upgrading from high oc SLI 670

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PanzeR-

Limp Gawd
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Jun 17, 2006
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I'm from Canada and since our dollar is pretty low (1$ US = 1.38$CA), I've been holding out for awhile on upgrading my video cards. While I do not mind lowering some settings to get adequate framerate @ 1440p (using ssao instead of hbao, using fxaa, not using depth of fields, lowering shadows settings,etc), lately I've found myself having to lower the settings enough for it to impact my experience. I tend to use adaptive vsync all the time, so stable 60fps is all I'm aiming for (still on a 60hz monitor and do not plan to upgrade untill either of my monitor dies).

Games I play are: witcher 3, dark souls series (fine on this), Dying light, Tomb raider (really want to get into the last one), Lords of the fallen, etc. I'm happy with my gaming experience in witcher 3, but i cant imagine having fun playing a more demanding game. Specifically, Dying light is really what is making me consider an upgrade (probably due to vram) as the fps drops and lowering the details really impact the experience.

With a 500$CAN budget, I seem to come to the conclusion that a single card cant replace these 2 unless i go in fury-furyx-980ti range. 970 r9 390 doesnt seem to cut it, 390x is the the highest i would go... Any input? should i just wait it out?
 
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Probably wont have to wait to long for the us dollar to tank hard again lol....shit where your at and what you want......i just cant help but think 14/16 nm will be here latter this year. Just get you something to hold you over - if you must. God knows i blow money on worse things:D maybe try to find a decent ebay deal local?
 
primetime said:
Probably wont have to wait to long for the us dollar to tank hard again lol....shit where your at and what you want......i just cant help but think 14/16 nm will be here latter this year. Just get you something to hold you over - if you must. God knows i blow money on worse things:D maybe try to find a decent ebay deal local?
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looking on ebay atm. yeah considering waiting or upping my budget.
d50man said:
980,980ti second hand
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higher than my budget but conaidering them. what about a 390x
 
sincerely, best option is wait if you want to save money, as even higher-end cards from both sides you will be found in the same situation as you are right now, dropping settings from day one, newer games are really really heavy and even for 1080P the better card from both sides have troubles maxing out those games.

390X is a great card I have one, but I think don't worth the premium price over the R9 390, they are making with actual gaming a great job considering those are Q4 2013 cards. so you have to ask yourself if it worth to buy in 2016 some 2013 tech cards that already are struggling at your desired resolution, so my recommendation at this point with every buyer that want to save money is just wait for new card, worse case scenario? actual cards will be refreshed with lower prices.
 
I went from a pair of GTX670's to a Single R9-290 running at 1100/1500 and it was a nice jump overall. No more Micro-stutter, and performance wise it ran pretty close to my GTX670 in SLI.


Here's my 670-SLI vs R9-290(@R9-390 spec) vs GTX980-Ti:

Result


Before the R9-290 I always got the 2nd best card on the market, then SLI/CFX'd later on. I did that with the 7900GT, then SLI'd for a bit then got the 8800GTS, then SLI'd that, then got the 4870 then CFX'd that, then got the 5850, then CFX'd that, then got the GTX670, then SLI'd that...then Got the R9-290....WAS going to get another to CFX, but with the years of Microstuttering and developers becoming lazier...I figured getting the fastest chip on the market made sense.

Really, get the fastest card you can afford. While a Single R9-390 or GTX970 may equal performance to your SLI'd 670s in numbers, I can't express how nice it is not having to worry about a game taking advantage of your hardware, or waiting for patches to get the most out of our multi-card rigs. Not to mention, while SLI'd GTX670's have 4 Physical GB of ram, only 2 is usable, while with the R9-390 you get a full 8GB all to the GPU and with the GTX970 you get 3.5GB, which is still more than 2GB.
 
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With your budget you can definetely find a decent GTX 980 around there, I got a reference design for $340USD shipped which is a little under $500CAN a couple weeks ago and it does marvels with Dying light.
 
