Video card opinions..

**BrokenApe** · 05-12-10, 06:13 AM

Hey, I'm looking for opinions on going from SLI with 2x 8800 GTXs to a single card so that I can free up some real estate on the motherboard for things like a sound card, killer nic, etc has anyone done this to things like one of the ati 5000 series, or nvidia gtx 200 series and noticed compareable performance?

**Warprosper** · 05-12-10, 06:49 AM

2x 8800 = 1 Gtx270

1 ATI 5870 > Gtx 285

Buy 5870

**Mad_Hatter** · 05-12-10, 08:10 AM

War is right. Get the 5870 you will see a nice increase in fps. As long as you have a good processor along with it.

**Mcstrange** · 05-12-10, 09:54 AM

You dont want a Nvida 2x0 anything,

Your single card options are:
ATI 5850 - Fast enough to run anything you want at 1920x1200 with good levels of eye candy
ATI 5870 - Fast enough to run most anything at 2560x1600 with good levels of eye candy
ATI 5970 - Dual GPU single slot card, Fastest Single slot option you can currently buy. 2560x1600 in just about everything with all the eye candy you can stand.

NVidia 470 - Fast enough to run anything you want at 1920x1200 with good levels of eye candy
NVidia 480 - Fast enough to run most anything at 2560x1600 with good levels of eye candy

Personally for your request ape I would recommend the ATI 5870 or the Nvidia 480. The 5870 being the better choice IMHO, it is cheaper and in many games faster than the 480, plus it is quieter, produces less heat and will cost you less in electricity if that sort of thing matters to you.

**Kanati** · 05-12-10, 04:50 PM

I would say the best bang for the buck right now is the 5850... but the 5870 is going to be a bit better for the long haul. The 5970 is a monster but you are also going to spend 700 dollars on it.

If *I* were upgrading right now... I'd go with multiple 5850s. But that's just me and I don't mind more than one card. Single card... 5870.

**psychonitrous** · 05-12-10, 04:57 PM

I would recommend against the GTX 260... as I and have seen others have heat issues with the card and have to manually set the fan speed in Ntune for it to run correctly.

**619summon** · 05-12-10, 05:21 PM

Originally Posted by psychonitrous

I would recommend against the GTX 260... as I and have seen others have heat issues with the card and have to manually set the fan speed in Ntune for it to run correctly.

i back this up, i basicly have to run my 260 fan at 100% when gaming. but i like my card cool. they say you can run at much higher temps. anything over 55 is to much for me.

if i ran the fan at auto specs the temps would be like 65-75

**BrokenApe** · 05-12-10, 06:22 PM

atm, the CPU is an E6850 dual core and with 4 gigs of ram, I've seen the 58++ series along with the 200+ series go for semi-reasonable prices either used or new so likely to be one of those, they're also apparently a bit smaller then the 400+ series invidia, hell their cheaper anyhere I see them for sale *grimace* so that means it'll be one or the other of those series I think

**roadhog0** · 05-12-10, 08:59 PM

My 8800GT has heating issues also... Things starts to freak at 60C, I ALWAYS have the fan on 100% when im gaming. I think a Nvidia 470 would be a good card.

**Mad_Hatter** · 05-13-10, 09:39 AM

The e6850 is pretty good for an older chip. I think you will see a little bottle neck if your cpu is as stock. If you upgrade to a 5870 or 4xx series card you might want to give your processor a good overclock. I hear the e6850 is a good overclocker so you should be good as long as you have decent cooling.

The GTX 4xx series is known to run pretty hot right now, and they seem to perform on par or slightly better with the 5870.