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What GPU to get?

L

lcampbell89

n00b
Joined
Feb 27, 2013
Messages
47
Okay so will be running a 3930k on the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme with 32gb of ram.

I am trying to decide if it is worth it to buy the 780 or maybe 2x 680 FTW 4gb in SLI. Might be a little easier on me to buy one of the 680s now and get a second later on once price drops a little more. Have also thought about 2x 7950s or a 7970 6gb.

I play EVE alot multiboxing with windowed screens, usually 5-6 at a time over my 2 monitors (1080p) but I am also thinking about getting a 30" dell monitor. Also looking to try bioshock, tomb raider and all of these new age games. Honestly I have never had a computer that could play games in ultra so I am willing to spend the cash now to have one. Although I will say ~700 is the budget hear.

I did read that crossfire doesn't support windowed mode, and I know EVE is in cahoots with nvidia and being the main game I play I am starting to lean towards the nvidia side.
 
You could probably grab 2 680's pretty cheap now that people are dumping them in favor of 780's. I have seen 680's in quick sales for $330 already. 2 of those in sli would give you some amazing performance.
 
That is kind of what I am thinking will work out for me. I just want to make sure that 2x 680gb is a better buy that a single 780.
 
Well 1 more powerful card always gets the nod over sli/cfx but in this situation the two most powerful cards from nvidia are at a premium price right now and they are the Titan and 780. But 680 sli should easily blow those both away. If you want a new card now then definitely grab the sli 680's to get some amazing prices. But if you are willing to wait a bit then grab a 780 when the price comes down to some reasonable levels. That way you can start saving for a second 780 with the money saved. Either way (nvidia/amd) right now is a great time to buy a new card with all the people dumping their cards for 780's. I just grabbed a second 670 for sli very cheap and am considering a third for the price they are at.
 
Agreed with go with the 680SLI setup... That setup will be kicking game asses for a long time... Specially for your 2x1080p monitors.... You will maxout any actual game and for a loooong time the next comming games..
 
Ya I think I have convinced myself to do the 2x 680s. Is finding a classified worth it? Or are FTWs good enough?
 
Both are excelent cards and excelent OC'ers... Main differences are classified are bit higher clocked than the FTW, also 14 power phases, more power delivery due to 8+8power pin vs 4+8 that mean that classified in theory should be more better OC'er than FTW, but in fact all its matter of silicon lotery...also the FTW run bit cooler and bypass the factory boost clock according to the temps this mean if the card keep temps under certain limit and keep gpu usage under certain limits, it will bypass the max stock boost clock.. In mine 660sTi the boost clock its 1124mhz.. But when I play any game or any bench the card get clocked itself to 1254mhz...my brother 670 FTW do the same and friends 680FTW too.. But i have not friend with classified so as far i know thats only happens with the FTW version according to my friends.. To resume, for OC the best card its the classified, for regular use and cooler the FTW its the way to go
 
Are both compatible with liquid cooling blocks? Haha and now the trouble will be finding one for 300-350
 
lcampbell89 said:
Are both compatible with liquid cooling blocks? Haha and now the trouble will be finding one for 300-350
Click to expand...

Completely... Are high amount of water block for 680s.. Any of those will work perfectly.. You have any microcenter near?.. Stores are making offers for their older 680s to make out of stock and sell 780s... Also you can check on the forum f/s.. Maybe you have luck..
 
if u plan on only running 2 monitors, want to save money, get the best performance, and later upgrade on price drops, i highly suggest buying ONE 6gb 7970 (depending on ur perffered graphics setting) thats very well cooled, and after the 7 series come out and the prices of 680s dropp u can buy one 4gb and see how u feel (most likely would like to upgrade since the performance, depending on ur perffered settings) and buy another, and in a year or two, if the world hasnt invented liquid computers, another 680 should be able to keep future proofed for quite a bit, in my opinion.
if u upgrade ur monitors before purchasing ur gpu, depending on how much u can obtain a pair of 7970's or a pair of gtx 680's, i just suggest taking into consideration more memory over slight advantages in speed, for the memory will be more effective for an enjoyable game play.

