2x Asus Nvidia gtx 550 ti

hello guy's i have been thinking about getting another graphic's card for my computer the same kind i have right now (Asus Nvidia GTX 550 TI) i wanted to know if it would be a good idea considering i'm still running a DDR2 Gygabite motherboard GA-MA970X-UP4D with Corsair 4x 2gb a AMD3 Phenom IIx2 550 currently overclock'd and running it at 3.50 with a water cooler and my graphic's card Asus Nvida GTX 550 TI SLI ready.

looking at your board specs, it looks like it only does crossfire. you actually have a GA-MA790X-UP4D. they don;t have what you listed (transposed i am guessing). If you want to go SLI you will need to go to another MOBO. It may be a good time to upgrade your MOBO anyway. that board is kinda long in the tooth and the tech has really surpassed your board by quite some generations.

You can, however, go get 2 cheapo radeons and put them in but i dont think you could do it for the same price of 1 550 ti, nor would you get the performance, i don't think, of a single 550 ti.

Thank you bulldog1963 for your response yes i agree this is an old mobo i got it about 4 years ago and i think your right i'm ready to get a new one now even thinking about ddr3, if i do get a ddr3 mobo do i have to change my CPU?

nope. your CPU was made for the future (way back when) for the advent of DDR3 memory. One nice thiing the AMD crowd is good for - forward thinking. Your chip should be able to do DDR3 just fine. If you want to stay with AMD...and you have 400-500 dollars to upgrade, you can get a great AMD MOBO, a Piledriver CPU and a full rack of ddr3 ram in about a month-ish i spose. The 8350 is the entry-level Piledriver but a good AMD MOBO will be made for the future anyway.

Otherwise you can spend about 280 now and get an AMD 4100 bulldozer, a great MOBO and 8 gig DDR3 ram.

Your going to bottleneck ... Two 550tis are equivelant to one 560ti 448 so your goin to bottleneck if you don't upgrade your CPU. Dont waist on 4100 when you can get a 8150 or a 4170

Phenom II X2s are unlockable to quad cores and overclock nicely, you might be able to squeeze more performance out of that chip.

I have two 560i's in sli and I can tell you the 1gb of Vram will be the bottleneck. Playing games past 1080p on ultra settings will cause frame buffering issues. I would spend the money on getting better core components like a cpu, mobo, and better ram. Look around I've seen good deals on 2500i's recently down to $179.

Knufire said:

Phenom II X2s are unlockable to quad cores and overclock nicely, you might be able to squeeze more performance out of that chip.

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the key here is that his motherboard is INCAPABLE of running SLI. Bottlenecking simply isn't an issue. The SLI architecture is built into the MOBO. His simply doesn't have it. It is 4 years old. Crossfire is card-based and is considered universal. He could do crossfire, but the money for 2 new cards to run on an old MOBO that would get a x4/x4 speeds would not garner any speed increase.

His chips is okay. Especially if he is going to run single-thread applications/games. But i think his best course of action is save up, or spend a few hundred bucks, get a nice (not insane) MOBO, CPU and memory and build on that. Most of the chipsets on MOBOs, these days, seem to support SLI and Crossfire. That way he'll have options and with the right MOBO, he'll have some upgradability (future-proof).

My suggestion is you get a 990 chipset or z77/79 MOBO. The 990 will be about 2/3rd's or less that the Intel boards, and the chips will be sheaper on the AMD side. but both offer at least PCI-e slots that are x16/x16 or mnore. mY MOBO can do triple or quad card. Triple is x16/x8/x8 on my msi 990fxa-gd80.

i just fimly believe it is time to upgrade. Give your pc to your kid, a nephew/niece/charity. My kid has my old pc (he's 7) an it runs on my network.

Pro_Up said:

Your going to bottleneck ... Two 550tis are equivelant to one 560ti 448 so your goin to bottleneck if you don't upgrade your CPU. Dont waist on 4100 when you can get a 8150 or a 4170

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if you ACTUALLY read my post, I suggested a couple ways to go. First off, why spend 180 bucks on an 815 now when you can get n 8350 in a monthe rfor 20 bucks more plus an additional 15% performance increase. Same goes for 4170, nice but not as overclockable as the other chips, but very good single thread performer. it is only 40 bucks more than the 4100.

I was simply offering him a way to get into a really good MOBO, and good RAM (should but 2x8gig sticks because it allows higher overclocking than 4 x 4 gig sticks), plus a passable, short-term CPU (I sold my 4100 for 65 bucks used) that can be upgraded on the GOOD MOBO.

My opinion is, actually, get the Good MOBO and RAM, slap the old cpu in there and run with the 1 card for now. When the 8350 comes out, get another video card and the CPU. Then he'll be set.

bulldog1963 said:

if you ACTUALLY read my post, I suggested a couple ways to go. First off, why spend 180 bucks on an 815 now when you can get n 8350 in a monthe rfor 20 bucks more plus an additional 15% performance increase. Same goes for 4170, nice but not as overclockable as the other chips, but very good single thread performer. it is only 40 bucks more than the 4100.

I was simply offering him a way to get into a really good MOBO, and good RAM (should but 2x8gig sticks because it allows higher overclocking than 4 x 4 gig sticks), plus a passable, short-term CPU (I sold my 4100 for 65 bucks used) that can be upgraded on the GOOD MOBO.

My opinion is, actually, get the Good MOBO and RAM, slap the old cpu in there and run with the 1 card for now. When the 8350 comes out, get another video card and the CPU. Then he'll be set.

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Listen to this man. He knows what he's talking about. I don't think anyone would be able to give advice such as this any better, know what I'm sayin'?