Crossfire 280x vs. 970

Might be selling one of my PCs this weekend, so I'll be faced with a need to upgrade.

Relevant parts I'll have:

Seasonic X750
4690k
Gigabyte 280x rev2
2560x1440 display at 96Hz

A single 280x just isn't going to cut it for me at 1440p, so I'm thinking of either crossfiring it or selling it and picking up a 970.

CF 280x will give me better performance and cost less, but I've always been a single card guy, so I'm a bit worried about games where CF profiles are late-arriving (Shadow of Mordor?).

I play BF4 and plan to play all the "latest and greatest" titles as they're released, so Star Citizen, Witcher 3, the Division, bla bla bla.

I'd be buying the 280x used, so I think it'd be ~ $125 out of pocket that route.

I'd grab the 970 from tigerdirect and use a $15 off coupon, then sell the game code they're coming with for ~$25 and my current 280x for $100 (after shipping and fees), so I'm estimating $225 out of pocket if I go that route.

I think I'm leaning toward the CF 280x route. The price on them used is pretty crazy, bang-for-your-buck-wise, and I also upgrade frequently enough that if I really hated crossfire, I wouldn't have to deal w it long.

Open to other points of view, though.

Thanks

I'd go 970.
Later you can SLI them and pull the same power as one 280X.

So when is the time for dual cards? Why not do CF now, but do SLI down the road?

CF/SLI should happen when a single card can't meet your needs.
And the 970/980 can meet your needs.

ATMINSIDE said:

CF/SLI should happen when a single card can't meet your needs.
And the 970/980 can meet your needs.

Click to expand...

That's probably a better way to look at dual card options. I have always added to that "or if you save a significant amount of $ and get same/better performance". I suppose you still have to weigh that against the potential headaches of multiple cards.

You do. Remember that you'll get somewhere around 70%, but only in games that actually support SLI or Crossfire.

I'm looking at the Strix and G1, at the moment.

Leaning towards the Asus (I can wait for it to be available).

Any others I should look at?

EVGA ACX2.0 Superclocked.
Cheaper than either G1 or Strix, and I believe it's clocked higher than both. And you get EVGA's support if you ever need it.

Hmm, I wasn't really considering that one and the last blurb on the performance page of this review doesn't have me running in its direction:

What may be a distraction, however, is noise from the power circuitry. As we said, EVGA doesn't use any upgraded components for its power phases, whereas ASUS and MSI both use higher end parts. It also has only four power phases for the GPU compared to six in the other two cards, which puts more strain and load on the invidiual elements of each phse. The result, sadly, is a relatively low volume but still irritating buzzing noise every time the card is put under load (i.e. when gaming). In a quiet case positioned on the floor, or when using headphones, it won't bother you, but if your case is next to you on your desk then that may not be the case. No power noise was heard from the ASUS or MSI cards.

Click to expand...

TD does have the superclocked card in stock for $350. I'll have to look at some more reviews.

EDIT:

Mentioned again here:
http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/3...5795-evga-gtx-970-sc-acx-20-reviewed?start=14

It seems like the FTW ACX 2.0 is the EVGA card to get. I'll keep looking. Don't think I'll go with the Superclocked.