7970 is supposed to out perform, but depending on ur perffered settings it may not make a difference.
on the side note, it seems as though nvidia recieves updates and game changes alot more consisently and cuase less frequent issues with ur gpu.

if ur not into buygin 2nd handed items, this will change my entire opinion.
 
I don't mind buying used at all. But I thought crossfire wouldn't support windowed mode. And anyone know the price point for 770
 
Thoughts:

1.) You don't need a 3930k for gaming. It's a waste. Get an i7-3770k.
2.) You don't need 32GB RAM for gaming. It's a waste. Get 16GB.
3.) You don't need GTX 680 4GB for 2560x1600. Get the regular edition, or better yet.. two used GTX 670's. You can easily found one for 300$ shipped.
4.) You definitely should get the 30". I recommend getting a used 3007WFP-HC off eBay for ~700$.
 
Trackr said:
Thoughts:

1.) You don't need a 3930k for gaming. It's a waste. Get an i7-3770k.
2.) You don't need 32GB RAM for gaming. It's a waste. Get 16GB.
3.) You don't need GTX 680 4GB for 2560x1600. Get the regular edition, or better yet.. two used GTX 670's. You can easily found one for 300$ shipped.
4.) You definitely should get the 30". I recommend getting a used 3007WFP-HC off eBay for ~700$.
Click to expand...

for 2560x1600 its crazy not to go with 4gb versions of 670 or 680 cards if going sli.
 
I wouldn't bother with a 7970 if you are going to be using 2 cards.

I vote for 2x 680's, although I don't now if EVE will support SLI when running multiple clients in windows.
I also play eve and have 3 clients running at a time, but I have never tried SLI or Crossfire.
Eve isn't very intensive on the GPU anyway, so you could get away with running it on one of the cards pretty easily.

If you are multi-boxing them ram and CPU will definitely help although it depends how many clients you are running. I generally find each client uses around 600MB of memory and 7% cpu, but I am only running at 1440*900
 
257Tony said:
Except for maybe a couple exceptions, 670 even in SLI doesn't have the horsepower to use 4gb.
Click to expand...
you dont have to use 4gb, you simply have to use more than 2gb of vram. and 670/680 sli at 2560 can most certainly use more than 2gb of vram in some cases. you dont buy an sli setup and 2560 screen and then gimp yourself from day one in some games.
 
Trackr said:
I disagree. 2GB has never been a problem for me at 2560x1600.
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um okay. so you really advise someone to go with 2gb versions for sli at 2560 in the middle of 2013? sorry but IMO that is flat out bad advice as even right now we can easily exceed 2gb in some games 2560 with settings that much gpu power can run. heck I use near or even go over 1500mb in nearly any modern game with just a single gtx660ti using reduced settings at just 1920.
 
I would say 670....maybe get another 670 if necessary later on

sli is better than xfire right now...

you can also see if there is a 670 variant of NVidia 7 series coming soon...
 
cannondale06 said:
um okay. so you really advise someone to go with 2gb versions for sli at 2560 in the middle of 2013? sorry but IMO that is flat out bad advice as even right now we can easily exceed 2gb in some games 2560 with settings that much gpu power can run. heck I use near or even go over 1500mb in nearly any modern game with just a single gtx660ti using reduced settings at just 1920.
Click to expand...

Yes, people look at their vRAM usage and panic.

The fact of the matter is, it doesn't translate into performance loss.

If you look at various reviews, there is a very low (1-3%) decrease in performance in even the most graphically intensive games run at 2560x1600 w/8xAA between a 2GB card and a 3GB card.
 
Trackr said:
Yes, people look at their vRAM usage and panic.

The fact of the matter is, it doesn't translate into performance loss.

