GTX 470, 295 or 285...?

[Kano]

For SLI you always need profiles (at least for Win) for good speed, therefore if you have got a monitor res that does not need 2 cards/chips in sli/multigpu mode always buy just 1 fast card.

[Shining Arcanine]

Hello all,

I'm planing to upgrade the aging 9800GTX GPU on my brand new L5530 Dev workstation (sig below)

What do you use your workstation to do and why is your current graphics card not able to do what you want it to do? Your current card is fine for the tasks most people do. I am not sure why you would want to switch to a new one.

[gilboa]

What do you use your workstation to do and why is your current graphics card not able to do what you want it to do? Your current card is fine for the tasks most people do. I am not sure why you would want to switch to a new one.

For the day to day work (software/kernel development and testing under VM), the 9800GTX is more than enough.
... But for gaming (UT2K4, X3:R/Linux, etc) - especially now that I plan to replace my 24" display with a 30" unit - the 9800GTX is over-stressed. (Especially in X3:R where I have to drop resolution in major battles).

Hence, I need a new GPU.

[kbios]

SLI is useless. I've tried it with every possible combination of options and several games and never got more fps than with a single card. Actually, usually it was far slower. I currently own two 285 GTX, and use them with separate X sessions to drive two monitors. Each of them is more than enough to max out my Phenom II 940 BE. So I think a faster card is useless unless you take a Core i7.

[deanjo]

SLI is useless. I've tried it with every possible combination of options and several games and never got more fps than with a single card. Actually, usually it was far slower. I currently own two 285 GTX, and use them with separate X sessions to drive two monitors. Each of them is more than enough to max out my Phenom II 940 BE. So I think a faster card is useless unless you take a Core i7.

Oh sli works when used with low end card. The problem is that there is nothing really in linux that pushes the graphics card hard enough for it to make a difference and you run into the CPU holding back the performance gains. Nexiuz and ET:QW do show gains but only when overclocking your cpu to insane levels and running at stupidly high resolutions providing you don't run out of video ram before hand.

[gilboa]

The machine has sufficient CPU power (2 x Xeon L5530).
... But given the general consensus concerning SLI, I decided to bite the bullet and pre-order a GTX 470.

- Gilboa