Watercooled 580 SLI or 780

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I am considering building my second rig (sold my last one in 2011) and my first one with water cooling. I stumbled across a water cool ready GTX 580 for $300 after rebate:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130601

For about 50 dollars less than the 780, and 150 less after buying a waterblock, would I be better off building a watercooled rig around 2 580's, or 1 780

Note that I am aware that benchmarks for watercooled 780s are prolly hard to find at this point, but it looks like you could knock 10-20% off a titan. Also, I am not interested in scaling up to sli 780's down the line.
 
Solution
There are no issues with SLI. I've been running with an SLI setup from the 580s to the 680s and my 780s will be at my house next week. I anticipate they won't cause me any issues either. SLI is solid tech. Crossfire on the other hand has well documented microstutter issues of late. I complained of these issues when I had 5850s three years ago and AMD is finally owning up to it.

There is absolutely no reason to steer away from SLI if you have the motherboard and PSU to support it. But I recommend you go with the 780 now and just pick up another when you can.
If you're interested in a 780SLI setup sometime in the future, just get the 780 now. The performance is well beyond any water-cooled 580 could get you. Even the superclocked reviews for the 780s are giving performance beyond that of the Titan so if you throw water on it at some point, it will probably be like running two 580s in a single card. Compare the 590 to the 780 in the following review:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/EVGA/GTX_780_SC_ACX_Cooler/8.html

Even the 780 at stock clocks is beating the performance of the 590.
 

rex4235

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Jun 9, 2012
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Yea, dont go SLI just for kicks. With the 780 out now, keep it simple and go with the single GPU (then you dont have to worry about all the issues SLI comes with)

It made sense to SLI 580's when they were to top tier card (for performance above that) but now it just adds more components for similar performance to the 780
 
There are no issues with SLI. I've been running with an SLI setup from the 580s to the 680s and my 780s will be at my house next week. I anticipate they won't cause me any issues either. SLI is solid tech. Crossfire on the other hand has well documented microstutter issues of late. I complained of these issues when I had 5850s three years ago and AMD is finally owning up to it.

There is absolutely no reason to steer away from SLI if you have the motherboard and PSU to support it. But I recommend you go with the 780 now and just pick up another when you can.
 
Solution


Worst-case scenario is you run for a week or two with drivers only optimized for the single card. I wouldn't exactly call that roughing it when you have a pair of flagship cards. Most of the time, the drivers are optimized during the beta stages of the product's life cycle. The improvements don't always stop there either. After production, driver tweaks tend to improve overall performance of just about any popular title over time. At all stages, the video is smooth. Microstutter is something I left when I sold my 5850s years ago.
 

rex4235

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Jun 9, 2012
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Im not knocking SLI dont get me wrong, but if you have a choice between either SLI or single GPU setup (and performance was neglidgible) I think the obvious solution would be single GPU

Not to mention, while they hold their own, 580's are now 2 generations old and the 780 is the new front runner. Why invest in antiquated hardware when you can get the same results with a cutting edge GPU.
 
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Thanks guys, definitely helped me make up my mind.

I'm getting ready to get the single 780 for now. Even if i dont plan on scaling up anytime soon, having the option to makes the most sense.