Streaming via showplay on 2nd/3rd card

[Marcvs]

Hi Guys (&Gals)

I currently have 2x GTX480s, If I was to buy something like a 750Ti and swap one of the GTX480s out for it, could I then play my games via the GTX480s, but use the shadowplay on the 750Ti to compress and encode for streaming (720p/1080p, say 5Mbps) while I capture using Fraps or something similar in ultra high res (usually lossless, 1440p)

[scaryjim]

So - you'd be playing on one GTX480 and streaming via a 750Ti? Or you'd have both 480s *and* a 750Ti?

Because frankly, a 750Ti isn't far off as fast as your 480 anyway: http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1135?vs=1130

I don't have any compatible cards so I can't say for sure, but looking at the nvidia pages I'd guess it works by capturing the output of the video card directly as its rendering/compositing and compressing/saving that, so I suspect you'd have to be running the game on the 600/700 series card for it to work.

Were I in your position, I think I'd be looking to replace both 480s with a single card - maybe a GTX760, or ideally a 670/680 (if you can find one in stock anywhere ). You'll recoup most of the cost difference by selling the 480s, you'll avoid the (admittedly now minimal) pitfalls of inconsistent SLI scaling, you'll lose very little in performance, and you'll definitely have no issues with shadowplay. The other option - if you have three PCIe X16 slots - would be to grab a GT640 for < £60 which will let you test whether shadowplay will work through a 3rd card without the relatively high expenditure on a 750Ti.

[EDIT] p.s. it also looks to me like shadowplay will simultaneously capture *and* stream, so I would assume it will capture in whatever format you want it to but then stream in a more suitably compressed format. Could be wrong though...

[Marcvs]

The GTX480s probably massacre the 750Ti in rendering etc which is why i kept them - How much you think a 480 sells for these days.

PPS Im trying to hold out for 800 series high end, and was looking at something cheapish as a tieover tillt hen (I thought a 750ti was £50 actually )

[scaryjim]

The GTX480s probably massacre the 750Ti in rendering etc which is why i kept them - How much you think a 480 sells for these days.

PPS Im trying to hold out for 800 series high end, and was looking at something cheapish as a tieover till then (I thought a 750ti was £50 actually )

If by rendering you mean anything compute heavy then the 480s will massacre most of the 6, 7, and probably 8 series anyway, since they've been heavily gimped on compute performance. If you want good compute you need to shell out the huge premium for Titan

Sadly I suspect the 480s would only go for around £50 each - a £112 Radeon R7 265 (basically a rebranded 7850) beats the 480 on almost every benchmark (gaming and compute) on anandtech bench: http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1127?vs=1135 - and of course the GTX570 and GTX580 come into consideration for people looking for better compute than the 6/7 series can provide.

Best bet is to hunt out benchmarks for the software you use most often and compare across generations. It sounds like your use case isn't entirely straightforward, so it's best to do plenty of research before you buy. I'm afraid for now though, it looks like you might be best off sticking where you are and doing without shadowplay for the time being...

[Marcvs]

Its mostly after effects/premiere pro for the compute performance - but yes Id heard how gimped the 5/6/7 series were on movie render performance - Interestingly Bandicam CUDA enabled Recording works an absolute treat - its just a shame the quality is a little bit crappy.

I think i picked the 480s up for £120ish each

tldr: even the titan felt gimped for compute performance - 1x titan wasnt much more than 10-12% faster on a render than my dual gtx480s (i borrowed one ofr a few days)