@ Ksampanna: Being underestimated brings a grin to my face, don't worry.
😀
An analysis of SLi and Crossfire would tell you that depsite offering higher framerate count, there evolve significant spikes between exceptional highs (great scaling) and lethargic lows thanks to issues with syncing and lag. It's called microstuttering. Trusting the FPS score blindly can provide dire results in worst case scenarios using a dual card configuration. Not only does a similar score with a single card provide a smoother playability, but in the problematic titles even a higher score would suffer of bieffects you by no means fancy, rest assured.
Further weak links can be related to:
- Need power supplies with 4 PCIe connections. These are way expensive, and while you can wire one of the cards on the normal rail, it's not recommendable.
- Demands a motherboard with support for SLi. Most budget LGA1556 boards only offer a x16/x4 configuration, whereas budget AMD 8xx boards features 8x/8x solutions. None are ideal, although the latter is not too bad, but point and case is that these cost more once again. Seen in the light of the remaining weak links, is it worth it?
- More audible / hotter / energy craving than one card.
- Occupies more PCIe slots.
- Potential problems occur if one of your cards go RMA, and you can't get a supported replacement due to the model being discounted.
- Performance loss in games that do not scale.
Whether these happens, or the degree in which it happens, varies according to the rest of your rig. As for the GTX 460, I agree with that the games should preferably run at a higher FPS count than the update frequency of your monitor, most commonly 60FPS (if you look aside from the 120Hz brand-new monitors). Do mind though that 30FPS also brings a completely playable smooth image. Everything in between is an okay. In GTX 460's case, you can check out for yourself whether the cards apply to that through Tomshardware's own
round-up. They bench the 1GB version, but it's not all that different since the Zotac card referred to is initially overclocked. 3-5 FPS at most, with reservation in that new drivers will nullify and even improve on top of these scores. If you tweak the graphics settings, with anti alaising among other factors, you can boost your score significantly, and even an old 9800GTX would be able to hold up pretty well in many modern (though not most) games.
Building with value is making the compromises as small as possible. There might be a very few cases where you have to moderately adjust the settings for the GTX 460 to perform adequately (in the sense you yourself notice lag), yet that's a whole lot better than spending 180$ more on something with the ruling flaws as discussed. For your information, Metro 2033 can strangle most SLi configurations even with flagship cards. Seeing things in perspective and setting a limit just above what's casual gaming, is all but insignificant.
Yes, I'm teasing, but I do happen to know my stuff.
😍
@ jtt283: Meh, thanks to the onboard IMC/GPU on package, the idle draw of the i5 650 is not any better than that of the i5 760. It's alright that the power draw is higher on the latter, since that draw will only be utilized when there actually is a demand for it. The 650 not great unless you're running a passive cooled low-profile cooler, but then again you could undervoltage the i5 760 if you truly want to. =/ For most people, the gap in power draw will not really affect their decision at all.
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