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What speed cpu will I need to run 260 card, possibly SLI in the futre?

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So I've decided to build, and I have my heart set on a 24 lcd monitor which has 1900 x 1200 resolution. I want to run games at this setting so it seems the gtx260 is a good card. In the VGA Chart's 2008 article on tom's hardware it mentions need a fast cpu to run the 200 series card well.

Quote :

Firstly, the 2.93 GHz clock speed of the Core 2 Extreme X6800 is no longer sufficient to properly drive the GTX 260 SLI or GTX 280 SLI. With many of the games, lackluster multi-card optimizations mean that lower frame rates are achieved versus just a single card. The overall results thus do not show an improvement, although there are perceptible gains at 1920x1200 pixels with anti-aliasing. Greater frame rates are achieved by the SLI packages in Call of Duty 4, Crysis, Mass Effect (UT3 Engine) and World in Conflict. When using the HD 4870 CrossFire, it is not quite so bad, although here a more powerful CPU will help enable better 3D performance.

This lays to rest those claims made by AMD and Nvidia that powerful CPUs are no longer needed. To really get the best from the new cards, you need a lot of host processing power. Whereas AMD surely wants to increase its own CPU sales, Intel also profits from high-end GPUs. If you want to realize the true 3D potential of the GTX 260, GTX 280, and HD 4870, you will soon need to start using a quad-core chip. A slightly faster dual-core CPU isn’t going to buy you a lot of extra scaling, as you can officially only purchase chips running between 3.2 GHz and 3.33 GHz, and the additional 300 to 400 MHz clock speed of the test CPU is not going to significantly change the 3D results.

So just how fast of a card do I need? I was hoping to use this board which has great reviews on newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813157134 its an ASRock SLI board AM2. So would a X2 6000 be good for the 260, and if I ever SLI 260's would I need a quad core? would a phenom at 2.6g be enough then? From what I gather some of the Intel cpu's are faster but I'm skeptical about most of motherboards I've looked at for Intel, the reviews on newegg almost all report some signicant issues, plus the AMD cpus are inexpensive.

Also what about using 2 9600 series or 8800 series cards in SLI? Would I still get good performance at 1900 x 1200 res? And would that setup require less CPU speed?

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i would reccomend the fastest quad for amd overclocked to about 3.5-6 GHZ (not easy) and for intel, at least 3Ghz Core 2 duo/quad.

------------------------------ e4400 2.75Ghz MSI G33 4x1GB DDR2-667@826 Palit 4870 3DMark 12112
Reply to customisbetter

Q6600 or a E8500 will crush AMD offerings, both of them hover around $180, E8400 is $165 or something. All 3 of those procs are below $200 and can overclock extremely well. If you go AMD go for a phenom quad and a board with the 750SB, which unfortunately is no Nvidia/SLi boards.

But on topic, 3.2ghz, around there is good enough for single GPU's.

Message edited by spathotan on 11-15-2008 at 09:19:27 PM

------------------------------

http://valid.canardpc.com/cache/banner/547515.png

Intel Xeon X3370 @3.6ghz Under Enzotech Extreme-X,EVGA GTX 285 SC, 4GB Mushkin Ascent eVCI @ 1066mhz, Gigabyte P45 UD3P
Reply to spathotan

Wow, fast responses- thanks for the advice! Ok, I'm sold, I'll go with Intel. Lol, back to the drawing board now for motherboard choice, I mostly just want something reliable- maybe I'll just go non-SLI board. I'd like to stick with geforce card though so I guess just a simple board will be good since I don't need crossfire. So definitely the quad intel then if I do go SLI or the E8400 OC is still good? Thanks again!

Reply to terrapin406

Yeah I'd stay away from AMD Phenoms myself. Just don't get the bang for your buck you should be getting from them.

Intel truly has the corner on the market for both Duals and Quads right now. Poor AMD Q6600 and E8400 are both great processors, and seem pretty common for a lot of gamers I see in forums these days. And as spathotan said, they both OC pretty well depending on the motherboard. nVidia based motherboards (especially 680i like I have) don't OC Quads as reliably though. Best bet if you know you'll OC is to get a Intel chipset (P45 or something similar) and put a single rock solid GPU in there.

------------------------------ i5-750 @ 2.66Ghz / Gigabyte GA-P55-UD4P / Xigmatek HDT-S1283 (Waiting for Bracket)
2 x MSI GTX 260 Core 216 SLI (655Mhz) / 4GB GSkill DDR3 1600 9-9-9-24 @1.5v
2 x WD Caviar Black 1TB / Thermaltake Armor BWS8003
Win 7 64bit / Antec TPQ-850
Reply to jerreece

go Q6600 mines at 3.6@1.43 on thermalright 120 ultra extreme 100% stable

Reply to teamlosigp

My q6600 @ 3.2ghz seems to power 2 gtx260 in sli fine, so i would have to say around that speed is the sweet spot.
with one gtx 260 i get around 22-25fps with the gtx260 in sli i hit 35-40.

Message edited by invisik on 11-16-2008 at 02:54:29 PM

------------------------------ intel core 2 quad q6600 @3.2ghz msi p6n diamond (X-FI Extreme sound) 6gig of OCZ+CoRSAIR oc 900mhz Nvidia gtx 260 sli @ 730/1465/1250
Lite-On Blue-ray Western Digital 7200rpm 500gb Antec 500 Earthwatt Window vista 64-bit
Reply to invisik

its too bad warhead doesn't scale past 2 cards

I keep my CPU around 3.2 most of the time, and it doesn't bottleneck my 3 280 GTXs. With Sli 260 GTXs I would say have atleast 3.0 GHZ and ur good to go. Mostly Video card system become bottlenecked @ 3 or more video cards (atleast to date, with current CPUs, exception the i7s).

Thats why most of the time u don't see much power coming from the 3way sli 280 GTX and quad 4870 X2s. Other than both setups having some premature drivers, they will both benefit from a 3.5 Ghz setup or higher. So when ever I need to enable 3 way sli just for the hell of a it, I need switch CPU profiles so I can get a good enough benefit from the 3rd card, otherwise its just minimal, Other than the min frame rate increasing it doesn't do much

I would go with either a Q6600 or a Q9450, since they both OC really well. The Q9550 is also amazing offering higher multiplier I believe which benefit OC options, but it will come @ a cost. The Q6600 is a really good choice though, it has a higher multiplier than the Q9450 which gives it a further wall barrier, but it's 65nm hold its back because of the sudden heat increases, that I noticed when i use to oc it. The Q9450 is more expensive and might not be worth the extra money for 200 mhz -400 mhz that u gain over the q6600. Only reason i switched was to keep temps down, especially since I had 2 9800 GX2s (which actually heated my motherboard to almost 45 degrees (with the fans @ 100%), and now with 3 280 GTXs OCed fans @ default I get my mobo to 35:S.

Anyways enjoy ur cards :bounce:

Message edited by L1qu1d on 11-16-2008 at 03:49:47 PM

Reply to L1qu1d

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