Widescreen Gaming Forum

I am currently running 5040 x 1050 on a TH2G.

System specs:

C2D E8500 @ 4.02 ghz
MSi nForce 780i SLi (2x PCI-E 16x, 1 8x )
6gb OCZ plat DDR2 cas4
NV 8800GTS 512mb -> Asus 22" LCD
NV GTX260+ 896mb-> 3x Chimei 22" LCD

I am running pretty well on this system, framerates are high enough, great actually if I turn off a little eye candy. Performance only sucks when I have to run apps in windowed/maximized mode to allow me to use the 4th monitor off on the side while gaming.

I am looking to upgrade my capabilities a little to keep me happy a bit longer before starting fresh with a Corei7 rig. So far I have a few options:

1. get a matching GTX260 for SLi performance boost (roughly $200)
2. get a GTX285 2gb card for max single-card performance (roughly $400)
3. get a GTX295 1782mb card for single card SLi (roughly $500)

Anyone running a TH2G on SLi'd 260's? Is it a worthy boost at that resolution? All the benches I see seem to show that it isn't that great, but they don't test at anywhere near our res...

The way I understand SLi, you don't get scaling on the VRAM since the driver mirrors the data in both cards. Would this mean the GTX295 would likely perform similarly to adding another GTX260?

Also, I really find the 4th monitor useful for displaying ventrilo/web/twitter/whatever while gaming on the TH2G. The last time I had SLi was two 8800GTS 512's, and back then you could not have an AGP outside the SLi matrix for 3d apps, meaning the other monitor would go black while I was gaming. Is SLi still setup this way? If so, would it affect the GTX295 the same way since both processors are on one board?

The way I understand SLi, you don't get scaling on the VRAM since the driver mirrors the data in both cards. Would this mean the GTX295 would likely perform similarly to adding another GTX260?

yes, though it has 240(x2) scalar units instead of only 216 on a GTX260
http://www.behardware.com/articles/748-8/report-nvidia-geforce-gtx-295.html old review though

Also, I really find the 4th monitor useful for displaying ventrilo/web/twitter/whatever while gaming on the TH2G. The last time I had SLi was two 8800GTS 512's, and back then you could not have an AGP outside the SLi matrix for 3d apps, meaning the other monitor would go black while I was gaming. Is SLi still setup this way? If so, would it affect the GTX295 the same way since both processors are on one board?

yes SLI does support only one output
and yes a GTX295 is using SLI
(and it's not hidden like some ATI X2s drivers try to hide CF...)

the only useful point of a GTX295 compared to a dual card solution is the single PCI-E connector.

Yep, that's what I was afraid of... Yes the 295 has all the pipes unlocked, but otherwise the chips are 2 normal 260's on one PCB.

I guess I will go with the 285 then. I know ATI has new kit coming out in a week or so, any rumors on when nVidia's next line comes out?