Question on GFX Cards in gaming rig

1. Ya build wuda been great a year ago but socket 1155 has reached end-of-life..... resellers are basically just clearing the shelves of the old stock. Suggest ya go Z87 (Socket 1150)

2. Crossfire is still broken. On a budget, I think best bet would be twin 650 Ti Boosts ($310) ... Twin 760s ($520 total) or one 770 .... SLI works fine.



http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_650_Ti_Boost_SLI/23.html

After running the GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost SLI through our test suite, I have to admit that I'm impressed. The duo delivered performance easily matching and often exceeding much more expensive single-card options such as the GeForce GTX 680 and Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, and they don't cost as much. SLI multi-GPU scaling works well with all of our titles except for F1 2012. Scaling by going from one to two GTX 650 Ti Boost cards is around 70%, even with F1 2012 taken into account. Unlike AMD, NVIDIA does a good job of maintaining its SLI profiles, so you should be able to play new games without a long wait for multi-GPU support. However, the risk that a game will not be supported still exists, and you might, at worst, end up with single-card performance. This is in my opinion, given the massive performance-per-dollar advantage, an acceptable tradeoff. I would definitely recommend a GTX 650 Ti Boost SLI setup to a friend looking to spend as little money as possible on a high-end gaming rig.

With a combined price of [$310], the graphics cards cost much less than the HD 7970 GHz Edition ($430) and the GTX 680 ($440) while still delivering comparable performance. Power draw and noise levels are slightly higher, but that's the price you'll have to pay to save over 100 bucks.

Click to expand...

Whats the purpose of this rig? We may be able to save money there with the ram and CPU.

As for GPUs, Crossfiring is actually not "broken" that much anymore. The new drivers are really starting to fix it. And with the price of the 7950 being anywhere from 175 - 250 bucks its a killer deal to get two of them.

However if you want truly high end graphics I would say go with a Single 770 (Price may be a bit high, haven't checked recently) then buy a second one later on. The Nvidia drivers are still king when it comes to dual GPU setups.

If your purpose is gaming, then 8gb of ram is enough; no game uses more than 2-3gb.
If you go past 16gb. you need more than windows 7 home premium.

As to planning for dual cards, I would not unless you are planning on triple monitor gaming.
Here is my canned rant on dual cards:
-----------------------------Start of rant----------------------------------------------------
Dual graphics cards vs. a good single card.

a) How good do you really need to be?
A single GTX650/ti or 7770 can give you good performance at 1920 x 1200 in most games.

A single GTX660 or 7850 will give you excellent performance at 1920 x 1200 in most games.
Even 2560 x 1600 will be good with lowered detail.
A single gtx690 or 7990 is about as good as it gets.

Only if you are looking at triple monitor gaming, then sli/cf will be needed.
Even that is now changing with triple monitor support on top end cards.

b) The costs for a single card are lower.
You require a less expensive motherboard; no need for sli/cf or multiple pci-e slots.
Even a ITX motherboard will do.

Your psu costs are less.
A GTX660 needs a 430w psu, even a GTX780 only needs a 575w psu.
When you add another card to the mix, plan on adding 150-200w to your psu requirements.

Even the most power hungry GTX690 only needs 620w, or a 7990 needs 700w.

Case cooling becomes more of an issue with dual cards.
That means a more expensive case with more and stronger fans.
You will also look at more noise.

c) Dual cards do not always render their half of the display in sync, causing microstuttering. It is an annoying effect.
The benefit of higher benchmark fps can be offset, particularly with lower tier cards.
Read this: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-geforce-stutter-crossfire,2995.html

d) dual card support is dependent on the driver. Not all games can benefit from dual cards.

e) cf/sli up front reduces your option to get another card for an upgrade. Not that I suggest you plan for that.
It will often be the case that replacing your current card with a newer gen card will offer a better upgrade path.
The Maxwell and amd 8000 or 9000 series are due next year.
-------------------------------End of rant-----------------------------------------------------------