Very disappointed and confused with SLI and cards i have chosen.

[AceSpade77]

Hello, I just finished my Gaming PC build and i was very excited and saved for a good while to do so. I spent a grand total of $2,000 and that includes LCD, sound, keyboard, ect.

Well one of the options i threw into this PC was 2 EVGA gts 250 1gb cards.

And yes i went to the nvidia controller and enabled SLI and physX

I also have both cards overclocked, and safely cooled.

Now im buying the games i would like for this new rig and come to find out it sucks!, I just got Napoleon Total War today and the cards cant play high or very high and medium looks like crap i mean horrible... When i put on high its extreme lag, and yeah i guess the game is not sli compatible and runs through steam, but come on.

All this prep feels like it was for nothing, every game i have bought so far doesnt really roll with SLI...

My question is, Should i sell the two cards somehow? and get a single GTX 295 or what???

If your wondering my other specs heres a lil.

-3.7ghz cpu
-Asus M4N82 Deluxe
-8 gigs 800mhz ram
-windows 7 64bit
-10,00rpm hdd's

 

[Glliw]

You more than exceed the recommended specs. Try updating drivers.

 

[spynoodle]

You more than exceed the recommended specs. Try updating drivers.

^ That seems like a good idea.

My question is, Should i sell the two cards somehow? and get a single GTX 295 or what???

If the games you play really don't support SLI, then don't get a GTX 295. I'm pretty sure that the GTX 295 is just two GTX 285s in SLI on one card, right? In that scenario I'm pretty sure you'd see better performance with a GTX 285.

 

[Gabe63]

The cost of 2 GTX 260's = the cost of 1 ATI 5870 which is faster. Plus you will not have SLI or CF issues. Can you return the cards?

 

[Intel_man]

To know if the game uses SLi or not, put your game on window mode and have the temperature readings of your cards in the background. If only one of them is hot and the other one is idling at the same temp as before the game has started, the game does not support SLi.

It may be possible to force SLi through the Control Panel but not all games can do it.

 

[Computer_Freak]

If your wondering my other specs heres a lil.

-3.7ghz cpu (what architecture, pentium, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad???)
-Asus M4N82 Deluxe
-8 gigs 800mhz ram
-windows 7 64bit
-10,00rpm hdd's (what brand, capacity, how many)

the GTS250 is OK. its like a 9800GT in terms of performance (slightly better though)

as stated before, some games dont support SLI. Try Disabling SLI, amd also update your card drivers...