Final video card upgrade for x58 platform with i7 980x

Kaori

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 30, 2010
Messages
255
So I want to do one last to video card upgrade before jumping to a new platform since this one is 5 years old already but still very capable.

I'll be using either the new acer 27" 144hz 1440p XB270hu monitor or a freesync alternative

Now the question is: should I just grab two gtx980's since higher than this will probably be cpu limited even at 4.4ghz~ ?

I still want to wait a bit more to see if the 390x(and maybe the 980ti) is worth or not but not sure if getting two of them will be a waste or even work properly in this platform..
 
if your in a huge hurry just get a single 980 that way if amds next big thing is as good as we hope your not trying to sell 2 cards to get back on top...its common sense really with so much unknown about amd's next
 
if your in a huge hurry just get a single 980 that way if amds next big thing is as good as we hope your not trying to sell 2 cards to get back on top

not in a big hurry (acer monitor still not available here), will wait till AMD next card which will make gtx980 drop in price and decide which way to go for, just not sure if this cpu can push two gtx980ti or two 390x.. maybe with directx 12 ?
 
Why do people keep asking about powerful GPUs with zero mention of what they play or otherwise use them for? At least you did tell us a resolution, but we could use more info.

Buy based on need. If you aren't going to play games that stress what you buy, then you wasted your money. And don't upgrade for future games because upgrading in the future instead would always be better.
 
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well.. if I'm buying a 1440p 144hz gaming monitor that should answer it :)

mostly single player games like GTAV The Witcher 3 etc

wish some website would review new graphic cards with older hardware to compare
 
well.. if I'm buying a 1440p 144hz gaming monitor that should answer it :)

I see that the rest of your response did include info, but no, the resolution does not even slightly hint at what games you play. Lots of games would be able to do 2560x1440 with your cards. I did 2560x1440 with high settings in World of Tanks with a single GTX 570 no problem. I wasn't using antialiasing but it really wasn't necessary anyway.

Those games aren't yet out for PC, are they? Can you wait for them to come out and look at benchmarks if so or must you have a PC that can handle them at high FPS on launch day? Even if it turns out your 7950s can't handle these newer games, I don't think 980s will be worth the upgrade over turning the detail settings down one whole notch. Come on. It's not like you're going to be playing at 800x600 low details to make it work here.

But hey, it's your money...
 
Get the fastest single card you can afford. That should allow you to play pretty much any modern game at 1440P. I would wait until the 380X is released if you're hesitant with the 980. Not sure the Ti would be enough of an upgrade from the 980 but it would be faster. I don't think you'd need to go sli/xfire as that tech seems to have way more driver issues. If you were going 4K then sli/xfire would be your best bet.
 
At that res your gona want 980 sli! Trust me. No single titan will satisfy u less you like playing at sub 60fps.. maybe 80 tops.
 
Amd.. I would not count on it with driver support. Price drop what maybe $50? Buy it.
 
Amd.. I would not count on it with driver support.

Oh geez. Another dude who knew someone who knew someone who owned a Rage Fury MAXX back when it was still ATI and refuses to recognize that things are different today. I've owned far more Nvidia cards than AMD/ATI cards and even I see these claims for the BS they are.

Why am I still the only reply that realizes that OP has 2 7950s and that is pretty darn good already? You guys really need to stop assuming that a good setup like that is going to have trouble. Are any of you aware that most games are playable on high settings without having 512 of the latest 8-GPU card? It may turn out that his/her cards do perform less well than (s)he'd like on these new games, but you should not assume this will be the case. Try it and see.
 
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Two 7950's are barely enough for my 1440p 60hz monitor as it is.. not to mention they don't work with freesync and gsync.

My main question is if my cpu can push two 390x or two gtx980ti or whatever it will be called :)

And yeah, I'll wait a bit more at least to see if 390x is worth it or makes the gtx980 drop in price
 
Two 7950's are barely enough for my 1440p 60hz monitor as it is.. not to mention they don't work with freesync and gsync.

My main question is if my cpu can push two 390x or two gtx980ti or whatever it will be called :)

Actually, 7950 will support FreeSync. All HD 7000 series Radeons will. Or at least news sites have pegged AMD as saying that. Or do they not support Freesync when in CF specifically?

And it's not a question of whether your CPU can handle the GPUs or vice-versa... That is never the correct question to ask..

Every game uses a certain amount of CPU and GPU power. You want to have sufficient quantities of each. But the ratio between CPU usage and GPU usage is different between games - sometimes significantly so. It makes no sense to try and generalize that ratio the way you are doing.

If you play a specific game that needs a lot of CPU and not a ton of GPU then yes, upgrading GPU won't help much. And vice-versa. But that is only for some games and, again, what you need is never the same in each game this applies to.
 
Two 7950's are barely enough for my 1440p 60hz monitor as it is.. not to mention they don't work with freesync and gsync.

My main question is if my cpu can push two 390x or two gtx980ti or whatever it will be called :)

And yeah, I'll wait a bit more at least to see if 390x is worth it or makes the gtx980 drop in price

Highly depends on the games you play. Some games will be more CPU demanding than others. With DX12, CPU requirements will be reduced for games using it in general, and very CPU demanding games can better use the 6 cores you have. So it really depends on the games you play, and how widespread DX12 becomes.

Actually, 7950 will support FreeSync. All HD 7000 series Radeons will. Or at least news sites have pegged AMD as saying that. Or do they not support Freesync when in CF specifically?

And it's not a question of whether your CPU can handle the GPUs or vice-versa... That is never the correct question to ask..

