I've bee out of the loop for a while. Which card for 1440p?

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x_MaGiuS_x

Gawd
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I've been out of the loop regarding hardware for probably a year.

I'm looking for a replacement for my 7970. I game at 1440p/60hz and prefer to have all settings at their maximum.

I play Battlefield 4 and will likely pick up Hardline

I'd also like to play Shadow of Mordor and FarCry 4

Which card am I looking for?

I've been trying to play catch up by reading the forum but I can't really figure out where we are in the release cycle.

If I had to buy a card today I'd get a Gigabyte or MSI 980 4gb.

What I'm worried about is that with 4gb the card won't last as long as I'd like it to. I've also read that the 980 doesn't have the memory bandwidth to take advantage of 8gb and these cards don't exist yet anyway, so I don't know what to think.

My main apprehension is not knowing where we're at in the release cycle. Everything I've read online is rather ambiguous regarding a release timeframe for new cards.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Since 4GB is the limit for mainstream offerings right now and some games like ME:SoM can use more than that with the HD Texture Pack and Ultra settings, I'd recommend one of two things if you don't want to wait:

1. Get a used Titan...it will cost you in the range of $550-650. Then possibly add a second one later down the road.
2 Get a pair of 970's.

If you are willing to wait, then see what the next gen AMD 3xx series and NVidia 16nm Maxwell refresh brings to the table. I'm on the verge of willing to bet real money that we'll see greater than 4GB VRAM options for both newcomers right out of the gate.

A new generation will also drop prices even further of current NVidia and AMD solutions.
 
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Pair of 970s will give you excellent performance especially for the price. That's what I'm using on my 1440p and I get around 80-90fps on far cry 4 fairly maxed out
 
I agree with FRZ, a pair of 970's will do nicely now and in the future at 1440p. My only concern is a lot of the latest games do not support SLI, hopeful a trend that will end.
 
I've never had an Nvidia SLI setup but back when I had Crossfire'd 6970s I found myself having to disable the second card in a lot of games. For this reason I went with a single 7970.

Ideally, I'd like a single card solution.

Looks like I'm stuck waiting for the next gen. I can't bring myself to spend the money that a used Titan costs considering the age of the card.

What's the current guess regarding release dates? The last time I looked people were speculating early Q1 2015 but considering the lack of information available, I'm guessing this isn't accurate.
 
2x 970's in SLI would be ideal for 1440p. One 980 might be sufficient, but I don't advocate the price/performance ratio.
 
I recommend an EVGA 980 Classified. Just make sure you overclock it.
 
x_MaGius_x have you read the latest [H] performance review of FC4? SLI scaling is quite efficient nowadays and nVidia has been pretty quick to get SLI profiles released with each new game.

If I wasn't hellbent of waiting to see what the upcoming 16nm Maxwell can do, I'd get a 970 SLI setup without hesitation. Granted, I game at 1080p, but I like to crank up the graphics setting as much as possible and I have a 144hz monitor. My only other reservation is that I want at least 6GB VRAM on a 970-class GPU, because ME:SoM can really suck up the avail memory when the HD Texture Pack is installed and Ultra settings are used. My 780 SLI isn't enough for it...
 
Even my single 970 maxes farcry at 1440p and i get a stable 60fps...BF4 I'm at 70-80fps on ultra. I don't think SLI is even worth it unless you have a 120hz monitor, even then most games you'll have to disable the second card (Talking about a variety of old gen games that can be maxed by a single 970/980 now). I'd say just get one card for now and see if you really need another after fiddling around a bit.
 
My cause for hesitation is a game like Shadow of Mordor that, as others have mentioned, can take up 4gb with texture packs.

My thinking is that more and more games are going to have similar demands and I like my upgrades to last two years. I just can't see 4gb being enough two years from now.

I'd be willing to try an SLI setup but it still wouldn't fix the 4gb limitation.

Looks like I'll be going back to Civ 5 and Diablo 3 while waiting for the next gen cards. Upgraditis is going to make the wait excruciating!
 
Vatican said:
Even my single 970 maxes farcry at 1440p and i get a stable 60fps...BF4 I'm at 70-80fps on ultra. I don't think SLI is even worth it unless you have a 120hz monitor, even then most games you'll have to disable the second card (Talking about a variety of old gen games that can be maxed by a single 970/980 now). I'd say just get one card for now and see if you really need another after fiddling around a bit.
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Um no it doesn't.
 
Fastest single card you can get today regardless of price is a GTX 980. It has been out for a couple of months, thus, it is fairly early in the NVIDIA release cycle. However, AMD has not answered it with their next cycle yet. The 980 should suit you well at 1440p resolution for a while, but its always difficult to predict what will be adequate in 2 years.

