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1 or 2 Video Cards

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Wheelzup

Wheelzup

Registered
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Joined
Mar 14, 2008
Location
Northwest Ohio
It's been a long time since I did any upgrading or building a new system. I'm still chugging along with an old AMD FX CPU and have an old ATI card. I really need to get a new system put together and the only thing I am having trouble figuring out is do I want to run Xfire or SLI or get the fastest single card that I can afford? I'm leaning towards a pair of R9 390's because they fit my budget better than a pair 970's. I know that bot AMD & Nvidia are both coming out with new cards but I haven't seen any specific dates for their releases.

Any suggestions sure would be helpful.
 
What's the rest of the build?
What is your intended usage?

Can't help much without knowing what you're doing and what system it'll be in.
 
For almost all circumstances it is more recommended to go with the single fastest card you can afford instead of two lesser cards. You almost never get close to 100% scaling and have to put up with numerous bugs, compatibility issues, and waiting for support for multi-card setups for the individual games (if they have it at all).
 
ATMINSIDE said:
What's the rest of the build?
What is your intended usage?

Can't help much without knowing what you're doing and what system it'll be in.
Click to expand...

Janus67 said:
For almost all circumstances it is more recommended to go with the single fastest card you can afford instead of two lesser cards. You almost never get close to 100% scaling and have to put up with numerous bugs, compatibility issues, and waiting for support for multi-card setups for the individual games (if they have it at all).
Click to expand...
These... (out of thanks!)
 
ATMINSIDE said:
What's the rest of the build?
What is your intended usage?

Can't help much without knowing what you're doing and what system it'll be in.
Click to expand...

The build is for heavy use of photoshop, some video editing, and fairly heavy gaming. What I have to build around is a MSI X99 GAMING PRO CARBON, Intel core i7 -5930, 32 GB DDR 4 2400 Corsair Platinum RAM, EVGA 1200 W PSU, NZXT Kraken X61 cooler, two Samsung EVO 512 GB SSD drives, and a WD 3 TB Black HD, Plextor Blu-ray burner and a Corsair 750 air full tower.

I think thats everything.
 
A single 970 or 980 is more than enough for you.
Any reason for the 1200W PSU???
 
Id go single 980, or grab a 1070 when it releases depending on what the 980 pricing does. The 1070 will kill it and is around the same price.
 
just a single 980, non ti card will be plenty at 1080, will be nicer than 970's in sli.
 
ATMINSIDE said:
A single 970 or 980 is more than enough for you.
Any reason for the 1200W PSU???
Click to expand...

It was on sale and had a $40 rebate, which I did get already. Otherwise it gives me some headroom down the road. I'm not far from retirement and this might be my last totally new build.

The reason I was not sure about what direction to go with my video is I've always had an ATI/AMD video card in my computers. Even my first P-133 from Gateway had an ATI card in it. Never thought I would consider something else until now.
 
I'm curious about 4k displays,are they much better than one that tops out at 1080p or is it more of a personal preference? I'm guessing that the 980 or new 10?? from nvidia can handle resolutions that high?
 
better...................how? What do you mean?

980 can't handle it. 980Ti can in some titles, but you need to lower some IQ settings. 1080 is getting there.
 
By better I mean are they easier on the eyes when editing photos all day or working with video? I can understand why hardcore gamers would want one even if they really don't need it. Not much true ultra HD content around yet.
 
What would be easier on the eyes is a high quality, color calibrated, flicker free monitor.

Resolution changes just that, the resolution.
 
try a dell ultra sharp if your looking at a cheap, glary led screen all day, much easier on the eyes.
 
I would get a single 970 or a 980Ti. The 980 just doesent make sense because it's nearly double the cost of the 970 but only about 15% faster in real world charts. You're paying a crap ton of extra money for a marginal performance increase. If you really overclock a 970, you can get pretty close to 980 results anyway. If you're going to spend 980-type money, chip in $50 more and get the 980Ti which is a huge jump in performance. The 980Ti is almost 40% faster than the 970, about 25% faster than the 980, and less than $75 more than the 980. In short, the 980 is pretty silly period. The price to performance ratio just isint there.

I would go with a single card. I used to run SLI for the longest time, and I got tired of it. I had two 8800GTS cards, then two GTX 265s then two GTX 660s. I always had problems in several games. Even games that were designed for SLI sometimes dident work at all. All in all, I probably had problems with SLI in close to 30% of the games I owned. It's just not worth the major hassle unless you already are maxed out on GPU power and need more (e.g. 4k systems).
 
Last edited:
Nearly double? They are not $600 cards. You can snag 980's for $100 more (and higher of course) than a 970 ($395 for a reference 980 vs $295 for the cheapest 970). If you were to actually double the cost of the 970, you can get a 980Ti ($539 on newegg for the cheapest - Zotac AMP! in fact). Perhaps that changes things regarding the 980 being 'silly'?
 
I will admit my 970's when clocked will get pretty close to my 980, but the pleasure is reduced, the 970 has to work harder and therefor make more heat and really crank up the fans and the 980 will do it just loafing along all nice and quiet.
there are some settings I have to turn back to use the 970 whereas with the 980 I can just turn them right up.
 
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