480 in SLI, worth-it upgrade?

[Ejjman1]

So, I just RMA'd a GTX 295 after it quit working, and am receiving a 480 from eVGA. I am very, very excited about this. I also thought maybe about adding a second one in SLI... But I had a few concerns:

1) with the eVGA x58 SLI LE, I was wondering if it was worth it to pick up a second in SLI...I wasn't sure if the open slots I had would push these cards in SLI to their full potential.

2) HEAT... I will have my CPU in its own loop cooled, and will probably be overclocking that (my i7) to 4.0 GHz so that won't bottleneck. And there is no way I will add water to these bad boys, I am done with water after this build. Too much maintenance.

So my main question, is if I should pick up a second one for SLI, involving factors such as heat & whether the card(s) will work together to their full capacity with my motherboard..

The list of my components are on the left (I believe) and so if any other suggested upgrades first, then I could definitely think about that!

And either way, I'm just so excited to have a DX11 card. Thank goodness for eVGA

 

[b1gapl]

Another question is do you need the second card? If the one 480 can run games smooth and without a hitch, there would be no need for a second one.

As for heat, that depends on your case, ambient temperature, etc. If you have good air circulation going on in the case the heat shouldn't be a problem. There also shouldn't be a problem with the slots bringing the cards to their full potential. If there is then it could be a defect in the card or the slot.

What resolution do you normally play your games at? This can also determine whether or not you need a second GPU if you want to play games at max settings.

 

[Ejjman1]

I like playing games at highest settings on 1920x1200 resolution. An example of a game that I'm looking forward to is Battlefield 3, and I don't think that the single card will be able to run it at all high?

The case is a HAF 932...There's plenty of air pumping into it and out, so my guess is that it should be fine.

The reason asking about the motherboard was because the slots are called PCI-E x16/x8/x4 slots, and I read somewhere that using the top slot on this mobo was suggested because it was the only true x16, and others would bottleneck the graphics card.

 

[b1gapl]

One 480 should be fine for running most games without a struggle for that resolution. I would say test it out first. If you're not satisfied then get another one.

While that is true about the slots, there have been many demonstrations of x16/x16 vs. x8/x8 showing a very small, if not, no noticeable difference in performance.

 

[patonb]

yHA, I'M IN AGREEment with b1gapl, x8 vs x16 is 3 fps.. okay maybe 10 max, so it really isnt a concur.

 

[Prophet]

you can fit 2 240mm rads in that case, one for each card

 

[Ejjman1]

you can fit 2 240mm rads in that case, one for each card

Well, ZOTAC seems to be the only ones selling the 480 still, so I was thinking of picking up

ZOTAC AMP! GeForce GTX 480 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 (756 MHz/3800 MHz) Graphics Card [ZT-40102-10P]

And that looks like I could knock out cooling one of them, if I do decide to get it...

And I'll probably wait around till thanksgiving to pick one up!

 

[Twizted_3kgt]

If my Q6600 doesn't bottleneck my GTX560 Ti, I'm pretty sure you don't have to worry about bottlenecking a 480 with an i7. The gpu's are pretty close performance wise, while your processor is leaps and bounds ahead of mine.

edit: Derrr, my mistake, SLI might make a huge difference.

 

[Prophet]

480 SLI would be mighty powerful, a lot cheaper then gettting a 570 or 580.

 

[Whirlwind]

My GTX 260 in SLI still do the job, so yeah, the 480 should be fantastic in SLI.

Most games these days are console ports anyhow, and dont require alot of power