GPU upgrade

I am still rocking a 2600k in my signature and a 560 ti 448 that I got when Skyrim released. I have since lost touch with the latest and greatest due to work, moving and many other personal factors, I was very close to buying a GTX TITAN when that came out but I couldn't justify the $1200 premium at the time.

Looking around I still see the TITAN is holding up strong and I'm ready to lay down bang for buck. I plan to play the game Black desert online in the future as maxed out as possible and because I just bought a 1080p 120hz monitor I don't plan on going 4k anytime soon. I remember before everyone saying "you should he fine with this "insert lower end card" and be okay at only 1080p" except I took that advice on the 560ti and I never had any issues making it hit a brick wall and frame drops.

I have narrowed it down to the GTX TITAN BLACK and the gtx 980, I don't want a dual gpu or 2 gpus, I have had very bad experiences with them in the past or they aren't used on the games I play without some sort of software editing, I just want one single gpu that is going to run Black Desert, I'm not sure what engine it runs on, it may be proprietary. Thanks for any suggestions, I have the possibility of even waiting for whatever is coming next if it is going to he soon enough.

GTX 980 all the way... 4GB is more than enough for 1080p

A 970 would work as well ,

New egg also has MSI 290x Lightnings on sale for $ 320.00 after rebate

At 1080, a 970 would work well. You won't see much of a difference between a 980 & 970 at that resolution. Also agree with Witchdoctor on the 290X. Very good pricing on that card, but if you want better thermals, then the 9 series from Nvidia is the way to go. Complete waste of money on a Titan card, unless you do some professional work and need a card on the industrial side.

Thanks for the advice, I may look closer at the 980, while I was waiting for responses here I discovered at 1080p it uses about 2800mb of vram and the 780 the person had told me that the card they had hit a thermal limit before it actually would peak and throttle around 80c. I have a feeling they have some issues with airflow or a high over clock with a stock cooler, not sure but in either case this isn't indigenous to just his card though, I have seen this happening to other gpus, but that's another topic.