680 SLI (2GB) for 3440 x1440

nanobeast

Limp Gawd
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Sep 21, 2007
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I was wondering how the a 680 SLI (2GB) setup would do on a 3440 x1440 rez monitor?

Taxing?

Would I need to upgrade?
 
yes. Your 680's won't even run 2560x1440 that well unless you turn down AA.. but who buys 2 $500 gpu's and a $1500 monitor for medium settings?
 
I don't completely agree. Are you talking GPU power wise or VRAM? I ran 680 SLI at 1600p and have used 1600p for several years. 680 sli killed it at 1600p, it ran everything pretty much great. I suspect it would be pretty damn good at 3440x1440 as well. VRAM wise? VRAM is not an issue with up to 8X MSAA at any game I threw at it with 680 SLI when I owned them.. 3440x1440 is not much higher in terms of pixel density than 1600p, and it is lower than 4k. My suggestion is, if you have 680 sli now, try it. I'm nearly 99.9999% sure you will be fine. Therefore try it. I think more than 2GB would be an instant upgrade for higher surround resolutions (eg 7680x1440/1600 or 4k resolutions) but any issues at 3440x1440 probably wouldn't be VRAM related. Even if so, you can just lower AA levels to make it work just fine. MSAA should be fine. SSAA is generally the problem.

The only thing that is likely to cause you to hit a VRAM wall is OGSSAA, resolution scale (same as OGSSAA in BF4) , SSAA or SGSSAA, and that's if you go overboard with 8X SSAA or something absolutely fucktard retarded. You will run out of GPU power from SSAA well before VRAM becomes an issue anyway. So if you use stupid settings in sleeping dogs (SSAA) or BF4 (resolution scale which is OGSSAA), yes, SSAA will cause your VRAM use to double or triple and will also cause your framerate to half. So use your common sense and DONT use SSAA. The performance hit makes SSAA stupid to use anyway, unless the game in question is very old. Easily chops performance in half.

Now if you're one of those guys that have the "maxed out or nothing" mindset, then you perhaps may want to upgrade to something else later. But like I said. It won't be because of VRAM, unless you use stupid game settings. Either way, my suggestion is if you HAVE 680 sli right now, to try it out. I'm pretty confident that you'll be just fine as 680 sli is faster than a single 780, so as long as you use sane and reasonable settings in all of your games you'll be fine I believe. I mean hell...you have 680s now. Why not try it out before jumping the gun. You should be fine. I wouldn't rush to spend money unless my PC demonstrated a clear need for it, so the best test is actually using it - GPU power may be an issue if you want to max everything out, but VRAM....not so much. Just use the common sense rule and do not apply SSAA or resolution scale/OGSSAA/downsampling to all of your games.
 
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yes. Your 680's won't even run 2560x1440 that well unless you turn down AA.. but who buys 2 $500 gpu's and a $1500 monitor for medium settings?

Because I have had 2 680s for a little more than a year now (which I bought from micro center for about $300 each as open box items with full manufacturer's warranty) and am thinking about upgrading to 34UM95 which is $999 and not $1500?
 
I don't completely agree. Are you talking GPU power wise or VRAM? I ran 680 SLI at 1600p and have used 1600p for several years. 680 sli killed it at 1600p, it ran everything pretty much great. I suspect it would be pretty damn good at 3440x1440 as well. VRAM wise? VRAM is not an issue with up to 8X MSAA at any game I threw at it with 680 SLI when I owned them.. ......

Thanks.

This is the kind of feedback I was looking for.
 
Shoot, I run 4800x1200 now on two 650ti boosts, SLI, and with no AA it's a totally satisfactory experience for me. I don't play BF4 though, and for me, AA at native res isn't something I see if I'm sitting far enough back to view 4 horizontal feet of monitor.
A single 3440x1440 monitor is on my wish list and I don't plan to upgrade video cards for it.
My advice would be try it first, then buy new cards if you aren't happy.
 
I have SLI 680's at 1440p and have no issues either, but it all depends on how many FPS you deem "good". All games I play like Crysis 3, BF4 and Witcher 2 I have no issues getting over 30FPS with everything maxed and using AA but then again I'm happy with anything over 30FPS. I play Witcher 2 with Ubersampling on and I get 40fps-50fps! That's really good because that games setting is VERY demanding. Some members want 60FPS period and that case with x2 680's at 1440p you will have to turn down the settings a notch
 
2 x overclocked 670FTW's here at 5760 x 1080 and without AA I have no issues with FPS whatsoever - And I'm running a 4th accessory monitor off one card.
 
No offense, but everyone wants to believe their setup runs "just fine." With a $999 monitor, you should be striving for maximum quality. G-sync wouldn't exist if 40fps lows and 80fps highs were acceptable... you want 60fps MINIMUMS to avoid a compromised experience.