After some tweaking dying light runs a lot better but it looks nothing like the streams/youtube vids I watch. With tax returns approaching im more and more tempted to snag a 980 ti, while waiting until june for pascal might be the better choice in the long term :(
 
I went from SLI 670s moderately overclocked to a 980 Ti at a similar resolution and I would go for nothing less than a 980 Ti. The 390(x) is not much more than a side grade except for eliminating any dual card issues, and the regular 980 isn't a good enough jump for the money you would have to put out IMO. The 980 Ti will show you a significant increase over your 670 SLI setup. But if its too much money then hold out until new tech makes it drop in price.
 
100% correct Direfox. It's a solid side-grade that cleans up performance and opens up a couple option due to a bigger frame buffer, but it is a side grade. The jump to a 980-Ti is much more pronounce and I agree in it's recommendation. I've seen them go for as low as $530, and regularly hover around $600.

Direfox said:
I went from SLI 670s moderately overclocked to a 980 Ti at a similar resolution and I would go for nothing less than a 980 Ti. The 390(x) is not much more than a side grade except for eliminating any dual card issues, and the regular 980 isn't a good enough jump for the money you would have to put out IMO. The 980 Ti will show you a significant increase over your 670 SLI setup. But if its too much money then hold out until new tech makes it drop in price.
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Direfox said:
I went from SLI 670s moderately overclocked to a 980 Ti at a similar resolution and I would go for nothing less than a 980 Ti. The 390(x) is not much more than a side grade except for eliminating any dual card issues, and the regular 980 isn't a good enough jump for the money you would have to put out IMO. The 980 Ti will show you a significant increase over your 670 SLI setup. But if its too much money then hold out until new tech makes it drop in price.
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Thanks for the input, it is my conclusion. Unless Black Desert online hooks me up or something and totally trash my cards I will wait for next gen.

Rauelius said:
100% correct Direfox. It's a solid side-grade that cleans up performance and opens up a couple option due to a bigger frame buffer, but it is a side grade. The jump to a 980-Ti is much more pronounce and I agree in it's recommendation. I've seen them go for as low as $530, and regularly hover around $600.
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530$US is 700$CAN, but I think i will plunge for whatever is the best non-titan single card option with pascal, whatever the cost.
 
I feel your pain. I had a single 670 and ended up getting a used 970 in October. Ended up paying $370CAD for a used Gigabyte G1 970 which was hilarious considering the card cost the original buyer about $400CAD new over a year before! Damn exchange rate. It was decent value considering NCIX/Newegg were selling the G1 for $500+tax though. I managed to get $150CAD for my used 670 Windforce. I don't see CADUSD improving much beyond 0.75 this year personally.

980Ti's seem to be $850-900CAD new right now and people aren't selling used much cheaper. Assuming you could get $300 for your 670's that's around $500CAD to upgrade. That said, I think we are close enough to new NV/AMD cards that if I were you I would wait and either grab the mid-tier Pascal at launch or a 980Ti as the price has to come down $200ish maybe $300 even and the used market will get flooded.
 
980Ti, nothing else makes sense. I had a 680 SLI setup and while a 970 may give better performance in games that don't scale with SLI or situations where you exceed 2GB vram, you'll actually end up getting worse performance in other situations.
 
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Yeah, I'm still on a 680 SLI setup and the 980ti is the only card I have considered as an all around upgrade.
I have $400 cad total in these gtx680 cards and I bought them while the 770 was still $400+ for a single card so a 980ti is a bit too much money for me at the moment

If I played more games I'd likely have jumped on one already but the cheapest used 980ti cards I've seen in Canada are around $750.
 
PanzeR- said:
After some tweaking dying light runs a lot better but it looks nothing like the streams/youtube vids I watch. With tax returns approaching im more and more tempted to snag a 980 ti, while waiting until june for pascal might be the better choice in the long term :(
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I live in Kitchener.If you want to buy a 980Ti card and live close, send me a message.
Like Araxie said 980Ti still can not handle games maxed out at 1920x1080 .
 
I have a very similar machine to yours and upgraded from 670 ftw sli. Good upgrade but at 4K games can crush the 980ti. Games like Crysis 3 and GTA V crush it down to 30fps when maxed out. Other games like mad max run awesome maxed out. All depends on if you want to wait or want to upgrade now.
 
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