GTX 680 Sli advice needed.

Shallowmist

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Hello dear forum dwellers.


Basically i bought an MSI 680 back on the day of the release of the card and have been steadily rocking it sense on a 24 inch liyama screen. Obviously i consider this a time to upgrade.

Now i was going to go for a 27 inch 1920x1080 inch 120HZ 3D capable screen. But than i figured if i am gonna fork over that much money might as well ditch the 3D and go for the 2560x1440 RES on a 27 inch.

I found a suitable screen with IPS 120 HZ and the required resolution at a price i can afford. But however this brings the question of power considering i am rocking a 680 solo, i rather doubt it's ability to pull out Ultra on Tomb raider on 2560x1440 with steady 60 fps. Ergo the burning question.

I can find a second MSI card for between 300/400 euro. Maybe 200 if i can scope one out on ebay. Point is would it be wise to invest into a second 680 considering 700 can't be that far off. I would like to hear some options. And opinions about the 2560x1440 vs 1080i.

Best Regards
Shallowmist
 
Solution
By far the most price effective solution is another 680 with your 2560X1440 display. You may save money by waiting for Nvidia's soon revealing of their so-called 700 series (apparently it's simply a stripped down Titan, a gigaclock 680 and 670 and calling them 700 series. Anyways, the 680 will come down in price.
By far the most price effective solution is another 680 with your 2560X1440 display. You may save money by waiting for Nvidia's soon revealing of their so-called 700 series (apparently it's simply a stripped down Titan, a gigaclock 680 and 670 and calling them 700 series. Anyways, the 680 will come down in price.
 
Solution

Shallowmist

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Over what time period are we talking about. Because if they try to milk out the Titan as much as possible it may be postponed to after summer. I am talking about max 1 month wait time otherwise it makes no sense for me to upgrade at all. And how much further down would they go ? they are rocking steady 400 TAG as we speak i can't see them going down past 300 350.
 

Shallowmist

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It does favor amd but hey a'lot of games favor nvidia :p I've had bad experiences with ATI with past 4000/5000 versions. Also i am rocking a 1600W one so i think it would work. Only thing i am worried about is the heat production. I think i will go for twin frozer card and buy an aftermarket articcool for the current one i have. Considering i don't have WC on cards.
 

gridironcj

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I sure hope you have 4GB of vram for your original 680 because Tomb Raider will use over 2GB for SSAA x4 (x2 may use more than 2GB as well, not quite sure though).

I should also note that you will not get 60FPS with 2 GTX 680s with SMAA x2 or x4 and with Shadows at Ultra & TressFX. Don't pay attention to benchmarks, as they turn these down, which clearly isn't a true max out.

As a reference, I have 2 GTX Titans and on the Tomb Raider in-game benchmark, I got 50FPS with SMAA x4 and the additional settings I mentioned. Since 2 Titans destory 3 680s and compete with 4 680s, it's safe to say that you cannot expect anything close to what your desires are.
 

Shallowmist

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That depends man obviously i won't be able to get the anti ali up but i am talking about smooth ULTRA like experience. Obviously few things will be down but i can live without the anti ali. Question is will i be able to pull off 60HZwith most games coming out in the next at least 1 year with 2 cards on a 2560x1440 27 inch. That's where it's at.
 


I did a similar analysis for my own display, a Dell U3011 which is 2560X1600. I found the only thing that would give me 60 maxed out on everything is two Titans. I have one now and will be getting the second one with my Haswell in June.
 

gridironcj

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You will have to play with either no AA or the lowest quality, but if AA doesn't matter to yo7, theb that should not be an issue. Ultra is not the highest setting though. There is an Ultimate which includes TressFX. There is also the option to turn Shadows on Ultra, which becomes a Custom graphics mode. You will not get 60FPS with any of those on woth 2 680s. I actually upgraded from 2 680s to 2 Titans because they're essentially needed for max outs at these resolutions. You're also in bad shape if you have the 2gb 680. Even a game that isn't that demanding such as Battlefield 3 will need above 2gb on some multiplayer maps when the game is maxed out. This will cause your FPS to drop dramatically because you don't have enough vram.

Short answer to your question: No, you will not get 60fps in most new games and especially not in upcoming games when maxed out with low AA.
 

Shallowmist

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So first of all when just using tomb raider as an example:
Tomb raider came out and everything sucked than a driver for GTX 680 came out and it was 80% Improvement.
I started playing AC3 with 20 FPS 2 months into the game i got 60 FPS.
I am saying is there isn't a game in the known universe existence that can TAX a computer's hardware.
Games are meant to be running on a crappy Xbox 360 with parts from 7+ years ago. The only reason games won't run is because they are poorly optimized. So essentially 2 titans the only thing you are doing is trying to throw money at things hoping that Dollars will fix Coding problems. Honestly i think i agree with some of the first posters here GTX 680 is a good choice and i will let you know how well i can run a game after a few patches :). Good luck with the titans though.
 


You are draw conclusions on two very different issues.

Some AAA titles are released with bug issues, as they often are pushing the limits of hardware and software, and require some tweaks from the drivers to run well. This is pretty normal stuff, and sometimes you get bugs on release, though Tomb Raider ran on release beautifully on slightly older drivers. Something happened with the 314 drivers that messed things up, but are fixed now, but the 310 drivers had no issues.

Now, games on the PC are far more demanding for many reasons. They use higher resolutions, PC gamers expect more FPS, and we get higher visual effects and AA levels. They often have higher A.I levels as well. While optimizations might not be as refined on PC's, as it is not possible with all the different configurations out there, they are also playing games with much higher settings.

 


Ahh, do I detect a mild case of Titan jealousy? The things SLI better than anything else out. And give exceptionally smooth frames. But only even begin to make sense with 2560+ resolution gaming.
 

Shallowmist

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Not jealous brother i never said it's not a great card. It is however way beyond my price range for those who want and have the cash to back it up. Than hell i'd go for it too :p. But for my budget i think i can make it work with the material i've got at hand.