Nvidia GTX280

[kermitforney]

Wonderin if anyone has one of these?!?

I am planning on running on 23' for my main maxed out and another 22' with my four alts. When I push this setup I tend to have to run my alts on super low settings. Will this gfx card help out or should I go cheap and buy a matching 9800GTX for the second monitor?

FYI ~ Leaning toward dual graphics cards pushing two monitors.

[Enndo]

The GTX 275 is alot cheaper than the 280 and nearly the same. If your looking to save $ go with another 9800

[kermitforney]

I am leaning towards the 9800 GTX, unless I can find a single slot solution that could drive my setup.

I forgot that if I went with another 9800GTX, I would also have to buy a new Power Supply for the extra power requirements that my current PSU does not support.

[Enndo]

Use a single card than. Get a gtx260 or 275 for great performance.

[Catamer]

I have a 280 card, I'm currently running two monitors set at 1680x1050.
I have used the main screen at 1920x1200 but I kind of think things run more smoothly with both windows are of the same resolution.
right now I only have 3 WoWs running on this machine and two on my other machine.

I tried 5 wows on one machine but I really didn't like it, I never have lag with two machines.

[kermitforney]

I have a 280 card, I'm currently running two monitors set at 1680x1050.
I have used the main screen at 1920x1200 but I kind of think things run more smoothly with both windows are of the same resolution.
right now I only have 3 WoWs running on this machine and two on my other machine.

I tried 5 wows on one machine but I really didn't like it, I never have lag with two machines.

I used to run dual machines and definitely feel where your coming from. Only problem is that I use my home PC for remote work from time to time and need to have dual monitors connected to one machine. Plus, having an extra PC is just a hassle now for me.

[Terraelf]

I have the 280. The chipset architecture change is a big deal and I strongly suggest not getting anything pre 55 nm.

[Souca]

I run a GTX280 and 9500GT x 2. The GTX 280 has more than enough oomph to handle 5 clients on two monitors. I have 5 22" LCDs running at 1680x1050. The biggest problem you will see with running WoW clients is the CPU and the single card limitation. WoW isn't very intelligent when it comes to picking a graphics card to run on, so you end up having to run all your WoW clients on monitors conencted to the primary graphics card. Al 5 of my clients have to run on the two moonitors conencted to the GTX 280. The minute a single pixel shows up on another monitor and Windows will switch to software rendering for that client and your machine will lag to hell. There have been some other posts about this issue, but I haven't found a solution or looked too hard since I'm not really playing WoW much.

When I was running 5 clients, once I'd gotten used to the single card issue, I found that the clients tended to be rather CPU heavy after Wrath. Running a 9550 quad I find that the client that has focus will consume all of the core it is set to run on. Most of the lag I saw seemed to be resultant from the CPU topping out as the graphics card never seemed to break a sweat and graphics settings had no impact on performance for me.

So for one machine boxing, my suggestion is a big CPU and a single graphics card that can drive the two monitors you want all your clients on. If I were doing it again, I'd go with multiple machines personally. I just happen to have other uses for my beast so it worked out in the end.

- Souca -

[sqeaky4100]

I run a GTX280 and 9500GT x 2. The GTX 280 has more than enough oomph to handle 5 clients on two monitors. I have 5 22" LCDs running at 1680x1050. The biggest problem you will see with running WoW clients is the CPU and the single card limitation. WoW isn't very intelligent when it comes to picking a graphics card to run on, so you end up having to run all your WoW clients on monitors conencted to the primary graphics card. Al 5 of my clients have to run on the two moonitors conencted to the GTX 280. The minute a single pixel shows up on another monitor and Windows will switch to software rendering for that client and your machine will lag to hell. There have been some other posts about this issue, but I haven't found a solution or looked too hard since I'm not really playing WoW much.

When I was running 5 clients, once I'd gotten used to the single card issue, I found that the clients tended to be rather CPU heavy after Wrath. Running a 9550 quad I find that the client that has focus will consume all of the core it is set to run on. Most of the lag I saw seemed to be resultant from the CPU topping out as the graphics card never seemed to break a sweat and graphics settings had no impact on performance for me.

So for one machine boxing, my suggestion is a big CPU and a single graphics card that can drive the two monitors you want all your clients on. If I were doing it again, I'd go with multiple machines personally. I just happen to have other uses for my beast so it worked out in the end.

- Souca -

This isn;t the case in Vista.

While 2x 24" monitors will still tax the hell out of your GPU, it isn't software rendering like in XP.

[Jafula]

FYI ~ Leaning toward dual graphics cards pushing two monitors.

Wow will only render on the primary graphics card*. If you have a second GPU hooked up to a second monitor and want to run wow clients on your second monitor (connected to 2nd GPU) you will see a big fps drop from just one GPU and two monitors. What happens is windows has to push the data from the primary gpu to the 2nd gpu accross the bus decreasing fps.

I have had personal experience with this - I was sorely disappointed when I added a GTX260 to sit alongside my 8000GT with a monitor off each GPU and discovered that my overall FPS was much worse.

* I believe InnerSpace can hack around this limitation of Wow.