Intelligent Upgrade Path?

E

Endgame

Gawd
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
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I'm trying to decide on the most intelligent upgrade path possible and I'm looking to you, [H] forum to lend a hand.

My current rig (I suppose I should add this to my sig, but its going to be replaced so soon...):
Q6600 @ 3.4 (runs at 3.7 on water, but I've pulled the block for now and running on air)
ATI 4870 1GB @ 850/1100 (on water)
8GB Ram
3x Vertex 60GB SSD in Raid 0
30"/20" LP display

Gaming on the 30" is a bit painful to be honest, with slowdowns here and there even in SW:Tor @ medium. I'm planning on upgrading to 3x 30", but am not going to bother with that until after the new system is built.

I've already picked up a new power supply and 2x 240GB Intel 520s for a Raid 0 system disk. I'm planning on picking up at least 1 video card next week which I will run with my 6600 until Ivy comes out. So, here are my thoughts on vid card, all comments appreciated:

1) Grab 2x 7970s now and crossfire until Ivy comes out, even though my CPU is probably way to slow to justify crossfire. Buy Ivy in May, and 2x 30" monitors in September / October.
2) Grab 1 7970 and 2x 30" monitors now, and game with it until Ivy comes out. Buy Ivy in May, but wait until the dual GPU 7990 (or whatever it will be called) comes out and add it to the 7970 for tri fire.
3) Grab 2x 680 now and run SLI until Ivy comes out, even though my CPU is probably way to slow to justify SLI. Buy Ivy in May, and 2x 30" monitors in September / October.
4) Grab 1x 680 and 2x 30" monitors now game with it until Ivy comes out. Buy ivy in May, but wait until 780 comes out (or whatever the high end Keplar will be called) and use the 680 for Physics and 2x 780 SLI for gaming.

Options 1 and 3 pretty much depend on how well the 680 does when the reviews hit. I spend more now, but am all set when Ivy Bridge comes out and I add the extra monitors later in the year. Options 2 and 4 I don't get as much of an upgrade now vid card wise now, but have the extra screen space for work and I'll just game on one monitor. I'm still not where I want to be when Ivy Bridge comes out, but I get to have better performance on the 3x 30" solution later in the year.

I'm open to any other suggestions as well, but no matter what way I go, I don't want to waste money now on a vid card I won't use later. That's what I'm thinking Tri Fire or a dedicated 680 for physics.
 
This will be a crazy setup with 3x 30" monitor for gaming.
I also would like to know which video card you end up getting and how many of them to drive those monitors.
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Endgame said:
Dedicated 680 for physics.
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I think that may turn out to be a waste in the end. Do you do a ton of Physx gaming, and want to run max physx all the time? Otherwise I think a 680 would be super overkill for dedicated physx.

It may be better value for you to go the trifire route. Then again, who knows how much the 7990 will cost.

If you are ok with a stop gap solution you will lose money on, until the 700 series arrives, I would go with the $300-400 card range now. A 7870 would power multiple monitors and give you decent single screen gameplay until such a time as you wanna drop a ton of cash on crossfire/sli.
 
Maplehamwich said:
I think that may turn out to be a waste in the end. Do you do a ton of Physx gaming, and want to run max physx all the time? Otherwise I think a 680 would be super overkill for dedicated physx.

It may be better value for you to go the trifire route. Then again, who knows how much the 7990 will cost.
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You're probably right on a 680 dedicated for phyx, but at least I would get use out of the card. I could probably go with a 570 for less and still use it dedicated for phyx though too...

I'm not terribly concerned with the cost on the 7990 as long as it comes in at less than $1000, and as long as I wait until October to buy. Of course, who knows if it will even be available by October.

Maplehamwich said:
If you are ok with a stop gap solution you will lose money on, until the 700 series arrives, I would go with the $300-400 card range now. A 7870 would power multiple monitors and give you decent single screen gameplay until such a time as you wanna drop a ton of cash on crossfire/sli.
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I'd rather not spend $400 on something just to discard later. To be honest, the 4870 plays games well enough on the 20" that I could make the 20 my primary gaming monitor if I wanted a stopgap. As far as I can tell, the old OC'd 4870 is around as fast as a 7770, which is fine for 1600x1200.
 
3x30"? Vram alone eliminates the 680 if these are going to be hi-res, not just 3x 1080.

I'm aiming for a similar Hi-res setup and waiting for the 6GB 7970 to be released. Running out of vram bites big time. Worst case you can quad-fire, but vram doesn't move.
 
Agreed with Yakk; for 3x30", 3GB per card is a minimum, and only because there aren't 4GB cards out yet. We have silly arguments here about whether 2GB is too little for 1920x1080, it will be painfully insufficient for you.

There may (or may not) eventually be custom 4GB versions of the GTX 680, but I think it will probably take longer than you want to wait for them to come out.

Edit: I was wrong. Apparently, 2GB is enough.
 
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Excellent point Yakk and evilsofa. Perhaps a stopgap purchase is what I'm going to need to do, in which case a 680 might be my purchase until something with more ram comes out. At least I can use the 680 for phyx, whereas I won't be able to use the 7970 at all. Or I just sell the 7970 later when a 6GB card comes out.

Bah, never an easy answer, is there?
 
Isn't a 680 like a TOTAL waste when used as a physx card? I remember reading a couple of articles about how even a GTX460 could be a waste when used as a dedicated phsyx card because a much lower end card like the GT220 can do the same job with very minimal difference in FPS.

Unless Phsyx has improved drastically, I very much doubt it'll need the power of a 680 as dedicated card.

I say get the 680 and enjoy using it on your current 30" monitor, then by the time the 4GB+ cards came out sell the 680 (it'll most likely have good resale value) and get yourself 2 or 3 cards of the higher VRAM version.
 
Thanks Metallicaband! I think you're right on getting the 680 now that the reviews are out -- it will be my first time with a green card since probably 2002. I'm going to go with an evga card so I can step up into the 780 (assuming that's what they will call big keplar).

Thanks everyone!
 
Upgrade path.

If Overclocking wait otherwise read on.

For single monitor 1920/2560
High End = GTX680 for price, power envelope, and features.

Mid Range 6970/GTX560ti/

Low End = DONT BOTHER!

If you plan on overclocking then wait till the high end gets settled.
If you want to do tripple monitor then I would still go AMD. the 3Gigs of ram is just far more future proof.
 
For everyone saying that 3GB is the min for high res and that's only because 4gb cards aren't out. In [H] review of the 680 it was very competitive (to say it nicely) with the 7970 at even 2560 x 1600.... What gives? My first impression is to agree that more vram is going to be better when dealing with crazy high resolutions, but current reviews seem to disagree. Anyone have any ideas? Are we just waiting for AMD to get some better drivers and the 7970 will pull away again?
 
Gavin28x said:
For everyone saying that 3GB is the min for high res and that's only because 4gb cards aren't out. In [H] review of the 680 it was very competitive (to say it nicely) with the 7970 at even 2560 x 1600.... What gives? My first impression is to agree that more vram is going to be better when dealing with crazy high resolutions, but current reviews seem to disagree. Anyone have any ideas? Are we just waiting for AMD to get some better drivers and the 7970 will pull away again?
Click to expand...

I assumed that 2GB vs 3GB would make a difference for a 3x30" setup. So far it looks like I was wrong. It's a very pleasant surprise.

1.5GB was definitely not enough for resolutions like that; we saw complaints about that from people who were running GTX 580 SLI with the 1.5GB models. Apparently it was just barely not enough.
 
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