If you look at various reviews, there is a very low (1-3%) decrease in performance in even the most graphically intensive games run at 2560x1600 w/8xAA between a 2GB card and a 3GB card.
Click to expand...
again its bad advice if building right now to not go 4gb for 670/680 sli at 2560. a year ago you might have had much more of a point but not now IMO. you buy a setup like that to crank the settings in ALL of your games.
 
cannondale06 said:
again its bad advice if building right now to not go 4gb for 670/680 sli at 2560. a year ago you might have had much more of a point but not now IMO. you buy a setup like that to crank the settings in ALL of your games.
Click to expand...

You're not giving any evidence for your opinion.

In basically every review of a 4GB GTX 670 or GTX 680, there is at most a 2% difference between the 4GB and 2GB versions.

If you were right, the difference would be much higher.

So, no. I agree that for 5760x1080 and higher, 4GB certainly comes in handy, but not for 2560x1440 or 2560x1600.

Another exmaple - Hitman Absolution takes over 2.5GB sometimes, but my GTX 480's can crank out 60 FPS minimum at 2560x1600 w/4xAA at highest settings.
 
cannondale06 said:
you dont have to use 4gb, you simply have to use more than 2gb of vram. and 670/680 sli at 2560 can most certainly use more than 2gb of vram in some cases. you dont buy an sli setup and 2560 screen and then gimp yourself from day one in some games.
Click to expand...

Taken straight the [H] review of the 4gb 670's

That header explains the situation we experienced most. There were some advantages of being able to enable higher MSAA settings at 5760x1200, especially in the case of Hitman. However, while we were technically able to enable these settings, or complete a run-through, the performance wasn't fast enough out of the GeForce GTX 670 GPUs to actually allow that high of a setting to be playable. It's like putting beefy off-road tires on a Yugo, sure the capacity is there to go off-road, but the Yugo lacks the performance to get us over the terrain.

To really show off the advantage of 4GB of RAM on GeForce GTX 670 based video cards, would be to use no less than a three-card 3-way SLI setup. At that point, the performance may be there with GTX 670's to actually utilize the high settings 4GB of RAM would allow.
Click to expand...

The Bottom Line

We've given the ASUS GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU II 4GB video cards plenty of opportunities to prove to us why we would need 4GB of VRAM on these. Unfortunately, these have come short of proving this. We tried pushing a single ASUS GTX 670 4GB to the max on a 30" display, at more than playable settings, and also at 1080p. We saw no advantages with a single card. Then we put two together in SLI and tried to push them to the max at 5760x1200. What we found was that higher settings were possible to enable, but the performance wasn't there to allow them to be playable. Simply, the performance of GTX 670 isn't enough to utilize the capacity of 4GB of VRAM
Click to expand...
 
257Tony said:
Taken straight the [H] review of the 4gb 670's
Click to expand...
vram is a moving target and always will be. there have been other games that have come out since then and will continue to come out over the next year or two that use more vram. its foolish to think that 2gb of vram is sufficient for 680/670 sli at 2560 from now going forward.
 
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cannondale06 said:
vram is a moving target and always will be. there have been other games that have come out since then and will continue to come out over the next year or two that use more vram. its foolish to think that 2gb of vram is sufficient for 680/670 sli at 2560 from now going forward.
Click to expand...
Yes, and newer games are going to be more demanding on the gpu also, so a 679 with 4gb is still not powerful enough to use the features that require that extra vRam.
 
257Tony said:
Yes, and newer games are going to be more demanding on the gpu also, so a 679 with 4gb is still not powerful enough to use the features that require that extra vRam.
Click to expand...
thats not always true. higher vram from higher res textures is not any more demanding. and 670 or 680 sli can handle high levels of AA. lol its silly to even have this argument half way through 2013 as anyone with a lick of sense will go 4gb over 2gb for running sli at 2560.
 
To the person telling me to not use 3930k and 32gb of ram. Appreciate the opinion but I think since I already own the CPU I will be keeping it. I also have lots of clients open at once which is demanding on the RAM so I'm going to also most likely go for the 32. Just a personal choice.

