Evga 260 sli or gtx 280

i currently have 2 gtx260 sli. can i put a gtx 280 in sli with those 2? if not should i keep running the 2 260's or swap those 2 out for one 280?....i already have the evga gtx 280, got it for free. my mob and psu can handle 3gpu

To my knowledge, Nvidia does not support mixed SLI. ATI will allow you to run similar cards in crossfire, such as an HD 4850 with an HD 4870 or 4890, but remember that the higher end card will have to reduce its performance to match the weaker card. As you can see here the GTX280 is a big step up from the GTX 260 216, if you have the GTX 260 192 you are even further back.

So even if you could, I wouldnt recommend adding a 280 to the mix of GTX 260. You may not stand to gain any performance (depending on your gaming resolution) with triple SLI, and you are simply better off either selling the twin 260s and grabbing another GTX 280, or selling the 280 and putting the money towards something else.

Very few games really benefit going from 2 to 3 way SLI/crossfire, and in the most the most forgiving games you might see 20-40% improvement in performance, and in some games that dont scale quite so well...you may not see any improvement at all and in some cases...you can lose performance vs 2 way sli/crossfire. The only situation that is designed for 3 way sli is 2560x1600, anything lower will see very limited increase. If you are running any resolution lower than that, 3 way sli really isnt for you.

But hey, plan B means you can still plug that 280 in and use it for Folding@Home for the dev team, or to power additional monitors.

thanks stang