760 upgrading - 780ti, 970, 980, 980Ti

[Autonutz]

Hey guy been 2 years since i built my rig and now its time to upgrade the GPU.

When i started i made the mistake of getting an entry level graphics card thinking if it wasnt enough i would just SLI them, after playing on one and reading many reviews i'm kicking myself in the arse for not spending more. Simply put the 760 doesnt perform well enough to make me happy and i'm not dealing with SLI issues if i dont have to.
That being said I'm looking at a few cards over a large price range to understand the full capabilities and capacities of my needs.

System Specs:

2 x 27" BenQ 1080p 60hz
4770k turbo mode LQ Cooled
Z87 Sabertooth
16 gb 1866
950w Corsair PSU
5 x 240 gb SSD
Asus Strix 760 2gb

Current Game loadout:
Witcher 3
Fallout 4
Anno 2070
Supreme Commander 2

The cards im thinking about getting are:
780TI - $240 used local (3hours 1 way)
970-$350-400 used local
980-$550-600 used local
980ti-$900-1100 new (no used local)

Since i've been so unhappy with my old purchase i want to be sure i make the right choice this time!
I'm hoping someone has been through this 1st world problem before and might have some insight.

thanks for your time everyone and Merry Christmas!!

 

[EarthDog]

GTX 980 would be my choice for 1080p gaming (assuming you are not playing games across both monitors).

 

[Suppressor1137]

Y'know, I'd be all for upgrading to the 980, but with pascal just around the corner, I'm not so sure.

Here is something you have to decide on.

1) Get it now, be happy with your purchase

2) wait 2-6 months for pascal, buy that and know you're up to the challenge for a longer time frame.

It all comes down to if you can deal with it for another few months or not.

In my case, the 770 I have pulls it's weight well enough, so I can hold off on the purchase for pascal.

 

[EarthDog]

Just around the corner could be a loooooooong time. If the guy is ready, make the purchase (it wont be 2 months - I wouldnt expect Pascal until the end of 1H 2016 depending on when AMD gets its butt in gear). If one is willing to wait 6 months for the next best thing, people would never actually buy anything.

 

[Suppressor1137]

Just around the corner could be a loooooooong time. If the guy is ready, make the purchase (it wont be 2 months - I wouldnt expect Pascal until the end of 1H 2016 depending on when AMD gets its butt in gear). If one is willing to wait 6 months for the next best thing, people would never actually buy anything.

Correct, I'm just letting him know, in case he didn't.

Either way, the 980 will DEFINITELY be worth while.

Another alternative is to find another 760 somewhere and SLI them, assuming your PSU is adequate, which 960 is MORE than enough. I think two 760's in sli are a little better than a single 980, for the programs that support sli.

 

[EarthDog]

Another alternative is to find another 760 somewhere and SLI them, assuming your PSU is adequate, which 960 is MORE than enough. I think two 760's in sli are a little better than a single 980, for the programs that support sli.

...and i'm not dealing with SLI issues if i dont have to.

The only way I would SLI GTX 760's is if I was running UNDER 1080p resolution, or if I had the 4GB models. 2GB isn't enough these days for 1080p gaming in A LOT of titles.

 

[Suppressor1137]

770 seems to handle it fine, mine is the 2gb model.

I run two monitors, 1920x1080.

That said, my main games are Fallout 4, Rocket League, and Elite Dangerous.

Rocket league is locked at 60 fps, never dipping.

ED, locked at 60.

I can't max out Fallout 4 and get great fps, but I am content with near max settings.

Not to say I don't regret buying the 2gb version now, knowing what it is I am bottle necked on. But Can't change that now.



I seem to have missed that bit about him not wanting to deal with SLI issues.

Sorry, just trying to offer up alternatives and save him some money.


980 will work great.

 

[EarthDog]

A lack of vram doesn't manifest itself in fps. It tends to show in hitching and microstructure when it pages out. Check to see how much vram you are using.

I'd bet money says if you went single card your gaming experience would be even better.

 

[caddi daddi]

2 gig 760's are great for benchmarking fun, they will pee off a titan owner real quick, not for over 1080 gaming at highest settings, i have 2 that I run in sli.
4 gig 760's in sli are great for most everything, buuuuuuuuuut not quite for high res, high settings gaming, I have two of these also.
4 gig 770's in sli are great for high res, high settings in some of the games i enjoy, some, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, not quite there. I have 2 of these.
970's are great for alllllll most everything at high res, high settings, but they still lack that something.... I have two of these.
980TI's are just great for eveything, high res, max settings, not a problem at all, in single or sli. I have just gotten 2 of these and can tell you they are the way to go if you have the budget.........

 

[Suppressor1137]

A lack of vram doesn't manifest itself in fps. It tends to show in hitching and microstructure when it pages out. Check to see how much vram you are using.

I'd bet money says if you went single card your gaming experience would be even better.

Is that were the textures load in as low resolution, and then phase into their higher resolution counterpart? If so, then I can say for sure I do see that, for example, fast traveling in Fo4, the textures are a bit slow to load to high resolution. I just thought it was due to an engine limitation, because a friend of mine with a 780 has the same issue.

