2x GTX 650 Ti Boost comparable solutions

[LawlCakes]

I'm planning my first build that I'm getting for graduation and my ignorance has

left me torn on what GPU(s) I should choose for a build with a $2000 budget.

 

I'm considering 2 GTX 650 Ti Boost cards in SLI because I thought the aesthetics of two 

cards would look great and they boast respectable performance, but I'm not sure if it would be worth it in comparison to

other solutions with a similar total price (+ or - $100) and performance like a GTX 670, 7950, or a 7970.

 

I know that's sort of a large sampling of cards, but I'm just looking for opinions or suggestions.

 

Thanks!

[Silentsoul]

Aesthetics mean a lot to me personally but I can't recommend two 650ti boost's being worth it in my opinion.

 

Two 650ti boost cards would roughly be $300.00 depending on the manufacture. You said +/- $100.00 so, if you have a $400.00 dollar budget I would definitely recommend finding a 7970 on sale, or a 7950. Same would go if you prefer Nvidia. Try to find a 680 on sale, 670 or maybe even wait till you see the pricing of the 700 series cards here shortly. If nothing else they will have boost 2.0 on the 760 and 770.

[killerx525]

Pay a bit extra for the $7950.

[david cassar]

The gtx 650 ti boost scales very good in sli. If i where you I would try to get a single card since it has less problems than 2 cards but this is the performance you could expect from a 650 ti boost in sli : 

[BKCXb]

Personally I wouldn't SLI anything lower than 660Ti's , and for the money that they cost would I save alot on  a 670, than get another later, or just buy a Titan if I was buying now. But I am not buying now I'm waiting to see if they did the right things to the 780 or is it just a gap filler.

 

It all depends on what you want to do also, you can look cool and save alot  if your gaming one on a 19 inch monitor with old games, just buy someones old SLI setup when they upgrade. The 650Ti boost are new cards and Nvidia is asking too much for the 600 series in my opnion.

 

7970s are under $400 right now , so for 50 % more your gonna get 2% more performance and look cool.

 

If you want Nvidia (don't blame you if you do) a 680 is 10% cheaper  for 7 % slower performance

 

a 670 is also 50% cheaper for 14% less performance and you got $200 bucks towards another one If you want to run higher resolutions in the future (30 inch or surround)

 

I would rather have a  $600 Monitor than throw $600 worth of graphic cards at one 1080 p monitor.

 

It will be awsome for about a 6 months than you will realize thats as far as you can go with those cards, because one is made to play most games without all the eye candy on with one 1080p monitor. 2 will give you stupid fps, but if your not  

buying a 120Hz monitor there is no point.

[Mukessh]

My opinion would be to either get 2 660ti and above or get 1 single 670/680 . 

[LawlCakes]

The gtx 650 ti boost scales very good in sli. If i where you I would try to get a single card since it has less problems than 2 cards but this is the performance you could expect from a 650 ti boost in sli : 

 

So my next question would be what are the cons of having an SLI setup

and do those cons really outweigh the performance gain that you see 

from an SLI setup?

 

I may be wrong here, but from what I can tell the price/performance ratio

of an SLI 650Ti-B setup is far greater that that of something like an SLI 660Ti

setup. With that in mind what would be the max resolution I could play at with 

both configurations because other than resolution I don't see the benefit of

paying more for the SLI 660Tis.

 

Right now I don't plan on buying a monitor with a resolution higher than 1920x1080,

but I might upgrade to say something like a 1920x1200 resolution in the future, so how does playable resolution factor in here?

 

I guess I just don't understand why I should pay more for a high performance card when 

I can get similar or better performance from a less expensive SLI setup

with two mid tier cards.

[david cassar]

Well multiple cards are a lot of times not reccomended because of how scaling in games may differ. Stuttering also can be an issue(not that big with nvidia though.) A problem will be that two gtx 650 ti boost in the future will probably be bottlenecked because of their memory bus.

[BKCXb]

In SLI you are throwing more GPU power at your games,  a pair of smaller higher clocked GPUs always wins out over single slower clocked GPUs in fps, but you can't throw anymore at your games with 2 cheap cards. One bigger card is better, if you need more you can add another, or two!

 

In SLI you don't gain Memory what one card has is all the set up has.

 

At 1080P  one 660Ti is enough unless you get a 120Hz monitor

 

I have been running SLI for years and haven't had any problems with it, I have had single flagship cards in the past, went SLI this time, when upgrade time comes I will go back to one big card and add another if its needed, I run surround.