Graphics card questions. Power supply, and SLI.

[Cloud121]

To all the PC gamers on the board, I could use some help. I just got back into PC gaming a few months back, as I had been out of PC gaming for roughly ten years.

I'm planning on purchasing a couple new graphics cards next spring. I'm trying to decide between Dual GTX 550 Tis, or Dual GTX 560s.

This is my current setup:

XFX nForce 780i Motherboard
XFX Core Edition Power Supply 650w
Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX6700 2.66 Ghz overclocked to 3.2 Ghz
8 GB DDR2 RAM overclocked to 1066mhz
3x nVidia GTS 250 512 MB (3-Way SLI)
Two HDDs (160GB Velociraptor, 2 TB Western Digital Caviar Green).


Here's my dilemma, as I've been trying to figure this out for months now.

I originally decided to go with Dual 550 Ti's and a dedicated sound card, as that would greatly reduce power consumption, and put less strain on my power supply. Not too mention it could potentially save me more than $100, as opposed to dual 560s. However, after comparing the cards extensively, I figured I would go with dual 560s, as their wattage consumption is very similar to my GTS 250s. Not only would dual 560s outperform my triple GTS 250s, but it would also cut down on power as well. Also, dual 550 Ti's wouldn't be much of an upgrade over my current 3-way 250 setup.

After doing some more thinking, I probably won't go the sound card route, so that's a little bit of a money saver, though not a whole lot.

As of now I've decided I want to go either dual GTX 550s, or dual GTX 560s and keep a GTS 250 in there for PhysX. My friend just recently upgraded from a GTS 250 1 GB to a GTX 560 Ti, and he told me that the GTS 250 required just one power plug, whereas his new 560 Ti required two.

Basically a very long story short: Would dual GTX 560s plus a single GTS 250 512MB be too much for my current power supply?

This is the setup I'm hoping to have this time next year:


XFX nForce 780i Motherboard
XFX Core Edition Power Supply 650w
Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9650 3.0 Ghz overclocked to 3.6 Ghz (theoretically. Based off my current overclocked settings)
8 GB DDR2 RAM overclocked to 1066mhz
Four HDDs

With the setup I have planned for next summer, what video route would you guys recommend? I don't want to have to purchase a new power supply.


I bought the computer pre-built. Though I did put in a new HDD and upgraded the RAM, I really haven't looked at my graphics cards.

[Gamevet]

Why not get a GTX 570 and overclock it a little?

Or better yet, the GTX 580?


I'm surprised those 3 video cards aren't being bottlenecked by your CPU. The less cards you have in your system, the less likely your CPU will become a bottleneck. Also, your power supply would not be enough for 2 GTX 560 ti cards. You'd need at least 750 watts. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU11/233

[NayusDante]

Count the pins on the power connectors. Some cards take 6-pin, some 8-pin, some one of each. Check what your PSU supports, and how many connectors there are.

Do you really have to have two cards? You might do better to get one more expensive card. Less power required, less heat. Also, less configuration headache to enable SLI on games. I know the AMD side requires a CrossFire profile for a game to take advantage of multiple GPUs, and I believe nVidia is similar.

What resolution are you gaming at? Look at benchmarks at that resolution, and pick what fits your price range from whatever maintains 60fps+.

My PC building philosophy is "buy only what you need now, save your money to upgrade sooner." You could blow your budget on several GTX 5-- cards, then be broke when that game you want to play next year barely runs on anything less than a GTX 650.

If you DO get some shiny new high end cards, your bottleneck will shift to the CPU and board. Core 2 Quad is a few generations behind, but still good-enough for gaming. Look at the games you want to play and see if they're more CPU or GPU bound before you go buying anything.

My last bit of advice: Power supplies don't last forever. XFX makes good stuff, but still. Don't be surprised if it dies in a few years and you have to buy a new one. If you're going to run high-power cards like those, it will strain the PSU more.

[heybtbm]

650 watts is too low for a modern gaming rig with three graphics cards. It's not even enough for two (IMO).

When you start adding each component's watt consumption the math may work out, but damn, you're cutting it close. You should be aiming in the 800-1000 watt range. Better to have more than you need and not use it than to choke the system.

The more I think about it, 650 can't possibly be enough.

[Gamevet]

This is the setup I'm hoping to have this time next year:


XFX nForce 780i Motherboard
XFX Core Edition Power Supply 650w
Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9650 3.0 Ghz overclocked to 3.6 Ghz (theoretically. Based off my current overclocked settings)
8 GB DDR2 RAM overclocked to 1066mhz
Four HDDs

With the setup I have planned for next summer, what video route would you guys recommend? I don't want to have to purchase a new power supply.



.

