Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: ebfd11 on October 12, 2014, 02:01:43 PM
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I am looking at redoing my video cards and I hope to get a little advise here .. Right now I have dual 570 GTX hd running in sli due to having triple monitor setup. I am looking at upgrading and I have a couple in mind to choose from.
Current specs..
AMD fx 8350 @ 4.0
16 gig ram (forgot the speed)
Windows 7 pro 64 bit
1300 watt PSU
1) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130946
2) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130921
3) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500302
Advice and comments taken..
LawnDart
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I have an EVGA GTX 780Ti (2883-KR Reference Cooler)running three monitors and get 60fps on max settings in Mechwarrior Online and in AH. Prior, I had the EVGA GTX 770 4GB Classified (ACX) running three monitors and would see 60 in AH and would get a solid 35 in MWO, with both on Max settings.
I will only buy EVGA. IMO the 980 or 780Ti Reference coolers are the way to go and I do not care for the noise and heat dispersion of the ACX card. Which is why I sold it, but offered it up here first with no takers.
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I would wait till the 970 is available and get it.
semp
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I have an EVGA GTX 780Ti (2883-KR Reference Cooler)running three monitors and get 60fps on max settings in Mechwarrior Online and in AH. Prior, I had the EVGA GTX 770 4GB Classified (ACX) running three monitors and would see 60 in AH and would get a solid 35 in MWO, with both on Max settings.
I will only buy EVGA. IMO the 980 or 780Ti Reference coolers are the way to go and I do not care for the noise and heat dispersion of the ACX card. Which is why I sold it, but offered it up here first with no takers.
I've had pretty good luck with EVGA too. Started out years ago with an EVGA GTS 250 and now finally saved enough to get the 660 (non-TI). Low temps and it's pretty snappy.
It'll run Shadow of Mordor on all high settings with a 48+ FPS. I can live with that.
Coogan
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I always try to get an eVGA card as well, they have the strongest ties with nVidia from everything I've read, and also have an excellent warranty policy, which they back up very well, again, from what I've read. I've never had a failure with any of their stuff, so I can't comment on the warranty personally, but from various reports online available, they seem to honor their word very well.
Asus cards aren't a terrible alternative I suppose, but I would rather wait for eVGA than buy even Asus brand, which I did with my 970s - apparently most of the free world feels the same way about eVGA as the rest of us here, as all their cards sold out in a flash x3 restocks at the 3 largest resellers I tried, while there were a few Asus cards available here and there, as well as the other typical suspects like Zotac (blargh) and the like.
IMO OP should try for a 970 eVGA of some description, there are several available from the mid to high 300$ range in the USA, depending on version/factory clock/etc. Today is a holiday up here, but I should have my 970s delivered tomorrow at last after almost 2 weeks on order. The single 980 we have is working fantastic, and I"m interested to see if the 970SLI beats it as all the reviews have shown.
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EVGA changed their warranty coverage to include only some cards (lifetime) and otherwise the warranty covers a limited period. So, it would be in your best interest to check their coverage with the product you intend to purchase so as to avoid any disappointments.
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EVGA changed their warranty coverage to include only some cards (lifetime) and otherwise the warranty covers a limited period. So, it would be in your best interest to check their coverage with the product you intend to purchase so as to avoid any disappointments.
Had an EVGA MB die a while back that was already several years out of warranty. They still replaced it. One of the best companies I've ever dealt with for customer service. Only nit I have with EVGA is they don't have a will call/drop off window since they're almost in walking distance from me.
Couple more amazing CS companies are David Clark and Alien Bee (Paul C Buff). Wish more companies had their level of service.
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I always try to get an eVGA card as well, they have the strongest ties with nVidia from everything I've read, and also have an excellent warranty policy, which they back up very well, again, from what I've read. I've never had a failure with any of their stuff, so I can't comment on the warranty personally, but from various reports online available, they seem to honor their word very well.
Asus cards aren't a terrible alternative I suppose, but I would rather wait for eVGA than buy even Asus brand, which I did with my 970s - apparently most of the free world feels the same way about eVGA as the rest of us here, as all their cards sold out in a flash x3 restocks at the 3 largest resellers I tried, while there were a few Asus cards available here and there, as well as the other typical suspects like Zotac (blargh) and the like.
