Per title, I currently have 2 Gainward 460 "GS" 1GB cards in SLi. I am wanting to upgrade and was wondering if I would see much difference if I got a 670 or a 680 card? Also would it help if I kept one of the 460s installed and used that for Physx instead of the CPU in the NVidia control panel? Thanks for any help offered System Details are to the left of this post
I just got the 670GTX with 4GB. Will let you know the difference. I haven't tried the card yet, but atm i feel like I wasted money since the 660Ti has arrived. I can't wait to try out the extra vRam though, cos I had problems running BF3 and metro2033 at maximum settings at 1920x1200, because 1GB was not enough.
You will be very pleased with the results I max out BF3 and it stays on v-sync without any problem. As for Metro2033 that game plays okay maxed out around 45 FPS with dips into the low 30's (this game hates Keplar). Don't know if I would suggest the 4GB version though unless you plan to put a second one in at a later date.
I'm planning to put in a second one later. As for the results: well they are as you describe them and my 670 behaves exactly like in the guru3d reviews. So yea it can run everything maxed out no problems, but performance is not amazingly far off from 460SLI. You can kinda compare 460SLI to a single 580GTX in the reviews. The 670 is better, no doubt, but I already ran everything smooth and maxed out except for the games where I ran out of vRAM. Metro runs smooth now, but is still having trouble sometimes staying in that 30-60fps zone, unfortunately. The 460GTX is hugely underestimated, they were even dubbed 'office cards', while in fact they pack masses of performance. They were cheap, but had astonishing power for that price, especially in SLI. So if you're doing it for the performance then the upgrade is not worth the money, imo. Especially not if you're gaming at 1680x1050 or below. *By the way: I'm getting this weird flickering on the bottom of the screen if I enable 4xMSAA. Does anyone of you have it too? I think the best way to play this game still is with AAA and FXAA. I'm also not getting 100% GPU usage a lot of the time. It's even stuck sometimes between 80-90 while the framerate is far from 60 yet. It cannot be CPU bottlenecking, right? 0o There's something weird with this game.
Thanks for all the replies, I am trying for a performance boost if possible, so maybe get a 670 now and then in a few months get another and SLi them? In the mean time would I see any improvement if I did what I am thinking and using one of my 460's as a slave to do the Physx stuff? (I realise not a lot of games use it, but it saves wasting a card until I can get another 670/680). The only issue with 2x670's is the power supply, I am unsure if the 850W is enough for two 670's ?
Your power supply is more than enough you could maybe run three 670's with it. And as for the physx slave you could do that I don't know from first hand experience but some people say it does not make a big difference.