And I am definitely leaning towards 2x 680 4gb just have to find a good deal on them.
 
lcampbell89 said:
To the person telling me to not use 3930k and 32gb of ram. Appreciate the opinion but I think since I already own the CPU I will be keeping it. I also have lots of clients open at once which is demanding on the RAM so I'm going to also most likely go for the 32. Just a personal choice.

And I am definitely leaning towards 2x 680 4gb just have to find a good deal on them.
Click to expand...

Well, I would respect your opinion to keep the 32GB, if you would have listened to anything said in the past 10 posts..

The fact of the matter is, 4GB is a waste on a GTX 680. If you buy it, you'll regret it.
 
Trackr said:
Well, I would respect your opinion to keep the 32GB, if you would have listened to anything said in the past 10 posts..

The fact of the matter is, 4GB is a waste on a GTX 680. If you buy it, you'll regret it.
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lol he will regret having enough vram to play all current and upcoming games at 2560 with 670 or 680 sli? :rolleyes:

lcampbell89, don't listen to the nonsesne. go 4gb if you want 670 or 680 sli and want to play at 2560 without upgrading again any time soon.
 
cannondale06 said:
lol he will regret having enough vram to play all current and upcoming games at 2560 with 670 or 680 sli? :rolleyes:

lcampbell89, don't listen to the nonsesne. go 4gb if you want 670 or 680 sli and want to play at 2560.
Click to expand...

+1 here totally agree.. OP for sure you will go better and secure with the 4GB vRAM versions...
 
You guys are just insane.

Can't you read?

You need GTX 670 Triple-SLi to make 4GB worthwhile.

This is coming from Kyle and Brent themselves.
 
Trackr said:
You guys are just insane.

Can't you read?

You need GTX 670 Triple-SLi to make 4GB worthwhile.

This is coming from Kyle and Brent themselves.
Click to expand...
yes because nearly 6 months ago they covered every possible game at that time and all future games. :rolleyes:

AGAIN anybody with common sense would go 4gb at this point if wanting 670/680 sli at 2560.
 
cannondale06 said:
yes because nearly 6 months ago they covered every possible game at that time and all future games. :rolleyes:

AGAIN anybody with common sense would go 4gb at this point if wanting 670/680 sli at 2560.
Click to expand...

You're not listening.

Yes, future games will take more vRAM, but they will also be harder to render.

So, at the rendering ability of a GTX 670, 4GB is useless.

You could make the same argument about the GT 640. It has 2GB, so it's more future-proof? No.
 
Trackr said:
You're not listening.

Yes, future games will take more vRAM, but they will also be harder to render.

So, at the rendering ability of a GTX 670, 4GB is useless.

You could make the same argument about the GT 640. It has 2GB, so it's more future-proof? No.
Click to expand...
and you are not listening. games with higher textures have no more real impact on performance and a 670/680 sli setup at 2560 is capable of running higher levels of AA that can push past 2gb of vram RIGHT NOW. 670/680 sli will still play upcoming games for the foreseeable future that will also go past 2gb of vram just fine.
 
cannondale06 said:
and you are not listening.
Click to expand...

No, I am listening. You just fail to understand.

cannondale06 said:
games with higher textures have no more real impact on performance
Click to expand...

Yes, but newer games aren't going to JUST have higher texture resolution. They'll ramp up everything else equally, meaning that the GTX 670 won't stand a chance at rendering them with 4GB or 6GB or 10GB.

cannondale06 said:
and a 670/680 sli setup at 2560 is capable of running higher levels of AA that can push past 2gb of vram RIGHT NOW.
Click to expand...

No, like Kyle said.. you'd need Triple-SLi to use more than 2GB.

If you mean that you'll be able to use 16xAA instead of 8xAA at 2560x1600 with 4GB on both cards.. is that really worth it?
 
If it helps at all I intend to get 680s not 670s. And I intend to get 4gb ftw+ or classified. One of the two.
 
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