I would not waste your money buying a QX9650, only to overclock it to 3.6 Ghz. I have the Q9650 clocked at 3.3 Ghz (I had an unstable O.C. of 3.6) and it's worked fine for just about every game I've played, but the CPU was still pretty expensive when I'd bought it last year.

You'll pay more for that CPU, than it would cost to buy a i7-2600k and a motherboard. You could probably buy memory and a cooling system for that CPU and still have money left. The price of a QX9650 is insane!

[NayusDante]

...or save more and go AMD.

[Gamevet]

...or save more and go AMD.

AMD is so far behind the curve that it's not even worth the time. The i5-2500k (a mid-level CPU for Intel) kicks the snot out of the 6 core CPUs AMD tried to pass off as a top-tier product. Their Bulldozer CPU isn't some huge step above the current top-tier Intel CPUs either and it's only going to get farthur behind when Intel introduces their Ivy-Bridge processors.

Honestly, I look at buying an AMD CPU now, as a short term upgrade. You'd be better suited to saving your cash for what you'd really need 2 years from now. Maybe by then, AMD will have their act together.

The numbers don't lie

[Trebuken]

I would lose the dedicated Physx card. Sell your GTS's while you can get a few bucks for them. SLI if you wish but I would suggest the single GTX570 as well, leaving you open for a future GTX570 Sli. I would do this ASAP. Then save for the next cycle of Intel CPUS's and motherboards. You'll need DDR3 RAM as well which is cheap enough.

Your power supply will handle a GTX570, and or two of the lower nVidia cards, you may need pin adapters.

Then you must have an SSD or Hybrid Drive. That is my most recent upgrade and the boot times alone are awesome.

Save your old parts and gradually build up to 2 gaming PC's. One for current games and one for the games that you sometimes play.

[wingzrow]

I use a MSI N560GTX-TI Twin Frozr II.

As far as processors go I REALLY recommend the i5 2500k. It beats pretty much any and all other processors out of the water if you have a motherboard that accepts sandybridge processors.

I wouldn't even bother with anything AMD. If not the obvious problems then for the fact that most last gen emulators ( wii and PS2 ) do not support AMD as they are very much intel based programs.

[Gamevet]

I would lose the dedicated Physx card. Sell your GTS's while you can get a few bucks for them. SLI if you wish but I would suggest the single GTX570 as well, leaving you open for a future GTX570 Sli. I would do this ASAP. Then save for the next cycle of Intel CPUS's and motherboards. You'll need DDR3 RAM as well which is cheap enough.

Your power supply will handle a GTX570, and or two of the lower nVidia cards, you may need pin adapters.

Then you must have an SSD or Hybrid Drive. That is my most recent upgrade and the boot times alone are awesome.

Save your old parts and gradually build up to 2 gaming PC's. One for current games and one for the games that you sometimes play.

Truth!

I'm running (2) GTX 460s in sli and Mafia II benchmarks kill it with physics enabled, even with the cards overclocked to 825 Mhz.

Buy a GTX 570, overclock it and save some cash for a better system that you could build for dirt cheap in a year or 2, using some of the parts from your old system.

You would need at least an 800 watt power-supply to SLI (2) GTX 560 ti videocards and a slight boost on your CPU overclock to even handle it on the more intense games. You're better off using a single (more powerful) card that you could use with your current power-supply.

The only reason I have a PC gaming rig with an LGA 775 motherboard, is because I had bought the Q9650 for my HP computer that had a single PCI-E16 slot. I found the sli board for $70 and I already had a 500 gig HDD laying around, so I dropped the Q9650 in that system and another GTX 460. The perfomance is solid, but I already know that in another year or 2, this system won't be able to keep up with software designed for Sandy-Bridge and i7 CPUs. I probably could have spent another $250 and had a more future-proof setup.

Metro 2033 was the first game that pushed my CPU to the limits. It didn't matter what kind of overclock or settings I did, I'd get about the same frame-rate using the benchmark tool. I opened up MSI afterburner and discovered my cards were only running at 70%, because my quad-core CPU was maxing out.

[BetaWolf47]

Honestly, the best advice I can give you is to wait a few months for the new lines of CPUs to come out. They use a smaller manufacturing tech, and will therefore use less power than the current line of graphics cards. The new Radeon HD 7970 was just revealed yesterday, and it performs above the GTX 580 and uses 34W less energy than it. The GTX 600 series will hopefully feature similarly improved power efficiency.

650W is cutting it pretty close on triple SLI. Two GTX 570s in SLI use 579W according to Anandtech. I can't imagine two GTX 560's or two GTX 550's plus a GTX 250 will be that much better. I'd recommend just a single GTX 580 or Radeon HD 7970. If you're set on SLI, wait on the (hopefully) more power efficient GTX 600 cards first.