UK BOINC Team Forum

Hiya was thinking of upgrading my GT220 to a 260 or whatever santa might bring me
Has anyone used one of these ?
http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalo ... 8wIwADgA#p

I have 2 spare Pcie x1 slots so was thinking of puting the 260 in the pcie x16 and the 220 in a pcie x1 slot .

The NVidia 2XX range of cards is now obsolete, you will only pick them up second hand, unless there is a local dealer who had a shedful of them at EOL time.  The other major factor is power drain, running both a 260 and 220 will eat electricity compared to running one modern card.  I'd dispose of the 220  if Santa comes  along, and just run the modern card. The latter will way outperform the 220 & 260 combined.

At that comparitive level of card in the 2XX range, you now have  a choice between the NVidia 460 or 470, and AMDs new 6850 or 6870.  In terms of bang for your buck, there is no contest, AMD cards will get it every time.  NVidia reduced their 460 & 470 prices about 10 days ago, as they were being taken down by the AMD 5850s, and would not stand up to the new AMD 68XX cards.

All four cards are close to each other now in broad terms of price, but the AMD cards still stand out as more powerful.  Be aware that the 68XX cards do not support Double Precision, so if you want to crunch for a DP project, you will either have to go NVidia 460 or 470, or you could go for an AMD 5850, in the older AMD 58XX range, which still take down the 460 & 470s.  The prices of 5850s will drop shortly as dealer clear stocks with 68XX coming out, so could be a good buy for you.

I personally would say it boils down to:

AMD 5850 or AMD 6850.  The former you should get at a great knock down price shortly, and despite being 3 years older in design than the NVidia 4XX, will still take down the 460 & 470.  If Santa will stretch to it, a 6850 would be a real good buy and stand you in good sted for years, just be aware of no DP in the 68XX range..

Guru3D 6850 review and benchmark comparisons is a good indicator for you on compartive performance of the cards in question, and the review gives a good detailed look at the 6850, which they are very impressed with.  Guru3D is always a good site to bookmark for hardware searching and buying help, excellent non biased reviews.

If those cards are too high for Santa, there is no contest as NVidia do not have cards in the next range down that can compete with the 5830 (has DP capability) or the 5770 (no DP capability).

Guru3d 5830 review
Regards
Zy

Yes, I've used a similar riser
I have two with HD4870s plugged into them, one in a machine that only has 1x slots and one in a machine that already had an HD4870 in its 16x slot.
I got mine from Scan

You need to make sure you have enough room in your case. The riser lifts the card by about 20mm and these new cards can be very long +300mm

caution, caution
Both myself and Darren have had a go at "adjusting" a 1x slot so that it accepts a 16x card by carefully removing the back of the slot to allow the card to be inserted. I used small snips and a sharp Stanley knife. Mine didn't work because the card then fouled motherboard components but Darren got his working

..........5830s are already available for £131 (XFXshop.co.uk), good card with DP, but slightly higher power draw than the 5850s strangely. The 68xx cards are not a replacement for the 58xx series - those cards, the 69xx series will be released in a couple of weeks.

If you want a good card for gaming that also can pull in the Boinc credits then you should really only be thinking of ATI/AMD.

Make sure your PSU would be upto the job first though Micky  

Having dual GPU's i would recommend at least 650W anything below that and I'd be cautious.

Thanks all ... Might be a very good boy  till xmass and see what i can afford  , Had a look at opening the end up but there's a silly heat sink right behind both x1 slots so would defo need a riser  :shock:

Micky,

One other aspect - software ... if you get an old secondhand 260 and do run it with a 220, you will likely hit software limitations in circa 18-24 months time as the NVidia CUDA revisions march on.  Certainly you will have issues where many applications by then will, to all pratical intents and purposes, exclude the 2XX range with projects - either literally because the 2XX will not support the then latest CUDA revisions, or the app needs way more crunching power than the 260 can provide.

Some will be backwards compatible of course, but you will likely still be caught on the crunching power limitations of 2XX in the context of the application of the time.

Realities do stack up against a 260/220 solution - PSU requirements, cost of riser, praticalities of getting the riser/card to fit, electicity power draw, likely short term crunching ability before the solution grinds to a halt, longevity of a 5830/5850/6850 upgrade that will last for 2-4 years before hitting limitations.  Its a classic upgrade/cost dilema, whatever you decide, good luck, and let us all know how you get on, or if you want to bounce something else about it.

Regards
Zy