Back to crunching after a long hiatus. Quick question.

[OGMCVilleTC]

Ok I'm back to crunching and gaming on my PC after a long while of neglect. I have a GTS 250 right now and am about to upgrade my video card. I was curious as if two would be better than one. As in having two GTX 550 TI's (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130652) or having one GTX 570 HD (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130622) or one GTX 460 2win (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130626). I am going to be primarily playing SC2, Rift, and Diablo 3 when it comes out and using it to crunch when I am not gaming on it. Out of these cards which is going to give me best performance in SETI and gaming?

[SameOldFatman]

I don't know for sure but I would bet 2 550 ti's would be best

[Eroc]

I would bet on the 460 2win myself.

The total number of cores are just more than any other combination and the shader speed is not that much less than the 570. I have a 460 and I can run 2 cuda processes on it so with a 2win you should be able to do 4 processes or 2 per core. It def has enough RAM and the memory bus is fatter (512bit, which I think it is the sum of 2-256bit busses).

The 2 550 tis also have only a 192bit memory bus and only 192 cores each. You would do better gaming and crunching on any of the other two setups.

Look at the shader speeds, too, as they are what determines the speed that units are done. All of these cards have plenty of memory on the cards to run 2 instances of seti per gpu.

The close call, however, would be between the 570 and the 460 2win. The 570 has one thing going for it. The updated GPU and the GF110 architcture that goes with it. Similar to the GF100 but better. The 460 has the GF104 chip which has a superscalar architecture so not all of the cores can be used all the time.

Basically the 570 will be more efficient and the 460 2 win will be more quantity which is why I think it wins. It is a SLI in and of itself.

Here is AnandTech review on the 460 single : http://www.anandtech.com/show/3809/nvidias-geforce-gtx-460-the-200-king/1

Here is the 570: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4051/nvidias-geforce-gtx-570-filling-in-the-gaps/1

Look at the compute tests (the reason I like Anandtech reviews). There is no test on a 2 win that I can find but this is as close as it gets. Take the 460s performance and roughly double it or a little less than double.

[Careface]

Hm. It's a tough call right now, to be honest. The x38g_cuda32 application just went live, which brings with it some pretty meaty performance gains for higher end Fermi cards (so, 5xx especially), so you might want to take a look into that if you want to "future proof" so to speak.

I would post a bench myself, but I'm still chugging along on my GTX216 :(

EDIT: Just downloaded the x38g_cuda32 app, gonna give it a go and see if it helps or hinders 200 series performance :D Though having said that, getting work is like blood from a stone lately..

[Eroc]

Yeah. I couldnt upload therefore i couldnt download any new units.

I guess I am going to download those as well!

[OGMCVilleTC]

Thanks for all the replies. When I get my card I will let you all know. If anyone has anymore input or has one they would recommend, please feel free. Again thanks for the input.

[Eroc]

Which setup you going with?