IMO OP should try for a 970 eVGA of some description, there are several available from the mid to high 300$ range in the USA, depending on version/factory clock/etc. Today is a holiday up here, but I should have my 970s delivered tomorrow at last after almost 2 weeks on order. The single 980 we have is working fantastic, and I"m interested to see if the 970SLI beats it as all the reviews have shown.
Gman,
Have you done a comparison run between your 980 & your 780Ti yet?
I am very curious to get your take on this since you have made the jump..................
:salute
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Here is my resource, card vs card (general performance)
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html (http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html)
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Here is my resource, card vs card (general performance)
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html (http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html)
just a curious point. on the 770 there's 2 cards one with 4 gigs of ram and 1 with 2. but I cant figure out which one they're actually benchmarking. or are both equal or does the benchmarking doesnt affect it.
semp
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That site seems to take some liberties in their scoring. I do not see the 980 outperforming an R9 295 x2 or the Titans, not trying to be a downer, just a realist.
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Pudgie, when my new monitor(s) get here will be the true test. All I'm running right now is 2 single 24" Asus 144hz 1080p monitors. With the 780ti box that the 980 went into there are only a couple real hog programs like Crysis 3 and Arma3 where I've noticed a bit of increase in performance going from 780ti to the 980.
Once I go back to triple monitor with 144hz capable monitors, we'll see when I crush the system with that 57xx x 1080p in max detail on some stuff. I also have a 27" ROG Swift Asus 1440p G sync on order, they claim it will ship friday. Running either of these LCD setups and comparing the 980 to the 780ti will show some increase in performance is my gut feeling, but again, with the LCD's I have now, the difference between my 780 to the 980 is hard to tell. I do know Arma3 saw about a 25% increase in fps, but nothing super staggering. I just plan on running nVidia surround, Gsync 1440p, and eventually early next year probably 4k, hence the upgrades.
I just picked up the 970s a couple hours ago. By early next week I should be able to compare 680sli, 780ti, 980, and 970sli in a number of various games on both a 3930k x79 and a 4930k x79 platform.
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Anandtech has not done a 980 SLI comparison yet. The 980 is already beating the Titans in their comparison. Of course, the R9 295 x2 is a dual GPU card, so the only fair comparison would be against an SLI matchup, or a 985 if one ever comes along. My money is on the Maxwell.
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Pudgie, when my new monitor(s) get here will be the true test. All I'm running right now is 2 single 24" Asus 144hz 1080p monitors. With the 780ti box that the 980 went into there are only a couple real hog programs like Crysis 3 and Arma3 where I've noticed a bit of increase in performance going from 780ti to the 980.
Once I go back to triple monitor with 144hz capable monitors, we'll see when I crush the system with that 57xx x 1080p in max detail on some stuff. I also have a 27" ROG Swift Asus 1440p G sync on order, they claim it will ship friday. Running either of these LCD setups and comparing the 980 to the 780ti will show some increase in performance is my gut feeling, but again, with the LCD's I have now, the difference between my 780 to the 980 is hard to tell. I do know Arma3 saw about a 25% increase in fps, but nothing super staggering. I just plan on running nVidia surround, Gsync 1440p, and eventually early next year probably 4k, hence the upgrades.
I just picked up the 970s a couple hours ago. By early next week I should be able to compare 680sli, 780ti, 980, and 970sli in a number of various games on both a 3930k x79 and a 4930k x79 platform.
Ah OK.
Will be looking forward to the results you find out.
In the meantime I'm looking at changing out my current Corsair Vengence LP 16Gb DDR3 1600 quad channel mem kit for a Muskin Stealth 16Gb DDR3 2133 quad channel mem kit (both are low profile mem kits....need this to clear the fan on my Artic Freezer I30 CPU HSF).
:salute
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My results so far put the R9 295X2 in last place. 780 Ti SLI runs in the middle with the 980 SLI on top. With 4K resolutions there is only a 6 fps average variation though.
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The drivers are not allowing SLI + DSR + Surround at the moment. I have read that it may work on non-GSYNC monitors, but with SLI deactivated DSR + Surround works fine.
