960 SLI or RX480 XFIRE for 120hz?

Gron113 · Jul 2, 2016

Let me explain my position, as it may be confusing to some.
I live in Australia, where I purchased a 144hz monitor from ASUS. After some tweaks with some software downloads, I had the monitor looking its best at 120hz, which still looks amazing. However, even at 1080p (which is the monitor's resolution) it is too much for my single GTX 960 to power without turning down some, or all, of the settings.

Now to my actual question.
I need to buy a motherboard that is SLI or CrossFire compatible first, but after that point, which is the best avenue - in terms of performance and price, seeing as my income seems to be rather unstable at good ol' micky D's - for me to go down? The new RX480 here in Oz will cost around $320, and that's just the reference design, whereas a new 960 to go alongside my existing one will cost just as much, but I can put them in SLI straight away, seeing as I have about as much money as a new MOBO and 960 will cost.

In summary:
I already have a 960, after I get an SLI mobo, should I get a second 960, or wait for custom designs of the RX 480 and buy two of them, even though it will take a lot more time, as I don't have that much money?

My PC:
FX 6300 Black Edition
ASROCK 970DE3/U3S3 (The mobo I am going to buy is MSI 970A SLI Krait Edition)
ASUS STRIX GTX 960 (the 4 gigabyte model)
Cooler Master V650 650 watt
(This shouldn't be important, but I'll put down everything else in vague form)
120gb SSD
500gb HDD
8gb RAM
AIO Liquid cooler

newbjumper · Jul 2, 2016

Unless I am missing something/misread something here, you shouldn't have a problem with a 960 at 144hz.
I had an i5 4440, gtx 760 reference, and an acer gn246hl 144hz monitor that ran games perfectly fine.

But to answer your question, you should get the rx 480 crossfire non references, as benchmarks say they run almost as good as a gtx 1080 as reference cards, and will be better as non reference cards

Edit: sorry for my other answer, didn't see that you wanted non references

NEmpire95 · Jul 2, 2016

A 960 won't be able to run newer triple-A games with maxed settings at 144fps+. My 980ti can't even do 1080 144fps+ at max settings in certain games. Getting a second 960 will help but sli isn't always the most reliable when it comes to newer games (definitely getting better though). Have you considered selling your 960 for a reasonable price and buying a 1070?

Sam Hain · Jul 2, 2016

Check your NV panel settings as follows for the following settings, for your GTX 960 if not already setup this way:

Manage 3D Settings Tab (Global):

Multi-Display/Mixed GPU Acceleration: SINGLE DISPLAY

Power Management Mode: PREFER MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE

Preferred Refresh Rate: HIGHEST AVAILABLE

I once owned a GTX 760 w/AMD 965 B.E. and MSI 790FX-GD70 motherboard, HDD (no SSD) and 8GB of DDR3 1600 (7-9-7-24 @1T; Mushkin Blackline) and this setup pushed an ASUS 1080p 144hz monitor with no issues; that's including with settings cranked up on high/ultra on then newer titles at the time BF3/BF4 and still getting good frames/performance, for that setup.

So, you should have pretty "decent" performance with your setup at 1080p 144Hz. Perhaps a bump up to 16GB of ram might give your system an overall performance boost over your 8GB. DDR3 ram is very reasonably priced now... Just a thought.

EDIT: As NEmpire95 states a GTX 1070 will definitely get you there...

bystander · Jul 2, 2016

You can get a GTX 1070 for the same cost and it'll perform better than 480 crossfire. The FPS may be slightly less on average, but overall performance will be better. I vote GTX 1070.

Sam Hain · Jul 2, 2016

bystander :

The 480 is an interesting card, but out of the chute already has issues... http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-power-gpu-rx-480,32200.html

Sam Hain · Jul 2, 2016

Sorry fer multiple posts Gron... The easiest performance upgrade, but not necessarily the least inexpensive one is a GPU upgrade. This is in regards to your question about buying a new motherboard, btw.

Placing a GTX 1070 (like the others have suggested) in your existing setup with an OC on your FX6300 (as much as you can stable; "some" owners have reported an OC of 4GHz w/FX 6300 on your board, but is bound to silicon lottery on how far you can go) and another 8GB of RAM down the road will make your setup feel like a new PC.

Gron113 · Jul 5, 2016

I find each of these solutions helpful, thanks a lot. I never knew these kinds of communities lived up to their pedigree.
I forgot to mention, though, that I don't mind cranking some of the settings down for newer titles. I used to have a VERY bad PC for games, so anything above 1080p Med-High is fine for me. I don't usually find myself using settings like Vsync, AA, SSAO, etc. Textures and Shadows are the most important things to me, and I am happy to run them at high instead of ultra. I think having a second 960 is best for me at the moment, sorry.

Sorry, but I'm not really comfortable selling my existing 960, as I have never done it before. I just can't really be convinced to do that.

My main concern at the moment, and something I have just realized, is that I may not have enough PCIe lanes in my CPU to be able to run the cards. A quick google search didn't come up with anything - does anyone know? Or, at least, is there some way I can find out? CPU-Z or something?

RobCrezz · Jul 5, 2016

I would highly recommend you dont buy another mobo for your current system, youll simply be wasting money on an already out of date and low end system.

If you are going to get a new mobo, then get a new cpu etc aswell and at least upgrade.

What do you mean about selling your 960? Just put it on ebay, its very simple.

