Need opinions! :)

Hey everyone!! So I have been saving to upgrade my computer, mainly for better fps with gaming. Here are my PC specs at the moment:

Mobo - Pegatron Corp. 2AD5
OS - Windows 7 Home Premium Edition
Cpu - Intel i5 3570k
Psu - Thermaltake Tr2 600W
Ram - Crosair 2x2gb 1600mhz
Gpu - Zotac nVidia Geforce GTX 760.
Storage - 2TB HDD + 250gb 850 EVO SSD(boot)


Now the question is, SLI the 760? Or upgrade to 980ti.

On Newegg I have found the parts I will need to SLI the 760, including:

Gpu - PNY nVidia Geforce Gtx 760 OC $220
Mobo - ASRock Z77 Extreme4 $205
Psu - EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2 750W $160
Ram - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 2x2gb 1600mhz $40

Total - $675 shipping included.

I have made sure all parts are compliant with eachother and I will not need a new cpu.

Now either I get all of that, or just the brand new nVidia Geforce GTX 980ti graphics card, plus 2x8gb ram for a total of $770 shipping included.

WHAT WOULD BE MORE WORTH IT?? Thanks for your time!

First off, what is the resolution of your monitor, if it's 1080p than a single gtx 970 will do just fine.
Dual monitor or a 2560x1600p monitor than you may want to get the GTX 980
Get 8gb of RAM
750w PSU is overkill for a single GPU unless you want to upgrade to 2 way SLI in the future.

I have 2 pair of 760's I sli.
gigabyte gtx760 sc , 2 gig cards
asus striker, 4 gig cards.

get the 980TI.

with the 2 gig cards I can scare a titan owner.
with the strikers I can just beat a titan, get the 980.

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oh!!!, look, a review!!! >>>>>> http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_760_sli_review,1.html <<<<<<

Yes my monitor is only 1080p, but I am very power hungry. I would just love to see a stable 60 fps on every game I throw at it, so I might end up disappointed with the GTX 970.

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Sweet thanks for the opinion and link caddi!

reasons not to sli gtx 760's.
if they are not blower cards they dump all that heat right into the case.
in sli they get loud in sli, because of all that heat being dumped into the case, even the asus mars is a hottie.
no dx12 with kepler.
kepler cards are not going to be so good with newer games.
if you get a higher res monitor and have 2 gig sli cards, to bad for you, you will need 4 gig cards.
sli can be a pain at times, single cards are rearly a pain.
newer games will leave these cards behind.
later drivers kill the kepler cards.

reasons to sli gtx 760 cards,

kick a titan in the keister for a lot less money
760's are big bang for the buck.
if you brick a card you can still game while you order another card.
with 4 gig cards you can go higher res.
if you brick a card in another rig, you have a card you can slide in while you order another card.
newer drivers work with these cards.

I just looked up that board, and all I can say is "wow". Like, it reminds me of a Foxconn board I pulled out of an old Dell optiplex not too long ago. That, coupled with the fact that I've never heard of that brand (not saying that I know all of the quality mainboards from the time period, but...) makes me really want to recommend at least grabbing that EXT4. That, plus a quality 500-550w PSU, new 8GB kit of RAM (don't miss-match the one you have with another, it could lead to problems) and a GTX 970 would put you right up there with the best in 1080p gaming rigs. It would probably end up being pretty much smack dab in the middle of your 2 options as far as pricing is concerned.

you need to do some web searching on the interwebs on the motherboard, a few pegatron boards had ugly issues with sata dying, you just need to make sure yours is not one of them.
and Dlaw is sooooooooo right on the 970, cheap, big powa!!!

Yes it's a very strange motherboard.. This pc was once a Hp Envy h8 prebuild. Never have I had a problem with it though, other than the fact it says 512 - could not detect rear chassis fan on boot and I have to press f1 because I switched cases. Would my motherboards sata failing affect my gpu at all? In that case I'll go for a new motherboard aswell before I try the gpu. Ive looked up benchmarks for newer games I like playing, on both the 970, and the 980ti. 980ti is much much better and runs 60fps+ every game where as the 970 does not. Definetly worth the extra money to me.

You need to check the resolutions that the benchmarks are running at, or let us look (link please). I'm willing to bet they're at at least 1440p with a strong possibility of 4k resolutions, as right now a 970 should be plenty for 1080p.

Yes, the 980Ti is much better. It should be, for almost double the price. That doesn't mean that the 970 isn't worth getting, and a 980, Ti version or not, is just overkill for 1080p.

Would my motherboards sata failing affect my gpu at all?

Click to expand...

No, but it would mean that you won't be able to use your storage drives. What's the point in having a bad-@$$ GPU if you can't boot into Windows to use it? I highly recommend that EXT4 you were looking at, ASRock boards are known to be solid in both performance and reliability. Plus, down the road, you can grab a decent aftermarket cooler and overclock that CPU to push the usable life of it back another year or so.

I'm not saying you can't get the 980Ti, but realistically, you won't notice the difference between it and the 970 at 1080p. Whats the point in spending all that extra money on something you won't actually need?

Now, if your upgrade plan includes a nice new 1440p or 4k monitor, I'd say go for it. That is where you would see the 970 start to struggle.

Heres a link to one of the fps tests I was looking at:


The 970 is pretty good, but I am already upgrading from a $250 video card. So is it really worth it? But now that I think of it, I could get the 970, extra ram, a new motherboard and maybe even a cpu cooler for the same price as the 980ti.

Worth it is for you to decide.

Going from 760 to 970 will be a nice jump in performance.

gaming on my 970 a bit, in some of the games I have played on the net and downloaded at 1440p it struggles a good bit, I have to turn the eye candy down to keep it playable with frame rates above 35 and 40.
all the same games on my 1080p monitor I can play very well with lots of eye candy on.
I'm thinking about another 970 but am waiting for the release of the new amd cards to drive the price down with the other option of waiting for 980TI's to come out and put the 970 back to work folding.

Yeah that's the thing, this is probably the worst time for me to be buying a new graphics card considering price drops usually happen in december. I'm just so tired of seeing like 15-20fps on 1080p ultra settings with newer games. When I got this 760, it ran everything beautifully without any struggle. But now only 10 months down the road, it can hardly handle a stable 30 fps on the "next gen" games on high settings. I fear the same thing would happen with the 970, ten months after I purchase that aswell. So the 980ti would definetly be good to have for upcoming games, it's always good to future proof. (980 is out of question since it's pretty much same price as ti and runs usually around 10 fps slower) But then again, I could always sli the 970 in the future if the one starts to struggle, but that would be another like $800 with everything I would have to get to be able to sli.

yea, so I'm kind of seeing it teh same way, wait a bit for amd to release then get a 980ti.
Don't get me wrong, the 760 is a good card, just ageing.

Thanks for the help guys, I'll let you know what I got and how it's working in due time.