Looking for some advice

[stevediaman]

I am currently waiting for the release of FFXIV and after running their benchmark im expecting i'll need a video card upgrade.

Currently running:

Q6600 2.4 @ 3.2
EVGA 680i SLI
4gb ddr2 800
pc power and cooling 750w
2x 8800gts 512 OC's

Their benchmark is only scoring the video card apparently and not testing processor speeds, memory or multi core video cards of any kind.

My second video card at best give me a 20-25% performance increase so factor that into my score of 1800 out of 8000 (2000 being the default graphics settings score[meaning if you score a 2000, you can run the game at default settings]) at the very most i'm going to be able to run the game on default settings which is not very appealing to me.

I've played battlefield bad company 2 and my 8800's had a problem keeping a stable FPS over 30-40
Games like COD4 MW2 never had a problem and never went under 90

I also am looking for the new card to be able to handle future games (next 2 years) very well

Now being a Nvidia guy im really only looking at getting another nvidia card(or 2)

Thus bringing the choices to the gtx 460 470 and 480

Now ive been thinking if i get a 480, thats basically it for my system. Thats the card its going to die with as it maybe at best has 2 years left in it... a $500 card thats going to die w/ the system

second option would be the 470, not as powerful, (overclockable) runs hotter than the 460's and a bit better when it comes to price. A good mid range option.

But then I heared about the 460. I like SLI. I like the idea of owning an SLI system as well as love the way SLI looks. If i had the choice ide probably go with the SLI out of coolness factor, but when i saw 90% performance increases out of the 460's I was very sceptical of those numbers as my current SLI configuration gets nowhere near that much of an increase.

Thus bringing me to another point, is my motherboard/processor going to be able to pull off a increase like that? Will it bottleneck like my 8800's did w/ my stock 2.4 q6600? I needed to overclock it to resolve a minor bottleneck they had.

Also will my powersupply be able to handle those 2 cards? ( i'm leaning towards yes)

I kinda told myself that I would never run an SLI setup again after i kinda stepped in it w/ the 8800's but now the 460's are just too tempting...

an eventual upgrade of 2x 480's is out of the question as i doubt the system will ever be able to handle it and im probably never going to spend money on this machine again after this.

Same goes for the 470

Thus again leaving me to the 460's which theoretically perform better than both...

I dunno it just seems too good to be true thus I am here lookin for advice/someone to bounce ideas off of

Sorry for the longish post/thanks for reading.

Any help would be appreciated

*Edit How long do you guys think this processor will last me? Assuming i pick out a great card to last me 2 more years? Would it be worth it to upgrade further to 8gb ram and maybe OC it further? I got it to 3.6 once but had stability issues and seeing as i was a overclockin newb i chickened out and played it safe

also i have about a month or 2 to make this decision so i can probably wait for prices to drop a little as i am playing no games at the moment

 

[Helltech]

The 470 is in general better then the 480, its so much cheaper, and the performance difference isn't that much. I'm sure the 470 would be good enough for FF14, but its hard to tell at this point. You'd be best off waiting for benchmarks of the game to come out. (Since you don't mind waiting anyway).

The 460 sli would outperform both, but I think you would see a bottlenck with your processor.

If history repeats itself, my GTX 260s are two years old, they still play everything I want at max settings. 270 > 260, so 270 SLI is still pretty badass.

So its possible that with 470s, when you finally "have" to get a new motherboard, ram, and cpu, by that time you will be able to get another 470 really cheap since it will be older and 470 SLI may STILL be going strong. Just something to think about.

 

[narwen]

460 ffxiv benchmark low 4747 high 2878. cpu i860 4gb ram

 

[stevediaman]

i wish there was someone out there w/ a overclocked q6600 and a pair of 460's lol

would really clear up some questions for me as to bottlenecks

thats really my only issue right now