2x GTX 670 FTW 2GB for 3840x2160? Upgrade recommendations please!

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FrankD400

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 31, 2013
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I'm going with a 4k monitor within the next month or so and I have a feeling I'm going to need to upgrade my GPU horsepower. Current system is:

FX-8350 w/ H100i
(2) GTX 670 FTW 2GB, hit 1100MHz without breaking a sweat
4x4GB PC3-12800/1600MHz Crucial Ballistix
Corsair Carbide 400R (unfortunately, it was cheap) -- looking @ a 550D
Samsung 840Pro 256GB
860w SeaSonic platinum PSU

Was thinking for upgrades:
1-2 more GTX 670 FTW 2GB if I can get them for $250 or under (anyone offering? :)
LGA2011 platform, probably Gigabyte GA-X79-UP4
4930K
PSU should handle 3, would probably jump it up to >1200w for future upgrades if I got a 4th card. Not sure if a 1000w Platinum SeaSonic would be the best bet.. it is nice, but I think 3 780s/880s and an overclocked CPU would be pushing it.

GPUs would be fairly temporary, then I'd split them off for two spare PCs each with 2-way 670 setups.With 4k is it worth going to 4 670s? If SLI scaling was perfect that'd be like having 1 670 @ 1080p. Is SLI scaling better at these resolutions? Any pitfalls to watch out for?
 
If you're going to have a 4K resolution then your GTX 670's won't have the VRAM to be able to handle the number of pixels.

At minimum you would need a couple R9 280X's, a R9 290's, or GTX 780 / GTX 780Ti. In any of those setups you will probably need two cards to get decent framerates unless you turn the settings pretty low.
 
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If you're buying a 4k monitor and intend to use it for next gen action/fps/etc gaming, your gpu budget should be at least 50% of the cost of the monitor, and you should be prepared to replace all your GPUs each generation for the next 2-3 GPU generations. I wouldn't even bother with GPUs as low-end as 670s... You want 780(ti)s/290(x)s. Otherwise I would stay away from that resolution, it's not really worth it...60-120fps at 1080p is better than struggling to get 30fps at 3840x2160.

OTOH, if you are primarily playing less gpu intensive games(dota2, lol, diablo3, rpgs, strategy games[xcom, civ5], you know what I mean) you'll be fine with a single 780(ti) and I would recommend staying away from SLI/Crossfire entirely.

Also, there is pretty much zero evidence that LGA2011 is worthwhile(relative to cost) in any way for gaming performance. Certainly, you should be planning quad 780tis before you are even thinking about the extra cpu/motherboard expense of that architecture.
 
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Well, I was thinking quad 670s for the time being, so that pretty much necessitates 2011, no? Kinda hard to find 670s on 680 PCBs with 680 reference coolers.. $300 on eBay seems nuts to me. If I can sell my cards for that much I'd probably just start with 2 780s for now.

VRAM to handle the pixels? 4k FB is only 31.6MB.. where's all the RAM coming from? :) I agree that 4k textures will kill 2GB pretty quick, but not a lot of games have textures that high res as assets.
 
VRAM isn't an issue with AA off. With AA on, on the other hand...VRAM usage can easily exceed 2GB in many games.

I'm pretty sure there are PLX Z87 and Z77 boards that will do 4x SLI without the additional expense of LGA2011.. but I don't really see the point in quad 670s. *Assuming* SLI scaling is equivalent between the 3rd and 4th card(which is often false), the performance is about 5-10% worse than 3x GTX 780s. And when you hit the RAM limitation, or SLI scaling is bad(some games it's REALLY bad, or SLI doesn't even work properly...) you'll just be totally boned.

Personally I would sell the 670s and go with 780s at a minimum, it'll just be a smoother experience. Of course, it's up to you.
 
I have two 670FTW's running a resolution of 5760 x 1080 just fine, it's really only AA that tips them over the edge - Even BF4 runs fine at high settings.
 
Msaa is stupid anyway if you have a high ppi.
Things like good fxaa or smaa settings(ie: not really blurry implementations) clear up the staticy parts of a screen well without crapping on your VRAM.

That all said, I would still go for more VRAM. I'm suspecting a turning point soon in games.
 
MSAA is necessary at 4k. It's not even remotely high enough resolution to render MSAA useless, unless maybe at super small display sizes(we're talking <10 inches).

flu!d said:
I have two 670FTW's running a resolution of 5760 x 1080 just fine, it's really only AA that tips them over the edge - Even BF4 runs fine at high settings.
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5760x1080 is about 75% of 4k resolution, and a single gtx 670 can't even maintain 60fps at 1080p in BF4 Ultra with AA _off_ http://www.bf4blog.com/battlefield-4-retail-gpu-cpu-benchmarks/ so either your "fine" is not a sane [H] "fine", or "High" requires 1/2 or less of the GPU power of Ultra.

Either way, the result isn't going to be fine, and I'm not sure why you would want to overreach to 4k with such underpowered hardware when a 120hz/120fps 1080p experience would be so much better.
 