The best thing you can do is to make the best purchase that you can when you want to make that purchase (i.e. when your current card doesn't cut it anymore). If you're constantly waiting for the next generation to drop (which the frequency of such drops has been declining in recent past history), then you'll still have your 7970 in two years and will have killed 3 mice playing Diablo 3.
 
A 290x or a GTX980, 1440 is still an hefty resolution with over just over a 56% increase in pixels vs 1080.
 
Say I decide to bite the bullet and pick up a 970 or 980, what brands are preferred these days?

My 7970 is a freakin' banshee. I'd prefer something a little quieter this time around.
 
I am running 1440p with 2 MSI Gaming GTX 970's. Everything is great so far and the overclock on these cards is pretty decent too. They are pretty quiet and the fans are actually off when you're not gaming.
 
^ biggest drawback for AMD cards right now is they have been a little slow getting multi-GPU support out for newer games. There's still the VRAM limit which MaGius is concerned about even with the 970 and 980, as well.

I still say twin 970s if waiting is not an option. Otherwise, just wait for the AMD 300 series and the 16nm Maxwell shrink.
 
x_MaGiuS_x said:
My cause for hesitation is a game like Shadow of Mordor that, as others have mentioned, can take up 4gb with texture packs.

My thinking is that more and more games are going to have similar demands and I like my upgrades to last two years. I just can't see 4gb being enough two years from now.
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You forget that the 4GB plus requirements are for uncompressed ultra high res textures. There's barely any real difference in image quality (especially in motion) in Shadow of Mordor in high vs ultra textures except high runs smooth as butter. It's just people being bummed that they can't turn every setting to max even if there isn't much difference in visuals.

GTX 970 or better yet, two of them like I have, is quite ideal for 1440p.
 
x_MaGiuS_x said:
Say I decide to bite the bullet and pick up a 970 or 980, what brands are preferred these days?

My 7970 is a freakin' banshee. I'd prefer something a little quieter this time around.
Click to expand...

I'd recommend EVGA.
 
x_MaGiuS_x said:
Say I decide to bite the bullet and pick up a 970 or 980, what brands are preferred these days?

My 7970 is a freakin' banshee. I'd prefer something a little quieter this time around.
Click to expand...
Gigabyte and MSi are the most popular among people on this forum. Gigabyte cards seem to suffer most from coil whine, though, judging from posts on the issue.
 
misterbobby said:
Um no it doesn't.
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Honestly, http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/01/07/far_cry_4_video_card_performance_review/5#.VLAPJ9LF81I 970 is getting 50.6 fps on max settings and they're not OC'ed. I'm getting a couple of more higher than this as i'm sure most others do considering how user friendly these cards OC up to, close to 60fps is still possible with this game and a single 970.

In that review, the 970 is still contending in the same ballpark range of only 3-5 fps difference with a 980/290x(It actually performed better than a 290x) for a much more performance/value!
 
I'm going to go out on a limb and say get something with more then 4GB. FarCry 4 is using ALL 3gb of my 780 at just 1080p with SMAA, HBAO+, Enhanced Godrays, and everything else Ultra
 
Vatican said:
Honestly, http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/01/07/far_cry_4_video_card_performance_review/5#.VLAPJ9LF81I 970 is getting 50.6 fps on max settings and they're not OC'ed. I'm getting a couple of more higher than this as i'm sure most others do considering how user friendly these cards OC up to, close to 60fps is still possible with this game and a single 970.

In that review, the 970 is still contending in the same ballpark range of only 3-5 fps difference with a 980/290x(It actually performed better than a 290x) for a much more performance/value!
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Um that is not all max settings so look down at the apples to apples and its getting 39.7 fps on max settings with SMAA. And I dont know if they clarified exactly what 970 they were using but it was certainly oced from the factory as they have no reference cards on tap. It was probably the 970 Gaming they used which would explain the unusually small gap between the 970 and 980 in their tests. So again bottom line there would be zero chance of maintaining 60 fps in FC 4 on max settings at 1440 with a 970 or even 980 for that matter.
 
kasakka said:
You forget that the 4GB plus requirements are for uncompressed ultra high res textures. There's barely any real difference in image quality (especially in motion) in Shadow of Mordor in high vs ultra textures except high runs smooth as butter. It's just people being bummed that they can't turn every setting to max even if there isn't much difference in visuals.

GTX 970 or better yet, two of them like I have, is quite ideal for 1440p.
Click to expand...

I know that the ultra high res textures are frequently tough to distinguish from regular high-level textures. That fact doesn't dissuade me from wanting to use them.

Part of the fun of high-end PC gaming is the ability to turn things up to 11.

I think I'm going to order a 980 while I wait for the refresh. The card will still have value when I need to sell it. I just have to go into it knowing that I will be breaking my normal 2-year refresh this time around.
 
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