SLi is fail. need a single card.

[matty-hodgson]

right, i've got my 2 GTX260s in SLi and they can't even run the new CoD on full settings at anywhere near a decent framerate. but if i remove 1 card the framerate does improve but not enough, so what i'm wanting is a decent single card that is better than a GTX260.

which graphics card should i buy to replace these 2 GTX260s?
i've been offered £110 each for the cards from someone at sixth form so that gives me up to £220 for a new card. please bear in mind that my resolution is 2048*1152 so a big memory size is pretty much a necessity.

CAT-THE-FIFTH, help?

also, with all the new CUDA and stuff like that, am i best to stay with nVidia or go over to the red team?
also, i'd quite like to be able to crunch out some big numbers for the folding team so take that into consideration between the teams
suggestions welcome

the main card i've been looking at is the GTX275, around £180 and better performance than a GTX280 by a decent amount.

[GoNz0]

what version video drivers are you running ?

[matty-hodgson]

i upgraded to 195.62 yesterday to see if that helped but it didn't. or not much, anyway. i'm assuming you asked cos the new drivers have support for SLi in CoD?

[GoNz0]

yes m8, thats why i asked.

i would check some performance reviews b4 you commit to a new card as it may need a patch or 2 to speed things up

[matty-hodgson]

yes m8, thats why i asked.

i would check some performance reviews b4 you commit to a new card as it may need a patch or 2 to speed things up

it's not just performance i'm bothered about though, i'm also pretty sick of hearing the fan on the top card. because of the airflow being a bit restricted because of the SLi the top card gets pretty hot and the fans ramp themselves right up and it's pretty loud. so i was hoping that having 1 card would produce a lot less heat and possibly save me some money too, cos a GTX275 is only £175

[GoNz0]

can't fault you then, i hate fan noise

[matty-hodgson]

been looking at ATi and DX11 seems pretty interesting. are any of the last generation ATi cards any good?

http://www.dabs.com/products/sapphir...-dvi-662D.html

that card seems to be about twice the performance of a GTX260 in most reviews i've read, i can't quite work out if that's against a 192 or a 216 though, but still, bloody good card from what i can see.

[badass]

been looking at ATi and DX11 seems pretty interesting. are any of the last generation ATi cards any good?

http://www.dabs.com/products/sapphir...-dvi-662D.html

that card seems to be about twice the performance of a GTX260 in most reviews i've read, i can't quite work out if that's against a 192 or a 216 though, but still, bloody good card from what i can see.

The last gen cards are similar performance to the GTX 260. I wouldn't bother with crossfire as like SLI it's a waste of time and money. The 5850 should be up to scratch but att 5000 series cards are impossible to get hold of right now. They are out of stock everywhere.

[matty-hodgson]

i'll be upgrading after christmas anyway, i'm just leaving myself a good margin of time to make sure i make the right decision.
the 5850 at £180 - £200 mark seems pretty good though
and Dabs do that Quidco thing too don't they? how does that work?

[PeterStoba]

i'll be upgrading after christmas anyway, i'm just leaving myself a good margin of time to make sure i make the right decision.
the 5850 at £180 - £200 mark seems pretty good though
and Dabs do that Quidco thing too don't they? how does that work?

Go to the quidco site, login, find dabs on there (http://www2.quidco.com/dabs-com/) click visit retailer, buy stuff, sit back and wait for money.

Personally, my dabs cashback has never worked, but other's has.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would first check if you can solve the problem with a game patch or even using an earlier driver release. Perhaps the drivers have not installed properly or something like that.

OTH,the HD5850 is your best bet to replace the setup with a single card and not spend any extra money if possible. The HD5850 is faster than a GTX285 in most games and also has DX11.

[Rollo]

The last gen cards are similar performance to the GTX 260. I wouldn't bother with crossfire as like SLI it's a waste of time and money. The 5850 should be up to scratch but att 5000 series cards are impossible to get hold of right now. They are out of stock everywhere.

I've only been running SLi since 2004, and can tell you it hasn't been a "waste of time and money".

OP:

http://www.techspot.com/article/219-...nce/page5.html

The benchmarks here show that:
a. The new Call of Duty scales very well with both SLi and CF.
b. You'll be taking a big step backwards in this game running it with any non SLi/CF card(s) compared to your GTX260 SLi. I'd stick with that. It's more than powerful enough to take you through this year.

Edit:
I just noticed you'd only be going from 73>84fps at 19X12 4XAA if you bought a GTX275 or HD5850, compared to just disabling SLi altogether if you can't make it work with this game. (you can set the SLi mode to "0" in the profile to do this)
So it's really not worth your time or expense to upgrade at all unless you're going to get a 5970. If you do that you'll miss out on the CUDA, PhysX, and 3d Vision.

[spac3d]

Latest nvidia gefoce 200 series drivers says.......

•Adds SLI and multi-GPU support for many top new gaming titles including Borderlands, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, FIFA Soccer 10, and more.

[badass]

I've only been running SLi since 2004, and can tell you it hasn't been a "waste of time and money".

You're loaded and more likely than not actually like tinkering your system to get it to work, rather than it just working properly in the first place.
THE OP is fed up with messing arount trying to get it to work and also isn't loaded. Ergo Crossfire and SLI are a waste of time and money.

[matty-hodgson]

You're loaded and more likely than not actually like tinkering your system to get it to work, rather than it just working properly in the first place.
THE OP is fed up with messing arount trying to get it to work and also isn't loaded. Ergo Crossfire and SLI are a waste of time and money.

yes precisely. i just want a card that can run all my games and just work. instead of needing to disable SLi or remove a card completely to get any decent framerates out of the bloody thing :\

i think i'll just revive the thread when i have the money tbh, see what's what in a month or so
cheers all.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

yes precisely. i just want a card that can run all my games and just work. instead of needing to disable SLi or remove a card completely to get any decent framerates out of the bloody thing :\

i think i'll just revive the thread when i have the money tbh, see what's what in a month or so
cheers all.

If you sell your existing cards you could get an HD5850 1GB if you want to stay with a single card. OTH,you could keep one GTX260 card for the time being.