whats a gtx 280 worth

[i-zombie]

im building a desktop,looking to get cheep as poss but powerful

anyways im on choosing a gpu now,been offered a 6950 for 200-but i wont have the cash for something like that till i flog my lappy

but ive also been offered a gtx 280 for 70 quid,ive never used a nvidia card before so i have no idea if its worth that or would i be better getting a 5/6770 for around the same price

keep your eyes peeled for my lappy will be selling soon-core i5 8 gb ram 17.3inch ect hp dv7 3111ea

 

[little_pob]

The GTX 280's power consumption is close to 250W, so make sure you get a decent PSU.

On theoretical benchmarks, the GTX 280 outperforms both the HD 5770 and the HD 6770.

For a time the GTX 280 was Nvidia's top-of-the-line single GPU card. Since then they've had 2 revisions (the 400 and current 500 series). It's a bit wooly, and there are examples where it fails, but there is a basic rule of thumb when comparing nvidia cards; the previous generation's top card generally matches the performance of the card below the current gens top card i.e. the 480 would be much closer to the 570 than the 580 in performance terms. Extrapolating you'd expect the GTX 280 to roughly match the performance of the current GTX 560 cards.Though I've not seen real world benchmarks, theoretical benches and a quick google seems to suggest this does hold true.

The GTX 560 Ti is approx £140. Now you could argue that you'd be getting close to that performance for half the price, but the GTX 280 cards struggle to make £60 on ebay.

 

[i-zombie]

thanks little pob i much appreciate it,i was looking it at the 560ti but i sorta thought that the old top end would be as good as the recent mid range for like you say half the price

to be honest i think i may just wait till i sell the lappy and get an ati card,give myself the option of crossfirex if need be

 

[Fyobl]

thanks little pob i much appreciate it,i was looking it at the 560ti but i sorta thought that the old top end would be as good as the recent mid range for like you say half the price

to be honest i think i may just wait till i sell the lappy and get an ati card,give myself the option of crossfirex if need be

NVIDIA do SLI witch is the same as Crossfirex.

I got 2x GTX 550ti OCed from 900mhz to 970mhz and they run smooth. You can find them online for around 90-100 each.

 

[little_pob]

NVIDIA do SLI witch is the same as Crossfirex.

I got 2x GTX 550ti OCed from 900mhz to 970mhz and they run smooth. You can find them online for around 90-100 each.

Some motherboards only support one or the other, only recently have mobos that support bothe SLi and Crossfire become more available (as the tech trickles down from high end gaming boards).

Also, whilst I know SLi/Crossfire game support has got better, have they sorted the scaling issues on multiGPU setups? It was previously the case that 2 cards performed about the same as the next card up despite spending 20-50% more.