Invest in the now, or invest in the future?

[djc604]

I am wondering what would most people do in this situation. As enthusiasts, we always want the lastest and greatest. I'm talking about 2 GTX 295's in SLI. Right now they are the best cards out there, and putting 2 together would be cool. But I need a second opinion.

1.Should I wait for the new technological advances that DX11 can provide? Would it be worth the wait for the next flagship DX11 cards?

2.Will investing into the now futureproof myself? Would I really be set for another 5 years?

I'm asking because, I'm thinking of getting 2 x 295s, and adding water blocks to them. But I'm afraid that as soon as DX11 comes out, which is not very long from now, I will have the need to upgrade, which will render the 295s as yesterday's news, and wont be as shiny as it was today. And they would be quite hard to sell with water blocks attached to them.

What are your suggestions?

 

[edeawillrule]

According to your config linked to from your profile the current card in your pc is a 1gb Radeon HD 4870. In that case I would say wait and see what happens with the DX11 cards.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

Future proofing is expensive and almost never works. When DX11 comes out, it will be immature and probably buggy. Then you'll have to wait for matured DX11 cards. By the time that comes out, DX12 will be around the corner and the rest of your hardware will be outdated.

 

[sefit]

+1 edeawillrule
I don´t know why you are even thinking to go for SLI GTX 295s having 1gb 4870. Is there something that is not running OK on your current rig? Moreover rest of your setup is really not good enough to feed SLI GTX 295.
1. your monitor is 21inch at 1650*1080...at least some decent 24inch at 1920*1200 but with SLI GTX 295 I would go for 2560*1600
2. power supply- 650watt...definitely not enough, you need 1000Watt at least
3. q6600 at 2.7....I have one GTX 295 and q6600 at 3.6 and CPU can not squeeze out GPU absolutely - by other words - bottleneck, for SLI GTX 295 you need i7 decently overclocked. Your q6600 at 2.7 can exploit one GTX 295 at 65-70% at most...at best.

be happy with your 4870, it´s good card and new gen is coming soon (hand in hand with needed upgrade of your rig)

 

[coozie7]

Quad SLI scales poorly anyway, the fourth GPU is doing almost nothing because of the CPU overhead.
A single GTX295 would make more sense as an upgrade for the future but for now, unless there are games that play below your requirements, the HD4870 is plenty for 16x10 resoloution.
As for future proofing, the past shows us this is futile: My current 7800GTX was a top-tier card just 4 years ago yet it is easily outperformed by the 100 pound mainstream cards of today.
As for DX11, I am not waiting with excited anticipation.

 

[Helloworld_98]

if you want DX11 support and a Quad GPU setup then just get a couple of 4870 X2's since ATi cards have supported DX11 for 4 generations already.

 

[wh3resmycar]

if you want DX11 support and a Quad GPU setup then just get a couple of 4870 X2's since ATi cards have supported DX11 for 4 generations already.

lolerskaters?

 

[djc604]

According to your config linked to from your profile the current card in your pc is a 1gb Radeon HD 4870. In that case I would say wait and see what happens with the DX11 cards.

Sorry, I had failed to notify you guys that this rig in my config is basically my temp rig. It's my Familys computer in which I outfitted it with a 4870. I like this rig as is and do not plan to upgrade it anymore as there is basically nothing else I can add to this rig. And a GTX 295 will not fit in this board even if I tried.

The rig I'm talking bout is one that I'm in the process of building at the moment. It is as follows:

Asus P6T X58 ATX Motherboard
Intel core i7 920 CPU
Samsung 305T 30IN Widescreen LCD Monitor Black 2560X1600 6MS 1000:1
Corsair HX1000W CMPSU-1000HX 1000W ATX 20/24PIN ATX 80A 12V Afc Modular Power Supply
Corsair XMS3 Dominator Tri-Channel 3x2GB DDR3-1866 RAM
Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-FI Titanium FATAL1TY Champion 7.1 Sound Card
Intel X25-M 80GB SSD
Corsair Storage Solutions 128GB 2.5IN SATA2 Solid State Disk
2 X XFX GeForce GTX 295 576MHZ 1792MB Video Cards
Zalman ZM-MFC2 4 Fan Speed Controller w/ LCD Display
LG BH08-LS20 Black BLU-RAY Writer 8X BD-R 16X DVD-R SATA
Western Digital WD1001FALS Caviar Black 1TB SATA2 7200RPM 32MB
Logitech G9 Laser Mouse
Logitech G15 2ND Gen Gaming Keyboard USB Black Silver

