N285gtx or N260gtx SLI

[neuro]

simple question.

i need a new computer because my laptop's gfx card fried for the 2nd time in 3 years, and the manufacturer doesnt have a new one in stock, so they have to ship it to fucking TAIWAN, and my 3-year warranty expired 20 days ago, so the shipping costs will SUCK. (part in question = Nvidia Geforce Go 7950 GTX in case anyone is smart and can find me a replacement for cheap)

anyway back to the point.
i'm not sure if i should put in a single Nvidia N285gtx superpipe OC, or a dual Nvidia N260gtx-t2d896 OC in SLI (costs the same with a 1 euro difference)

i heard that there sometimes are problems with operating on multiple screens when runnign in sli-mode, so i'm leaning towards the N258, but there's also certain benefits to a dual GPU i guess.

what's the expert's word on this?

[Cortexian]

Firstly, they're "GTX 285's" and "GTX 260's", Nvidia moved the "GTX" to the front with the 200 series cards.

Now, SLI is completely useless for running multiple screens with the current drivers since there are only three or four games that work in SLI with more than one monitor. That said, both monitors need to be plugged into the same graphics card... So if you want SLI you're limited to two monitors and near as many applications.

I'd go with the single GTX 285 if you're going to be running two monitors. If you're going to be running more than two monitors, I'd still go with the GTX 285 and an additional cheap graphics card to power the third. The only reason I bought two GTX 285 graphic cards for my setup is so that I can use Matrox TripleHead2Go once they improve it to work at my native resolution of 1920x1200 per monitor.

[legionaire45]

Might be a good idea to make sure that whatever card you get actually fits and works in your laptop - while MXM is a "standard" manufacturers regularly move things like cooling device placement around and the MXM card you buy may not actually work with the laptop's MXM slot.

Also, make sure the laptop can actually power the card - the GTX260 and GTX280 are both very power hungry chips - make sure that your laptop can actually power them. Not positive, but when the GTX260 is running at full power I think it uses around 125 watts or something.
Sorry, misunderstanding.

[SnaFuBAR]

The cards aren't for his laptop, they're for a desktop.