Gron113 · Jul 5, 2016

RobCrezz, you have a 2500k, no? My CPU is a year newer than yours, meaning I question the 'out of date' part of your answer... but you and I both know that the 2500k is fine for gaming, excellent when overclocked, in fact. So is mine. I think that increasing the GPU power of my system is the best choice for now, especially in terms of money. A good, up-to-date CPU and equivalent motherboard is about $570 (6500k, SLI compatible ATX motherboard), which is insane. I don't want that power, I just want enough for 120hz 1080p. A second 960 is fine for now, and once I have more money, then I will think about overhauling my system. It's baby steps at this stage.

I don't want to do video editing, or large file compression, or anything like that. An i7 is completely out of the question. i5? Maybe, but that's long term. Short term I see myself getting a 9590 or equivalent CPU for FX series motherboards - that thing is a beast in games, and in OC tests too.

RobCrezz · Jul 5, 2016

Gron113 :

The difference is, i'm not spending money on a new motherboard for the old platform. Plus you cannot compare a 2500k to a FX 6300, the 2500k is miles better. I have both a 2500k and a FX 8350, the i5 is simply much better.

Thats fair enough if you still wish to do that, I am simply advising against it. I would strongly advise against the 9590 too, that thing is a real piece of crap (essentially a overclocked 8350, that has huge power draw and creates a ton of heat, even then the performance isnt great, many of them even require underclocking to be stable...)

Good luck.

Gron113 · Jul 5, 2016

I understand, but the whole point of the motherboard isn't the CPU, it's the ability to support the second GPU. I know that the 9590 is crappy when it comes to how efficient it is, but it still gives any i5 a run for its money in terms of performance and value. I don't even know if I'll get one, that was an example (If I were to get a new CPU, I would give it some thought and most likely land on your conclusion of the 8350 being good, even if that wasn't what you meant, haha)

lol this whole ordeal of figuring out what to do is making me loathe buying this stupid monitor.......

bystander · Jul 5, 2016

Gron113 :

You do not need to buy a new motherboard. Buy a single card, not 2. A single 1070 will average out to be faster than a 480 CF setup and if you get the 8GB 480's, the 1070 is cheaper and also comes with 8Gb.

Alternatively, if you don't want to spend the money, a 144hz monitor is still useful without 144 FPS. You can turn off Vsync and find tearing is hard to see, so now you get more responsive gaming and just live with less FPS. I personally find 85 FPS to be the sweet spot, anything more has huge diminishing returns.

madmatt30 · Jul 5, 2016

I'm one if amd's biggest fans but have to unequivocally agree with Robcrezz - no fx chip will get you close to 120fps on your monitor irregardless of the GPU setup mate.
80-90fps maybe at a max.

You need a Intel CPU running 4ghz or so to reliably push a 144htz screen - that's just the way it is.

Gron113 · Jul 5, 2016

The thing is that I don't really care for the 480 at the moment, I just really want a second 960. What do you mean with the CPU? It's not really going to bottleneck that much at 1080p, the only game I can think of that would do that is Arma 3...

bystander · Jul 5, 2016

Gron113 :

If you buy a new motherboard, and a 2nd 960, just get a GTX 1070 and stay put on the motherboard. A single 1070 will be faster, have 4 times the VRAM and not have multi-GPU issues. I doubt I'd recommend a 2nd 960 even if you had the motherboard for it, but if you need a motherboard too, just don't go that route.

As far as the CPU bottlenecking, the lower your resolution, the more likely it will (it's backwards of what you are thinking).

Gron113 · Jul 5, 2016

bystander :

My current GPU has 4 gigabytes, not two (sorry, I should have made that more obvious. Rest assured that I will be getting the same strix GPU with 4 gigs) Which is plenty for 1080p. 8 gigs is way too much, as I don't really care for 4k or 1440p gaming atm. As for multi - gpu issues, the only games that will have them are old games (which run fine on one card anyway) and poorly optimized games (which are not worth my time and money)

As for my CPU, I find it to be fine for gaming, and definitely not the problem when it comes to whether I should upgrade. I have overclocked it to around 4.4 ghz, but it's also undervolted from stock, stable, so that it produces a lot less heat. I will do some more research, but I believe that the 6300 will be fine, and, even then, there's always an 8350 for cheap online...

bystander · Jul 5, 2016

Gron113 :

All games that support multi-GPU's, do not perform as well as a single GPU. It may be worse in the games not supported well, but it is never as good as a single card if the FPS are at all close. More and more games are finding ways to use high amounts of VRAM. It might not be needed, but it may matter to you eventually.

If you spend money on a new motherboard, you might as well start over with an Intel setup. I would not upgrade your CPU to another AMD at this point, not until Zen comes about, and that'll require a new motherboard.

Gron113 · Jul 5, 2016

After some tweaking (Sam Hain's answer could have contributed to this) I played Battlefield 4 on absolute ultra settings on Golmud Railway, and it stayed around 85-90 fps, depending where I was. Most of the time, in the open areas, it was over 100.

This got me thinking - maybe I have been a bit stubborn with this topic, and I should just wait until I can afford a 10 series card. For now, I agree - Intel it is.

That leaves the question, though - which path should I go down? I want an i5, but should I go 1150 and keep my 8gigs of ram? Or buy a new cpu, mobo and ram for the 1151 route? I would want maybe a >6400, but the 6600 is just an overclock of the 6500, which is an overclock of the 6400... should I get one of these cpus? or just stick with 1150 and get a 4590?

Thanks for convincing a stubborn donkey like myself (even though I haven't tried Siege of Shanghai yet, but whatever...)

RobCrezz · Jul 6, 2016

In my opinion, if you are going to the trouble of changing platform, might aswell make it as up to date as possible, skylake+DDR4. I think the 6500 seems to be the sweet spot.

960 SLI or RX480 XFIRE for 120hz?

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