Widescreen Gaming Forum

How about this. Coming from 2 GTX260's what would you guys recommend as a "worthwhile" upgrade? I've read some stuff on this forum about people running into problems because of the VRAM? If that's the case, what do you guys think about a pair of GTX460's, the 2GB model? Tax return is coming so my budget has been extended a little bit. I want to stay with nVidia. Another thing i have to consider is i have a Corsair 750TX PSU.

You have to watch because there is now a version of the GTX 460 with just a 192-bit memory bus floating around and these are a lot cheaper than the standard 256-bit. The more narrow memory bus will contribute to poor performance over the texture fill rate and when using any anti-aliasing. Look at it this way: ATi started using a 256-bit memory bus in 2002 with the Radeon 9700 Pro.

A 2GB framebuffer will definitely help prevent memory being the bottleneck at a high resolution. I don't know what the exact performance difference is, but the GTX 460 outperforms the GTX 260 for sure. The GTX 460 also supports DirectX 11 while the GTX 260 does not. That alone makes it worthwhile in my opinion. I would give a serious look at the GTX 560 Ti, though. It would be a substantial upgrade from the GTX 260 for only $50 more than a GTX 460. Palit makes a 2GB version of the GTX 560 for $20 more than the 1GB models. Here's my situation: as you can see under my profile I am currently running SLI'd 8800GTXs and I would like to replace them with a single GTX 560 Ti.

Honestly if you have dual GTX 260's a GTX 460 even SLI would be about a 5-7% gain period. Remember the GTX 460 1gb = GTX 275 in actual performance so It wouldn't be a worthwhile cost. If i where you, id look into a GTX 560 Ti they can be found for 250 online and in most places in the states and its also significantly faster.

Ok, so that 560 from Palit looks good, under the power requirements it says Minimum 500W or greater system power supply (with a minimum 12V current rating of 30A), with my 750w PSU, would that be able to power 2 of those 560's? Or am i looking at having to purchase a new PSU if i upgrade to two of those 560's?

you will need a new PSU also your 9850BE will bottleneck a GTX 560 you already arnt getting full preformance from a GTX 260 SLI. Gigabyte has a bios update for AM3 CPU's.

Your board with the newest bios will support the AMD PHenom II X6 1090T and lower, Phenom II x4 965 and lower, I would highly suggest getting at least a Phenom II x4 965 if you want to take advtange of dual GTX 560's, or go for the 1090T. If you leave your 9850BE you will be bottlenecked severly even at extreme resolutions, your CPU simply wont be able to feed enough data

I was running GTX460 SLI and a 1090T on a 620w PSU with no issues. I'd be tempted to say that 750w should cope with GTX560 SLI, but YMMV.

you will need a new PSU also your 9850BE will bottleneck a GTX 560 you already arnt getting full preformance from a GTX 260 SLI. Gigabyte has a bios update for AM3 CPU's.

Your board with the newest bios will support the AMD PHenom II X6 1090T and lower, Phenom II x4 965 and lower, I would highly suggest getting at least a Phenom II x4 965 if you want to take advtange of dual GTX 560's, or go for the 1090T. If you leave your 9850BE you will be bottlenecked severly even at extreme resolutions, your CPU simply wont be able to feed enough data

I think I will upgrade my CPU, the Phenom II x4 965 looks good. I found an interesting article about the power consumption for the GTX 560 SLI http://guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-560-ti-sli-review/14. According to that I MAY be able to squeak by with the 750W. What do you think?

if you plan to OC id go for at least an 850