[Edited post - Can't really see the point in an argument with the hardware Nazi]:rolleyes:
 
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Are there any test results with 2/3/4 GPU SLI scaling @ 3840x2160? I'm thinking it may be a better situation than 1080p/1440p scaling, though of course I don't expect it to be linear. Like I said, the cards are reusable to me. I keep a spare gaming machine, so 2 670s can go there, and I can toss 2 to a friend.

The 4k display is primarily for working on things. Ideally I'd like 3 of them for massive screen real estate. Currently I use 4x1080p and 1x1440p. Right now in a lot of games I just run SLI 32xQCSAA or 64xCSAA since SLI scaling is non-existent in some titles (STO, NWNO, WoW).. but I'd really like to play the Star Citizen dogfighting module @ 4k when it is released. And 64x AA make everything feel muddy even if it does get rid of jaggies.

120Hz experience may be better for people who primarily play FPS games, but I prefer IPS and the great colors. I'll never go back to 1080p as a primary display, that's not a better experience for me.


This might be interesting..
http://www.overclock.net/t/1415441/7680x1440-benchmarks-plus-2-3-4-way-sli-gk110-scaling
 
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Going with two cards is exactly backwards of what you want to do. You want 3GB of ram on a faster single card. That will cut down on memory having to store parity for sli and it will be faster since you won't have to leave the card. Personally if you can afford a 4k display you should just break down and get a titan, which has 6GB of memory and will have no trouble holding AA at 2048 x 4048 or what ever they finalized the 4K resolution at.
 
GameHard6 said:
If you're going to have a 4K resolution then your GTX 670's won't have the VRAM to be able to handle the number of pixels.
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Lol.... how can i say, everything you said is just so wrong ... let do the maths

3840*2160*4 (4 = 32bits for color) = around 31MB .... so an old card with an hdmi 1.3 port, and only 32MB or ram can display a 4k 32Bit image. (gtx 670 has a 1.4 hdmi capable of 4k/30fps, and a display port who give 4k/60fps)

So here the problem with the ram is the amount of high res texture you can put in the card. But you can play virtually any game in 4k, the difference on the texture quality, more ram you have better it is.

But they're plenty of game on youtube, running in high 4k / 30 fps on a single GTX 670 with only 2Gb of ram ^^.

In the past we have played many game in very high resolution (got a 1600*1200 monitor in 1999 and at this time i was able to play any 3d game or 2D in "HD" resolution. But we can't use "HD" here we just spoke about HR game

Cause HD = High Resolution AND high texture ;)

I know it's an old topic, but if it help people to understand :)
 
a single ref 290x can be picked up pretty cheap used for like 200$ and you can add your own water cooling setup for another 100$ that will give you pretty decent frame rates at high no AA at 4k.

also some 290s when oced perform better than 290x
 
My FTWs do pretty decent with DSR from 3840x2160.

Now, there are obvious exceptions such as GTA V and other very demanding games, but the performance is there to get reasonably good frame rates with the right settings. Also, based on your wanting to play Star Citizen -- that engine is demanding and I am not sure you'd be happy with the performance/quality tradeoff at 4K.

In all honesty, if you're going 4K I would suggest a newer architecture.
 
xReppa said:
Lol.... how can i say, everything you said is just so wrong ... let do the maths

3840*2160*4 (4 = 32bits for color) = around 31MB .... so an old card with an hdmi 1.3 port, and only 32MB or ram can display a 4k 32Bit image. (gtx 670 has a 1.4 hdmi capable of 4k/30fps, and a display port who give 4k/60fps)
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No, that's the 2D framebuffer size. In 3D, all pixels have 64-bit intertnal resolution. And you forgot the Z-buffer. And the other effects buffers. And the Shadow buffer.

http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=90126#p1182424

Here is a rough breakdown for the amount of ram required for a bare-minimum Deferred Renderer (these numbers can be higher depending on the game:

1920x1080 4xMSAA = 187.113MiB
3840x2160 4xMSAA = 685.453MiB

And that's bare-minimum, and for a 2013 game with 2048 pixel shadows. Add more buffers and real assets for an actual game, and that 500MiB+ difference between the two running on your 2GB card might be enough to make your gameplay have more stutter due to constant load of new assets as you move about a map.

And that is the true reason why we recommend SLI users get more memory than was necessary in their single-card setups. Since synchronizing multiple graphics cards is dark voodoo, introducing unpredictable load time spikes into your frames FOR BOTH CARDS can make for an even worse experience. So unless you don't mind more stutter, you're going to wish you had more ram.
 
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Wow did no one notice this was started January 2014, think it's kinda old lol
 
newbs said:
Wow did no one notice this was started January 2014, think it's kinda old lol
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Another reason to put xReppa on my ignore list. Thanks for bumping a dead thread you knew nothing about :D

And it's still a reasonable question for people buying 4k monitors today who can't afford an additional $600+ for two new 4GB graphics cards (the minimum to run 4k high at > 30fps).
 
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