550 Ti doesn't SLI with 560 Ti. You need two identical GPUs to enable SLI. Why would you want SLI anyway? Two reasons why not: 1. your CPU can't handle it, 2. a fast single GPU is a much better option than two mediocre GPUs
Yeah I'm afraid that you cant SLI different models of GPU's like 550Ti with 560Ti, btw your CPU would be seriously bottlenecking those two GPU's!
Yep, can't sli a 550 Ti and a 560 Ti. Even so, even 550 Ti SLI can't match a single 560 Ti. Sad bad true about the 550 Ti. So you'd be better off buying a single 560 Ti and overclock your E8400 to remove some bottleneck
No, I thought I was clear: - Sli 2 550ti OR - 1 550ti and 1 560ti NON-Sli setup But going by comments, a single 560 added is the best road, so thanks for clearing that up!
If you mean using the 560 Ti as your primary card then using the 550 Ti as a PhysX card then by all means that is good. But if you want to get a nice performance boost then go with SLI 560 Ti's. Though SLI 560 Ti's would get a significant bottleneck due to your dual core processor. You get no performance boost whatsover by putting in 2 cards that are not in SLI except by utilizing the other card for PhysX. 560? Or do you mean 560 Ti
Care to explain? Maybe you forget to see that not everyone can just get the top of the line current PC-goods...
You said "going by comments, a single 560 added is the best road". No one said any such comments, you made that up yourself. On the contrary, everyone recommended against adding another graphics card that you can't SLI the 550 Ti with. You also didn't answer my question - why would you want SLI anyway? Or why would you want two graphics cards with no SLI functionality? What exactly do you use your PC for? And you ignored my warning that your CPU couldn't really handle a graphics card upgrade. So yeah you must be joking. If you want an upgrade, upgrade both your CPU and GPU or neither, and don't buy last gen hardware like 560 Ti. Then your best solution is to wait until you can afford a CPU+mobo+RAM+GPU upgrade to at least an Intel i3 / AMD FX-6300 and a GTX 660 or 7850 2GB.
Honestly, you're pretty well maxed out with that E8400. It really doesn't make much sense to upgrade the graphics card at this point. You'd be better off saving up money for a new build down the road.
Is a GTX550 a good upgrade over my old GTX285? Just an interim card for a few years before I upgrade everything.
The GTX 550 Ti is a very good card at MEDIUM settings with 2xAA or 4xAA in some handpicked games. But at High - Ultra with even 4xAA then this card takes a massive hit.