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970 SLI installed. 3Dmark = 20850, a big step up from the 16000 this box ran with the 680 SLI. Hopefully the new monitors get here by the weekend or early next week, I'd like to see how these newest nVidia cards run when really pushed. Considering I sold the 2 680s for 350$ Canadian, and the new cards cost only a few hundred more than that, it's a fairly cheap upgrade IMO for quite a bit of performance.
My observation in most games that have good SLI profiles is that the 970 SLI is pretty soundly beating the single 980, even with the older CPU (4930k in our 980 system). It'll be a better test or at least more telling I think once I get my triple monitor and 1440p Gsync monitor running. Overall the 980 is a great deal IMO, as is a single 970, as I tried a bunch of stuff with SLI disabled - very impressive for a card that was 200$ cheaper than the single 680 I bought this time 2 years ago, when it was the best card available at the time next to the 1000$ 690. Less noise, less power and heat, and 3/5 the price - pretty good stuff if you ask me.
One thing - beggars can't be choosers, and I took the non-ref ACX superclocked version. My last 680 cards weren't blessed with the aftermarket cooling fans. Holy effballs, these things are loud when cranked up with a fan profile w/Precision/Afterburner/etc. I have a noctua cooler, which with the 680s before was loud - guess I didn't know what "loud" is fan wise.
Also, I was able to get a stable o/c @ 1430 ish and 7700 mem. Made about 5 or 7 percent diff in FPS in the resource/vid card hog games I tried it with. Pretty much what the reviews said regarding the 970. The 980 seems to be able to be pushed a little more as well.
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One disappointment is that I was forced to disable SLI in order to render in 3DS Max.
Gman I am curious, I am not o'clocking but I read you have to run the cards at different voltages in order to hold SLI. Is that what you discovered? I am running the reference cards in an Antec 1900 case (dual PSU) so I could test Quad SLI. I will do that next week, as my classes are fairly intensive toward the end of the week and I won't have time until then. I don't have a noise problem at this point.
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Yep, I copied the voltages used by various review sites that o/c'd sli 970s. The 2nd card I had to uncouple and mess around with its voltage setting to get the OC to be stable.
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970 SLI installed. 3Dmark = 20850, a big step up from the 16000 this box ran with the 680 SLI. Hopefully the new monitors get here by the weekend or early next week, I'd like to see how these newest nVidia cards run when really pushed. Considering I sold the 2 680s for 350$ Canadian, and the new cards cost only a few hundred more than that, it's a fairly cheap upgrade IMO for quite a bit of performance.
My observation in most games that have good SLI profiles is that the 970 SLI is pretty soundly beating the single 980, even with the older CPU (4930k in our 980 system). It'll be a better test or at least more telling I think once I get my triple monitor and 1440p Gsync monitor running. Overall the 980 is a great deal IMO, as is a single 970, as I tried a bunch of stuff with SLI disabled - very impressive for a card that was 200$ cheaper than the single 680 I bought this time 2 years ago, when it was the best card available at the time next to the 1000$ 690. Less noise, less power and heat, and 3/5 the price - pretty good stuff if you ask me.
One thing - beggars can't be choosers, and I took the non-ref ACX superclocked version. My last 680 cards weren't blessed with the aftermarket cooling fans. Holy effballs, these things are loud when cranked up with a fan profile w/Precision/Afterburner/etc. I have a noctua cooler, which with the 680s before was loud - guess I didn't know what "loud" is fan wise.
Also, I was able to get a stable o/c @ 1430 ish and 7700 mem. Made about 5 or 7 percent diff in FPS in the resource/vid card hog games I tried it with. Pretty much what the reviews said regarding the 970. The 980 seems to be able to be pushed a little more as well.
I believe I'm seeing a GTX 980 SC (or better) somehow showing up on ole Pudgie's door step in the near future....................... ............
Coupled up w/ the Mushkin Stealth LP 2133 Mhz 16Gb DDR3 4x4 quad channel mem kit that should be at ole Pudgie's door step Monday, this box of mine should be feeling pretty good......................... .....
:D
Thanks for the posting Gman..................