So far I got the case, the mobo, and the CPU. I live in Canada so prices are a little higher. I have made two forums about this already regarding PSU and water cooling inquiries. And of course, I will be overclocking

Hope this clears things up.

 

[djc604]

+1 edeawillrule
I don´t know why you are even thinking to go for SLI GTX 295s having 1gb 4870. Is there something that is not running OK on your current rig? Moreover rest of your setup is really not good enough to feed SLI GTX 295.
1. your monitor is 21inch at 1650*1080...at least some decent 24inch at 1920*1200 but with SLI GTX 295 I would go for 2560*1600
2. power supply- 650watt...definitely not enough, you need 1000Watt at least
3. q6600 at 2.7....I have one GTX 295 and q6600 at 3.6 and CPU can not squeeze out GPU absolutely - by other words - bottleneck, for SLI GTX 295 you need i7 decently overclocked. Your q6600 at 2.7 can exploit one GTX 295 at 65-70% at most...at best.

be happy with your 4870, it´s good card and new gen is coming soon (hand in hand with needed upgrade of your rig)

Yes I am well aware of these bottlenecks. I certainly would'nt think about adding even a single 295 with this CPU and monitor. It would be a waste of money. I am actually referring to a current build I'm working on, and yes I will be overclocking the 920 as much as I can. Hope this clear things up. refer to above post ^

 

[Dekasav]

Why not tri-SLI GTX 285's? Much better.

 

[djc604]

Why not tri-SLI GTX 285's? Much better.

Thats a possibility, but then the 3rd PCI-E slot is only 8X, and I won't be able to fit a sound card. Gotta have that crazy sound lol.

 

[B-Unit]

I would just go with the single 295 so that in 2 years when DX11 (or maybe 12) is entrenched, you wont feel quite so bad replacing it.

 

[wh3resmycar]

q6600 at 2.7....I have one GTX 295 and q6600 at 3.6 and CPU can not squeeze out GPU absolutely - by other words - bottleneck, for SLI GTX 295 you need i7 decently overclocked. Your q6600 at 2.7 can exploit one GTX 295 at 65-70% at most...at best.

ive read somewhere (cant remember though) on resolutions higher than 1920x1200, a 2.6ghz quad wont make any difference against a 3.6ghz quad where the game tends to be more gpu bound.

and as far as the last toms article ive read, theres a bug going with an i7 + a geforce 295 where a performance hit occurs @ high resolutions.

 

[sefit]

to djc604
if you are not in hurry and you shouldn´t be with your "home rig" wait a couple of months for new generation...it can´t hurt. Otherwise what i know SLI GTX 295 is really not good choice, not worth of money invested...if you must then go for tri SLI GTX 285

to wh3resmycer
It would be great if it´s true with quad at 2.6 Ghz. My own experience...Q6600 at 3.6 is able to play Crysis (very high, 1920*1200, no aa) at 38fps and i7 920 at 3.6 is not pushing more than 40-41fps...2-3fps= quite negligible....fun starts with CPU intensive games like far cry 2 or world in conflict - 10-20% performance loss...if I tried it with q6600 at stock (2.4) in world in conflict I lost more than 50% compared to i7 920 at stock. Result (from my own experience): it depends very much on game but you can NEVER reach same results with GTX 295 at 1920*1200 with whatever dual/quad core compared to i7 (clock to clock), in some cases it´s really small gap but in others it could be close to 20%...of course GTX 295 is strong enough to get outstanding results scalling even with oced q6600...