Every game uses a certain amount of CPU and GPU power. You want to have sufficient quantities of each. But the ratio between CPU usage and GPU usage is different between games - sometimes significantly so. It makes no sense to try and generalize that ratio the way you are doing.

If you play a specific game that needs a lot of CPU and not a ton of GPU then yes, upgrading GPU won't help much. And vice-versa. But that is only for some games and, again, what you need is never the same in each game this applies to.

If I recall correctly, the 7 series and 280 series will not support the variable refresh rate features required for gaming. It will do a static variable refresh rate (i.e. 24 or 48 Hz movie refresh rate), but it won't be able to dynamically adjust refresh rates.

Also, Crossfire in Freesync is currently broken to be fixed at a later date.
 
Ive had 7970 quadfire 2-3 years ago.. driver issues so much thst I was stuck using the default first release just to get 3 cards working together.. it depressed me so much I sold it all off after months of just sitting there. Blew $600 per card and over 10k on a once in a lifetime build for nothing!

3 months ago I decided to build a budget gaming rig. Not being up to date on graphics cards I went with what the salesman at mc told me To buy. A 280x with 3gb ram. Nope. Returned it without even touching it a day later and payed a little more for a xfx 290 with 4gb ram. Was ok.. smooth at 1080.. only wanted 60 fps for bf4. The card was too hot runing at 70-80c and jet take off loud! No thanks..I'm used to quiet water cooled cards but can't afford to this time..Exchanged for a asus strix 970.. fans were whiny on spin up or spin down like an out of balanced barring on the fan.. exchanged for a gigabyte 970.. nice and cool at 54c on load and damn quiet even at 100% fan. Kept it locked at 70%.

Then I bought a 1440 ROG swift g-sync 144hz monitor. Was not enough power.. so swapped out for a 980. Then decided I needed another 980 for sli and then I went from low 50-60 durring explosions in bf4 to 110-120 the lowest and mostly pegged at 144fps.

You want 2 980s! Everything is smooth! Life like smooth.

Amd has not updated there drivers in over 3 months! Don't bother!
 
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not in a big hurry (acer monitor still not available here), will wait till AMD next card which will make gtx980 drop in price and decide which way to go for, just not sure if this cpu can push two gtx980ti or two 390x.. maybe with directx 12 ?

with the small exception of crysis 3 and a few others games i personally don't think 2 cards are warranted at that res.....4k res may be so but at 1440p i think just one of the top tier cards is fine...i would most defiantly not by 2 from the get go no matter which camp you decide as expensive as they get...never hurts to see how well one does...but thats just me
 
If you want to try to peg 144Hz with maxed-ish settings you'd need dual cards. I bought dual Titan X's just to hold 60Hz in newer games.

I had 7970 trifire. I'd take a single 290x or 780ti over that anyday even if the benchmarks were 50% lower on the 290x/780ti.

OP you could always try one card & get another if you need more FPS. An OC'd 980 should be a noticeable improvement over what you have. I imagine your CPU would constrain you holding 144Hz in some titles... My understanding is that is no easy feat.
 
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I had a i7-920 with sli 970's and then upgraded my CPU. I can tell you that the 920 was more of a bottleneck than I thought. Alot of the hitching and stuttering in games went away and I was never really able to match the performance in games that all the reviewers were getting. I was sort of in the same boat as I wanted to go 4k (instead of 144hz) for sometime and it was never really doable until the 970/980 came out (I have G-Sync so AMD isn't an option for me). Ina ny event Nice processor BTW.
 
with the small exception of crysis 3 and a few others games i personally don't think 2 cards are warranted at that res.....4k res may be so but at 1440p i think just one of the top tier cards is fine...i would most defiantly not by 2 from the get go no matter which camp you decide as expensive as they get...never hurts to see how well one does...but thats just me

That was the point in my previous post. Unless you are one of those that have to have all the eye candy on ultra and a constant 60 fps then there is no need for the headaches of sli/xfire. Especially if AMD and or NV are releasing newer cards (390X/Ti) soon. 4K is where you really need it.
 
A 980 ti that rumored to come out at the end of summer is not soon! That's 6 months away if it's on time And when is something released on time.
 
Been browsing 3dmark results and I found a few brave people with the setup I want to get:

i7 980x + Crossfire HD7950 Firestrike Extreme 3330 score / 3453 graphics score (similar to my system)

i7 980x + GTX Titan X Firestrike Extreme 8785 score / 9249 graphics score

i7 980x + SLI GTX Titan X Firestrike Extreme 12757 score / 14574 graphics score

i7 980x + SLI GTX980 Firestrike Extreme 10953 score / 12692 graphics score

I7-4770K + SLI GTX Titan X Firestrike Extreme 11378 score / 13710 graphics score (though cpu is not highly clocked)

Looks like my system is enough for two Titan X though the $1000 cost over two gtx980s doesn't seem to be worth it...

Time to wait a bit more for 390x or the 980ti :)
 
To be fair a 5820 would be a more comparable chip. 5150 Joker got a 15678 with SLI Titan X with a very average 4.4 GHZ overclock on his 5820.

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/4431171

but those titans are clocked 21%~ higher than the result I posted, 14574 graphics score + 21% = 17634 which is close to that result with a 5820

the 980x is also only at 4ghz on the sli titan x result so add more 10%~ to the physics score
 
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Firestrike isn't necessarily a good representation of the games you will be playing. Synthetic benchmarks rarely are.

The way I see it, there's no harm in waiting until the games are released, and you seeing whether or not they're playable at the settings you want to play at with your current setup. At that point you can decide whether or not you want a GPU upgrade, or CPU + motherboard. Or both.
 
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