:salute
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Anyone looking to upgrade to the 980s should understand that with surround activated and running1080 resolutions that your performance could actually be less than even the older 680 card. The 980 is optimized for the higher resolutions and really doesn't give a big return until 4k resolutions are in play. There is no way to automatically setup monitor configurations when launching a particular game, so the process of establishing Surround, enabling SLI, or Maximizing 3D performance can be irritating and involved. SLI still cannot run more than two monitors, and if you wish to run three monitors (you could actually make it four) with an SLI profile you will have to run a third card with a different GPU.
If you wish to do this but all you have is a non-SLI motherboard you might try using DifferntSLI, which you can read about in many forums across the web. I don't have actual experience with that.
In order to get this setup into full swing I have settled upon using a 4K GSync monitor as the center monitor of a surround setup. One added benefit of getting a GSYnc monitor is the locked refresh, and the one I bought (an Acer 28") does 1080p gracefully, and restores to 3840 x 2160 without complaint also. That way I can use SLI and DSR at 4K and then step back to surround for working on the same system. There simply is not enough VRAM to use three monitors at 4k, sadly. SLI is active when using surround, but the unique SLI anti-aliasing features are not available until the "Maximize 3D Performance" option is selected, which means a single monitor.
I tested 2-way SLI on a Z87 MB, and 2-way, 3-way, and Quad SLI on an X79 MB. The Z87 system uses some additional devices in the available PCIex1 slots and the final PCIex8 slot without affecting the available GPU lanes (GPU-Z reports both cards running at x8). The X79 system is capable of running two cards at x16, or four cards (Quad SLI) at x8. As we have discussed before, there is no real advantage to running a single card at x16 vs x8, however what Quad SLI offers is the ability to use even higher AA settings. This should be further improved once the drivers are updated to add MFAA functionality.
Testing AH offline is not an optimal method of benchmarking, I know. Offline with every graphics option active I ran a few tests in tanks at a large field, with the B29 zoomed in to view the environment effects, and with the Arado right over the top of the city strats and compared it to duplicate tests on a single 680 GPU running Surround. The Arado test on the Z87 system saw a loss of performance at 1080 980 surround (134.7 fps)compared to the 680 Surround (139 fps). It's only a 4fps loss, and I mention this simply to point out that standard resolutions do not require this setup. The same setup with the B29 Benchmark saw an advantage return to the 980 surround setup as frames increased by more than 30fps. Please, bear in mind this is not an optimal testing method and there are simply too many variables to get consistent results.
Looking forward to more from Gman and the 1440p results.
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I know in my case running either 680 or 970 sli with AH results in pretty much the same thing - 143 fps max all the time, except very few instances when down low over tank town, or pushing the environment slider beyond notch 2 or 3. I know that in other games, and 3dmark, a huge performance leap in terms of fps has been observed. 5000 3dmarks, and in games like Alien Isolation or Rome 2, Crysis 3, and such, I gained probably 25% or even more frames tested with fraps.
I haven't messed with DSR yet, or gotten the monitor for which I upgraded for. I'm wait listed for both the Acer xb280hk, the monitor I assume you tested here Chalenge, and the ROG Swift. I'm not going to run surround, at least for now, I didn't particularly like running 3 144hz monitors all that much anyhow. There isn't all that much out there that supports 4k, not truly, not yet anyhow, which had me leaning towards the ROG Swift Gsync, which is 144hz/1440p compared to the Acer's 60hz/4k, sort of trading hz for 4k. The more I've read though, the more quickly I think 4k will be a better option, so I"m hoping the Acer monitor comes in first now.
What do you think of that Acer xb280hk Chalenge? Were you in my spot with 2 970 SLI, would you buy either the Acer Gsync 4k or the Asus ROG Swift 1440p/144hz?
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I like the monitor just fine! When I first hooked it up I could not get past 2560 x 1600, but then I found where I had hooked the active cable up to one of the other monitors. All three use DisplayPort. I had read that HDMI is still buggy, but I have not tried it. DisplayPort reaches 4k at 60 Hz just fine, contrary to what has been reported on this board previously (just not with a 10' passive cable). Probably I should be using an active cable in all instances anyway.
I was looking at the Asus ROG Swift myself and it is still on my wish list for later, so I cannot disagree with your choice there.
EDIT: I should have said "not with a cheap 10' passive cable." Most cables should go 15' or more without degrading as badly as the one I mentioned. You should not need an active cable unless you are running a cable a long, long way, but you can still find poor cables.