Dual GTX780ti on X58

S

Steven85

Weaksauce
Joined
Sep 10, 2010
Messages
64
Hello,

Sometime back I received as a gift one of those Korean overclockable panels which can achieve 120Hz at 1440p ( in particular here's my model ).

Anyway, to make a long story short I eventually decided to try my luck and sure enough I was able to push the monitor *reliably* at 119 Hz at 1440p. And I must say the few games which could achieve such frames ( >100) looked gorgeous. Such a sight I haven't seen before, so much so that it pushed me to consider upgrading my system.

To make the introduction more proper let me add that I have been out from system building for about half a decade now. My last System was an i7 920 (D0, oc'd at 4.4GHz), a GTX 295 graphics card, and 4 OCZ flash SSDs running in raid 0. All those are/were running on an X58 gigabyte mobo. In fact that system was so much of an overkill for its time that I'm still using it without a hitch.

Only problem (apart from electricity consumption :p ) is that my GPU is way too weak for today's standards, so there goes my dreams to play modern games at 120 FPS and 1440p . But then I read that dual PCI-E 2.0 x16 ports give plenty of bandwidth even for a dual GTX 780 ti setup. What's more I found a bundle of those way too cheaply. So it got me wondering, can my 5 year old system use two of these cards without bottlenecking them?

Let me remind you that even in SLI my PCI-E ports use the full 16 lanes (32 in total), which (if my information is correct) is equivalent to PCI-E 3.0 x8. Also my CPU while being a lowly 1st gen i7, is overclocked 60% over its initial clocks.

Since the offer I found for the two 780 ti ends tomorrow, do you think that I should take the plunge? When performing at their full capacity they are the only cards which can routinely top the 100fps mark even at 2560x1440.

Sadly if I am to need to change the rest of the system as well I would be over-budget so it would had been great if my lowly X58 motherboard be capable of utilizing the full power of dual 780s...

Anyway, I spoke too much already. Do you think (what I have in mind) it would work?

Thanks.
 
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Your cpu is still good.

I'm currently using a GTX 670 on a P35 chipset (core 2 duo). Compared to my old setup, I've found significant gains (compared to my old GTX 260) even after adding a 100+Hz 1440p panel into the mix. A gpu upgrade was pretty much a no brainer for me at that point.

However, it will highly depend on the game. In my experience, most games are GPU bound. So it will really depend on what your expectations are. Newer games coming out might be more CPU demanding.

Having an odd pairing like that is not so odd, in my opinion. If you find that one title that just doesn't seem to fit the bill, you can always throw more money at it later. They're not going to break backwards compatibility with PCI-E anytime soon.
 
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Absalom said:
Your cpu is still good.


However, it will highly depend on the game. In my experience, most games are GPU bound. So it will really depend on what your expectations are. Newer games coming out might be more CPU demanding.
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This.

I would also hope that you do not intend to use your 5 year old PSU with those 780ti's.
I would look into upgrading that as well IMHO.
 
CAD4466HK said:
This.

I would also hope that you do not intend to use your 5 year old PSU with those 780ti's.
I would look into upgrading that as well IMHO.
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My 5 year old PSU actually has dealt with worse than that for a time. (GTX 285 tri sli for the heck of it :p, but only for a short while).

It's a Corsair TX 950 with one really fat +12v rail (78A, but in practice close to 80+ :p ). As I said my machine was no slouch for its time, it had almost the best you could find (also 12gb of triple channel ram @ 1866mhz).

Anyway I am mostly thinking that at such high resolution (1440p) I would be GPU-starved. Sure the occasional online game would need more CPU but I hardly play any of them and if I do , I do for a short while. I'm mostly interested in "grandiose" single player experience. Games like Crysis 3 and Witcher 3 (when it will come out), running at full frames (and by that I mean close to 100 fps)...

What would you think given my use cases?
 
Steven85 said:
My 5 year old PSU actually has dealt with worse than that for a time. (GTX 285 tri sli for the heck of it :p, but only for a short while).

It's a Corsair TX 950 with one really fat +12v rail (78A, but in practice close to 80+ :p ). As I said my machine was no slouch for its time, it had almost the best you could find (also 12gb of triple channel ram @ 1866mhz).

Anyway I am mostly thinking that at such high resolution (1440p) I would be GPU-starved. Sure the occasional online game would need more CPU but I hardly play any of them and if I do , I do for a short while. I'm mostly interested in "grandiose" single player experience. Games like Crysis 3 and Witcher 3 (when it will come out), running at full frames (and by that I mean close to 100 fps)...

