SLI, would it be worth keeping a 280GTX as a physx card?

that way the physx would be taken off the 480 & give me more FPS?

(this for 2560x1600 remember)

 

[cmndr_andi]

Hi there

Are you having any performance issues that would require a graphics card upgrade?

In terms of average framerate a GTX 280 SLI setup should be slightly better than a GTX 480 in most cases - but the minimum framerates will be better for the GTX 480. However, it is a very large cost for such a small upgrade IMHO.

As for having a PhysX card, personally I am not that sold on it - and depending on your existing PSU you may need a new PSU to power both cards together.

 

[smogsy]

its just latest games are struggling a little, currently playing at 1920x1200 till my 30" gets repaired.

i started buying more new games and playing Single player that i do not normally do.
Currently bought:
Mafia II
Worms Reloaded
Dragon Age Origins
Bad Company 2

For Example
Mafia II - All Maxed Expect Physx on medium - I get 35-60FPS. now when i play this on my 30" at 2560x1600 i'm not going to have a hope in hell am i?

i do like to Max all my games, so i was just wondering on the following:

Sell 280GTX Buy 480GTX And SLI them or run 480GTX with 280GTX as Physx.

PS my PSU is 1000w Cosair should be more than capable?

i know there is not a lot of games that use physx but no point selling both is there when i could use it for games that do?


or alternatively wait for 580GTX

 

[cmndr_andi]

Aye, your PSU should be fine.

I should have mentioned in my first post that you can only SLI cards of the same model. For example an ASUS GTX 480 will SLI with a EVGA GTX 480, but not with an ASUS GTX 460.

However, you can run any Nvidia graphics card (8000 series or better) alongside a primary Nvidia graphics card of another type if it is used as a dedicated PhysX card. Therefore running a GTX 480 as the primary video card and a GTX 280 as a PhysX card would work fine.