 

[EarthDog]

That could be... it depends. But typically it is with hitching and microstutter (not structure - sorry!). Some people can notice it, some not as much. But when you run out of vRAM, it loads textures to your system ram which is A LOT slower than the GDDR5 used in GPUs. This transfering of data to and from the system ram to vRAM is what can cause the hitching and microstutter. THere is no way I would tell a soul today, that could afford it, to get a 2GB card for 1080p "ultra" gaming.

Look at this test done 3 years ago..http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/718118-How-much-GDDR-do-I-need-to-run-my-game

Sure, there is only a game or two that breaks 2GB at 1080p, but I will tell you that all games we review, with the settings we use, they all break 2GB use ( I think metro may NOT...). In 2GB cards, I can notice a bit of microstutter and hitching.

Here is another link: http://www.tweaktown.com/tweakipedia/89/much-vram-need-1080p-1440p-4k/index.html

Final Thoughts

Surprised? Probably. 4GB of VRAM is more than enough for most video cards today, even at 4K. We haven't taken into account any anti-aliasing, as we're going to follow through with another article that looks at 1080p, 1440p and 4K with 4xAA enabled to see how much AA strains the framebuffer in these titles. But in all my years of using PCs, I barely use AA. AA is a personal preference. I'd rather have high framerates on my 120-144Hz screens, but anti-aliasing really helps at 1080p and below.

This test has shown that 8GB of VRAM is pretty useless right now, there's just no need. Sure, NVIDIA has a video card with 12GB of VRAM in the Titan X, and 6GB of VRAM on its new GTX 980 Ti, but most of the time it's not needed, even at 4K. If you start enabling AA, which we're going to be doing soon, then the VRAM consumption is going to skyrocket - which is something that will be interesting to see in our future article.

For now, we've shown you that even the latest games don't push that far over 4GB of VRAM, so you'll feel safe buying yourself a new card with 4-6GB of VRAM.

(Of course, I did not count benchmarks, because, well, those are not games.

If people can afford more, there is no way I would feel good about someone buying a 2GB card at 1080p to run ultra settings with AA. Can they get by? Surely on many titles. Is it optimal? Not in the least.


EDIT2: Another video -

 

[Janus67]

Is that were the textures load in as low resolution, and then phase into their higher resolution counterpart? If so, then I can say for sure I do see that, for example, fast traveling in Fo4, the textures are a bit slow to load to high resolution. I just thought it was due to an engine limitation, because a friend of mine with a 780 has the same issue.

That's an issue with fo4, nothing to do with vram. My buddy has a 980ti and it does the same thing.

 

[Suppressor1137]

That's an issue with fo4, nothing to do with vram. My buddy has a 980ti and it does the same thing.

I figured as much. Thanks for the info

 

[JrClocker]

If you can afford it, go for a 980 Ti.

Reason being...you may want to upgrade your monitor in the future...or go multi-monitor surround.

A 980 Ti is overkill for 1080 gaming, but will keep you quiet happy if you decide to go to higher resolution.

I run 3 1920x1080 in surround and LOVE gaming this way. You should see how cool Elite Dangerous looks with this resolution!

 

[Autonutz]

Awesome feedback guys I appreciate it, since I don't want to buy a new card within 2 years and have the intention of moving to 4k within that time frame, now it's down to spending 900 on a new 980ti or 550 on a 980....

 

[EarthDog]

You will want a 980Ti for 4K. That or you will need to turn down settings to play with the 980.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_980/7.html

 

[Janus67]

I'd get the 980, the performance difference between a 980 and 980ti isn't double. Within that 2 years if you needed to you can resell the 980 and buy whatever nvidia/amd have at that time to better support 4K anyway.

 

[Autonutz]

Wow I didn't know about the Pascal, that made for a good read, thanks for the heads up!

So I doubt I'll be upgrading my monitors within 2 years, that being said I would like to run full or near full settings on 1080p with both my monitors in the meantime.

Option 1: 980 @ $550 local private sale

Option 2: 760 sli @ $150 local private sale (initially didn't want to go this route to make things simple but can't ignore the price)
I've no experience with SLI so I'm not sure how 2 760s would compare to a single 980

Multi monitor surround? As in your outputting your sound through your monitors?

 

[Janus67]

multi-monitor surround is nVidia's equivalent to AMD's eyefinity. Basically stretching your image across multiple monitors. Granted most people use an odd number of screens (not 2 or 4) for this purpose otherwise a monitor bezel is directly in the center of your view which would be terrible. So I would plan to just run a single monitor game at 1080p with high settings with a 980, if you went the 760sli route you'd be limited to 2GB of VRAM which when you start cranking settings up, especially AntiAliasing the VRAM requirements go up quite a bit (as well as finding many games that don't have proper SLI support/scaling). It's why we almost always recommend getting a single high-end card instead of two mid-range cards to have a better minimum framerate and less likely issues for stuttering or lack of support.

 

[Autonutz]

Awesome that is good to know, I only game on a single monitor and use the other for music or streaming movies so that's a perfect suggestion.

Well that it's then 980 is the winner

Thanks for everyone's input again and Merry Christmas everyone!