What would you think given my use cases?
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That Corsair is a good PSU, I will give you that, hell I'm still running a Silverstone 850w Zeus that I bought from JG in 2006.:D

The only thing you can do now is to purchase those 780ti's and run them through the wringer.
Only YOU can decide if they meet your needs on that platform. ;)

The worse that can happen is you have to upgrade...just don't expect 100fps min in every game, especially with that cpu and Crysis 3.
 
Two 780ti's should be fine. One would most likely be fine at 2560x1440+ resolutions actually so another is just icing on the cake. My previous card was a 690, and THAT had no problems with 2560x1440 so no reason the newer cards should.
I'm doing 3840x2160 with my 780ti SLI and not having any significant problems. (Battlefield 4 at that resolution tends to blow off a lot of heat after playing awhile but otherwise plays well)
Your CPU should be fine for most games like was said before. (I run a 4930k on mine)
The PSU should be fine also, but it may be cutting it close with a SLI setup. Can always buy a better one if it does cause problems though.
Just my .002 :p
 
I would expect the cpu performance to be similar to a stock speed 4770k. Additionally, running only two cards shouldn't be significantly limited by the pci-e 2.0 slots. I also say, go for it! Should be a sweet upgrade.
 
kamxam said:
Two 780ti's should be fine. One would most likely be fine at 2560x1440+ resolutions actually so another is just icing on the cake. My previous card was a 690, and THAT had no problems with 2560x1440 so no reason the newer cards should.
I'm doing 3840x2160 with my 780ti SLI and not having any significant problems. (Battlefield 4 at that resolution tends to blow off a lot of heat after playing awhile but otherwise plays well)
Your CPU should be fine for most games like was said before. (I run a 4930k on mine)
The PSU should be fine also, but it may be cutting it close with a SLI setup. Can always buy a better one if it does cause problems though.
Just my .002 :p
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Heh given that I want to achieve at least 80fps @ 1440p in most/all games I would need a second 780. Playing a game at 1440p at 120fps is almost the same as playing a game at 4k at 60 fps so I probably need the same firepower as you...

If you say your stock 4930k was/is enough then I suppose my oced 920 would be enough too (an old i7 overclocked is about the same as a stock hashwell cpu)...
 
Still rockin X58 here too with 2x 780 classy's. No plan on upgrading cpu/mobo anytime soon. My power supply is a bit overkill but i got it super cheap.
 
Hey, great to see a fellow X58 owner.
Do your 780s run well or do you feel them choke a little bit (I guess it would help if you are/were playing on relatively high resolutions). I mean if you compare your framerate to that of popular reviews is it close by or do you get something significantly less than what *they* say that dual 780s should produce?

Heh, sorry if i'm being a bother (for making so many questions) but I used to be an avid system builder like a lot of the people here, but then kids came along and I had to stop... Now that I'm trying to relive my PC's haydays I just wanna be sure that it will work with the ... minimal kind of upgrade (buying just the cards and reusing the rest of my system). Because if I'm to need more parts wife will kill me (and rightfully so), gone are the days where I could trade all my change for pc parts :D ...

Anyway thatnks for the info guys.
 
X58's unite! ;)

Anyways I am going to be selling my Poseidon's really soon to upgrade to SLI 6GB 780 Strix.
 
I have a Corsair TX 950 also and it's been great and i'm still running my X58 i7-930 also.. I sold my r9 -290 when the selling was good and been low balling with a 560 GTX SE..

been thinking about picking up an R7- 265 from AMD myself or the 7870 Ghz..
 
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I may be loosing 3-7fps but its not worth it for an upgrade. I play all my games at 2560x1440 no problems at all (unless its a badly coded game)
 
EquaLiZr said:
I may be loosing 3-7fps but its not worth it for an upgrade. I play all my games at 2560x1440 no problems at all (unless its a badly coded game)
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Heh, basically that's my greatest fear, if your 780s lose a couple of frames, imagine how many more my TIs will. Oh well, let's hope not, 'cause I've already put the order.

BTW do you think you lose framerate due to CPU's bottlenecks or due to the PCI-E being v2.0 instead of 3.0 . I'm asking because I have my CPU overcklocked higher than you, and maybe (just maybe) I may not face the same problems ... we'll see.
 
Steven85 said:
Heh, basically that's my greatest fear, if your 780s lose a couple of frames, imagine how many more my TIs will. Oh well, let's hope not, 'cause I've already put the order.

BTW do you think you lose framerate due to CPU's bottlenecks or due to the PCI-E being v2.0 instead of 3.0 . I'm asking because I have my CPU overcklocked higher than you, and maybe (just maybe) I may not face the same problems ... we'll see.
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I think it is just a CPU bottleneck.
 
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