Will a q6700 bottleneck sli gtx 260s?

[pedro5]

Hey I am wondering - will a q6700 (assuming I overclock on air to 3.2 ghz or 3.4 ghz) bottleneck sli gtx 260s?

system specs would be

evga 780i 3x16 pci-e mobo

intel core2quad q6700

gskill DDR2 PC6400 (800 mhz) RAM (would upgrading to PC8500 - 1066mhz be worth it?)

1 evga gtx 260 and 1 bfg gtx 260 (both 216 core) - (and can brands mix and match?)

hope you can answer these 3 questions guys! thanks in advance!

 

[jonpaul37]

i would not say that it is a bottleneck, it's just not going to utilize the power of the 2 x 260's as an i7 or i5 would. To put it into perspective, the GTX 260 is similar in performance to the 4870. Now, 2 x 4870 is equivalent to a 5870 which would mean that 2 x GTX 260 is equivalent to a 5870. (maybe not exact, but close enough) I have a Q6600 OC'd to 3.6 with a 5870 and it works wonders compared to my 4850 i had. If i had an i7 920 at the same 3.6 speed, i'm sure i would get better results, but not ground-shattering. So, again, not necessarilly a bottleneck as 2 x GTX 260's would work fine with your setup. Hope this helps.

Keep the RAM you have, it is fine

You can use different brands of GTX 260's, they just both have to be the 216-core versions with the same amount of memory. EXAMPLE:

EVGA GTX 260 (Core 216) 1GB memory
XFX GTX 260 (Core 216) 1GB memory

Those would work fine together.

 

[enzo matrix]

^^best answer I have heard to "bottleneck" ever.

 

[jonpaul37]

HAHA! Thanks, i'm just sick and tired of people trying to justify a "bottleneck"

A bottleneck is trying to run a 5870 with a Pentium D or Athlon 4800+

the OP's situation is not a bottleneck.

 

[pedro5]

thanks! you answered everything but I have one new question ... will I need to download bfg drivers and evga drivers for the separate cards or will they both run fine off of evga's? ... thanks!

 

[jonpaul37]

Actually, you're better off using the drivers straight from the Nvidia website, it'll walk you through choosing the type of video card & operating system and such, then it will bring up the latest drivers, use those...

 

[Mousemonkey]

Or just go here and DL the 196.34's for the appropriate OS.

 

[pedro5]

alright will do jonpaul, thanks!