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noddy
October 21st, 2010, 03:46
I have a Dell XPS 720H2C with a QX6850 o/c to 3.67, dual GTX8800 cards, 1066 DDR2 RAM and 1000 watt psu. Also Vista 32 Bit Ultimate.

I cannot see I will be changing this for a while, I have pushed the processor up as far as I dare, the RAM is the best I can get for the machine, so the only thing to change would be the cards.

Both cards seems to be working well, but are now 3yrs + old, what card / s could I get to replace them?

Was looking at the 285 a while back, but the new 400 series look good, any thoughts.
txnetcop
October 22nd, 2010, 01:31
With the current power supply, older CPU, and northbridge which comes with your Dell I would go with a GTX 460. At TechCorp our best tested for overall performance 460s were the MSI Cyclone N460 OC, MSI Hawk GTX460OC, ASUS ENGTX460 Direct CU TOP/2DI/!GB DDR5 (very fast), EVGA 01G P3 1373 AR GeForce GTX460 Superclocked EE model.
Nvidia has better/faster tessellation for DX11 games than the ATI cards if you play anything other than FSX like Train or Ship Simulator.
Ted
noddy
October 22nd, 2010, 03:36
Ted,

Many thanks for the advice, a lot cheaper than the 285 and seem to be a good deal better than the 8800 I currently have.

Do you think I could get 2 for SLI as I currently have, I do play other games that can run SLI config.
txnetcop
October 22nd, 2010, 04:50
Ted,

Many thanks for the advice, a lot cheaper than the 285 and seem to be a good deal better than the 8800 I currently have.

Do you think I could get 2 for SLI as I currently have, I do play other games that can run SLI config.

Yes sir you can run them in SLI you have plenty of power on that XPS to do so. I would not buy the MSI Cyclone for SLI it takes up too much room and blows the exhaust into the computer. I would get either the EVGA or the ASUS (ASUS is superfast)
noddy
October 22nd, 2010, 05:01
Cheers Ted I have seen the EVGA EE for £167.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-evga-gtx-460-sc-3800mhz-gddr5-gpu-763mhz-shaderclock-1526mhz-336-cores-2x-dl-dvi-i-minihdmi

Seems a very good deal.

Many thanks for the advice.
noddy
October 23rd, 2010, 04:37
Well both arrive on Monday.
noddy
October 25th, 2010, 23:13
Both cards arrived safe and sound, and are fairly compact compared to the GTX8800.

Only limiting testing so far, but appear to do the job very well.