I've used 670 PE SLI at 1440p, GTX690 at 1600p, 290X CF at 1600p, 780 SLI at 1440p, 780 3-way at 1440p, and 780 Ti SLI at 1440p 120hz. 670 PE is not enough. 690 is not enough. If you play demanding games, you'll get below 60 fps and what's the point of that? And yes, AA IS noticeable at these resolutions. My 780 Ti's are tapped out on Vram (using over 3000mb regularly) at 1440p btw.

your resolution is 33% more difficult to run than 2560x1440p. You decide what is "good enough" for your money.
 
No offense, but everyone wants to believe their setup runs "just fine." With a $999 monitor, you should be striving for maximum quality. G-sync wouldn't exist if 40fps lows and 80fps highs were acceptable... you want 60fps MINIMUMS to avoid a compromised experience.

I've used 670 PE SLI at 1440p, GTX690 at 1600p, 290X CF at 1600p, 780 SLI at 1440p, 780 3-way at 1440p, and 780 Ti SLI at 1440p 120hz. 670 PE is not enough. 690 is not enough. If you play demanding games, you'll get below 60 fps and what's the point of that? And yes, AA IS noticeable at these resolutions. My 780 Ti's are tapped out on Vram (using over 3000mb regularly) at 1440p btw.

your resolution is 33% more difficult to run than 2560x1440p. You decide what is "good enough" for your money.

Maybe he spent all the money on the monitor!!! ;)

I agree with everything else you wrote. Nice advice.
 
Sorry but I don't come close to agreeing with that, I played Witcher 2 with everything at max with ubersampling at 1440p and averaged between 40fps-50fps and had a perfect experience with the game, yes a solid 60fps is noticeable but not a "must" to have good gameplay
 
Subjective. Then again, ubersampling is SSAA. I subjectively don't feel THAT is needed for good gameplay. I personally am not comfortable with my framerate dropping by half for ubersampling in Witcher 2. And of course, SSAA uses an absurd amount of VRAM for no good reason.

I also feel 60 fps fluid is the minimum for me, and I will drop stupid settings (such as ubersampling, which is OGSSAA) to do it. That's my subjective opinion. When I play a game at sub 60 fps, it feels choppy and stuttery. When a game averages 30 fps, I feel it playing like 30 fps - visually choppy. This I do not like. I'm sure i'm not alone in that opinion. Please note that i'm not saying your opinion is invalid. I'm not saying that at all - it is entirely subjective. Everyone has a differing opinion on this sort of thing, and that's completely cool.

Anyway,to get 60 fps...You can, generally speaking, easily achieve this (60 fps fluid) if you're not using stupid overkill settings. I promise you, Crysis 3 does not look different at high versus very high @ 1600p. But there damn sure is a big framerate difference. SSAA , TXAA or anything past 4X MSAA would be included. You get a ridiculous performance drop especially for SSAA, which isn't acceptable (to me) if it drops me south of a minimum 60 fps fluid. But some folks are of the maxed out of nothing mindset. I don't really get that, but It's all a matter of personal preference I suppose. Especially since there isn't really an IQ loss for dropping 2-3 settings. Just my opinion though. Subjective like I said.

I'm not saying your preference is wrong or anything - it's all up to you....., but the main theme here is that you can easily achieve great framerates by not using overkill settings at 1440p. Frankly, SSAA is always overkill in modern games. The performance hit for using it is quite silly. Anyway, 680 SLI can do great framerates without the "silly" stuff at high resolutions. I'm sure it can do 3440x1440 as well. I should add, that the OP is not BUYING 680 sli. He already HAS IT. So why not try it? Good grief man. I'm pretty sure he can make it work very well, like I said 680 sli killed it for me at 1600p. Literally every game I had at the time was 60 fps fluid or most of the time - far higher. I used vsync (obviously) at 1600p and all of my games ran great. It was great when I owned them :) but I didn't do stupid settings like SSAA. Not everyone is in a huge rush to spend 1500$ on GPUs. If what he has is acceptable, why not try it. Besides which, that LG 3440x1440 monitor is designed for professional work. Who's to say he isn't doing real work on the side with only part time gaming. If I spend 70% of my time on my PC doing profession related stuff, and 10% of my time fucking around with games, I don't think 1500$ would be justified just for gaming. It really depends.....like I said, he already has it, he can make it work, so why not try it.
 
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I have the LG 34UM95 and a GTX 780, using Ultra settings in BF4 with NO AA enable I see about 2.2GB memory usage.I find that not all maps will go this high. If I raise the AA to 8 it will go to 2.9GB. This resolution with 2GB of seems to be cutting it very close. Although I suspect that some games use more Vram then needed.

