Please help with advice on new graphics card

[TooOld4This]

Hey all,

I am looking to buy a new graphics card, or two, to upgrade from my current two Zotac GTX 560 2GB. I have recently bought two Accelero TwinTurbo ii coolers and fitted them to the cards with great success, and I would like to reuse them. Looking on Arctic's site, looks like pretty much all the latest nVidia cards are compatibile which is great:



As well as the GPU cooling, I have some other important criteria which needs to be addressed:

- I will only be using 1080p resolution.
- I have a 120hz monitor, so I want to keep 120fps at the above mentioned 1080p resolution if possible.
- I'm not looking to spend a great deal of money on the likes of a Titan. I will SLi two cards most likely, just like what I am doing now.
- I live in Dubai and the choice of cards is limited to typically Zotac or Gigabyte. However, I can order from Amazon with international shipping and it works really well.

I really like the review of the nVidia GTX 650 ti BOOST over on HardOCP:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/03/26/nvidia_geforce_gtx_650_ti_boost_video_card_review/1

Now taking into consideration I'm looking for high framerates at 1080p, do you think two of these would be a sensible purchase? If there's better choices out there, please share your thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Johan45]

Personally I'd spend the money on 1 GTX670/680 which have great performance the in a year or two get another to SLI with when they're cheaper.

 

[Soulcatcher668]

The short answer to this is..... it's never going to happen. Tri-fire Titans will not give you 120 FPS on modern titles.

Image stolen from Guru3d

Your best bet right now.

Buy a 7970 or 670 now and then crossfire later.

 

[TooOld4This]

Personally I'd spend the money on 1 GTX670/680 which have great performance the in a year or two get another to SLI with when they're cheaper.

I agree and I'm on the fence overall. Looking at prices on Amazon, I'm looking at around $170 for the GTX 650 ti Boost, so $340 for two. Or I am looking at $480 for a GTX 680. It wouldn't surprise me if the two 560 ti Boost cards in SLi perform better. Not sure if there's any documents out there to clarify this... ?

The short answer to this is..... it's never going to happen. Tri-fire Titans will not give you 120 FPS on modern titles.

Image stolen from Guru3d

Your best bet right now.

Buy a 7970 or 670 now and then crossfire later.

I'm not sure if that's the best example. Is that with crazy supersampling settings or something?

I know they're not the latest games, but FWIW, Diablo 3 and MW3 on their maximum in-game settings run a little over 100fps on just one of my 560 cards. SLi doubles the framerate almost exactly. Maybe my current cards don't quite warrant a replacement yet?

I'm not going to go away from nVidia as all the reading I have done on crossfire vs SLi is that SLi always provides a smoother experience.

 

[Soulcatcher668]

If the cards you have play the games that you play at the frame rates you want..... why change.

I read your post under the premise that this was for new games with eye candy on.

You can turn any game down to get crazy FPS.... you can also down res to 720p. Personally, I would rather have 60-80 fps with high res and eye candy than 200 fps and it looks like crap.

 

[TooOld4This]

If the cards you have play the games that you play at the frame rates you want..... why change.

I read your post under the premise that this was for new games with eye candy on.

You can turn any game down to get crazy FPS.... you can also down res to 720p. Personally, I would rather have 60-80 fps with high res and eye candy than 200 fps and it looks like crap.

Sure, I understand, and also agree. But like I said, that's with maximum in-game settings and it certainly doesn't look like crap. The chart you posted seems quite an unusual reference. I would hope most modern games would make over 60fps @ 1080p with a Titan!

EDIT: Suffice to say, yes, looking at a GTX 670 / 680 is probably the better option. Thanks.

 

[Johan45]

Here's a 670 for $360 which is still capable of 680 performance. http://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-WIND...d=1365427990&sr=8-2&keywords=gtx+670+gigabyte

And here are some performance comparisons.




In the end the 670 is the way to go. Yes you're going to get a better bang for your buck right now but the better card helps you spend less in the future. Two 670's are nearlt the performance of the GTX 690

 

[TooOld4This]

Nice one chief. Appreciate your help!

The 660's are half the price of the 670's. It's never ending!