Of course what I have found, which what I suspected that I will need a second 780 to really get above 60FPS consistently with max settings. Coming from a GTX 580 I am really impressed with the performance of the 780 though.

Taking the video memory out of the equation I see no reason why your 680's could not run well.
 
Correct. It should be noted that different cards use VRAM in different ways; just because a game reports 3GB in use doesn't mean that 3GB is actually needed. Heck, I had a bud with a Titan that reported more VRAM in use than my 780 setup in the same scene, same settings. The card isn't clearing the VRAM cache as frequently with more VRAM because it doesn't need to, essentially. For instance, a 680 with 2GB of VRAM will utilize more efficient algorithms for VRAM allocation - For example, I remember more than a year ago I did comparisons between 7970CF and 680SLI in BF3. I could make the 7970CF setup use up to 3GB. Which was confusing because it was both slower and more choppy than the 680 sli setup in BF3. What I found was, that the game and drivers intelligently allocate VRAM so the card does not use more than it has. Basically, the way to think of it is, a 780 with 3GB of VRAM does not need to be as efficient as would a 2GB card. But games and drivers are "intelligent" about VRAM use. If MSI afterburner reports 3GB in use with a 780, that doesn't mean the game requires 3GB of VRAM. Games are intelligent about VRAM allocation, essentially. If you have a 2GB card, the game will know it - keep in mind that VERY few PC gamers have the latest and greatest 3GB cards. The more high end enthusiasts do, but by and large that is less than 2% of all PC gamers.

Generally speaking when you're at an absolute VRAM wall, the game will fail and crash. You can do this by trying Far Cry 3 at 7680x1440 ( I tried this once) with 8X MSAA and SGSSAA enabled in nvidia inspector. It will crash and fail, will not run due to VRAM. Anyway, i'm 100% sure he will be fine. He could hit a VRAM wall, but IMO, only if he uses excessive levels of SSAA. SSAA shouldn't ever be really used unless you're the type of gamer that loves overkill settings that kill your framerate. I am not in that category, but some are.
 
Correct. It should be noted that different cards use VRAM in different ways; just because a game reports 3GB in use doesn't mean that 3GB is actually needed. Heck, I had a bud with a Titan that reported more VRAM in use than my 780 setup in the same scene, same settings. The card isn't clearing the VRAM cache as frequently with more VRAM because it doesn't need to, essentially. For instance, a 680 with 2GB of VRAM will utilize more efficient algorithms for VRAM allocation - For example, I remember more than a year ago I did comparisons between 7970CF and 680SLI in BF3. I could make the 7970CF setup use up to 3GB. Which was confusing because it was both slower and more choppy than the 680 sli setup in BF3. What I found was, that the game and drivers intelligently allocate VRAM so the card does not use more than it has. Basically, the way to think of it is, a 780 with 3GB of VRAM does not need to be as efficient as would a 2GB card. But games and drivers are "intelligent" about VRAM use. If MSI afterburner reports 3GB in use with a 780, that doesn't mean the game requires 3GB of VRAM. Games are intelligent about VRAM allocation, essentially. If you have a 2GB card, the game will know it - keep in mind that VERY few PC gamers have the latest and greatest 3GB cards. The more high end enthusiasts do, but by and large that is less than 2% of all PC gamers.

Generally speaking when you're at an absolute VRAM wall, the game will fail and crash. You can do this by trying Far Cry 3 at 7680x1440 ( I tried this once) with 8X MSAA and SGSSAA enabled in nvidia inspector. It will crash and fail, will not run due to VRAM. Anyway, i'm 100% sure he will be fine. He could hit a VRAM wall, but IMO, only if he uses excessive levels of SSAA. SSAA shouldn't ever be really used unless you're the type of gamer that loves overkill settings that kill your framerate. I am not in that category, but some are.

Really he is just going to have to run with the 680's to see the results. Play with the settings and see how smooth things run. Generally you need very little AA with such a high resolution anyways. I would rather have that high resolution, then to have to crank up the AA.
 
yes. Your 680's won't even run 2560x1440 that well unless you turn down AA.. but who buys 2 $500 gpu's and a $1500 monitor for medium settings?

False,my 680 runs games on 1440p at high just fine. BF4 maxed out and i get 50-60 fps. Yeah games like Metro LL will need to be turned down some,but most games run fine.
 
False,my 680 runs games on 1440p at high just fine. BF4 maxed out and i get 50-60 fps. Yeah games like Metro LL will need to be turned down some,but most games run fine.

So you're saying your 680 and 2600K performs just about as good as my GTX 780 Ti and 4930K @ 4.4? Hell, even in SLI I will sometimes dip to 50fps depending on the map and server circumstances.

again, "just fine"
 
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