Need help picking a good card setup.

[SniperMcRifle]

After going on newegg and making an order of two gtx 660 ti ftw signature 2 2gb (to replace my Gigabyte GTX 580 3gb) and finding another card of the same brand/name/clock with 3gb and only a little more money, I find myself at a loss of what to do.

I have a budget of around $700 and I need a good setup that will last a while, as I don't have too much money to replace if needed, any suggestions would be much appreciated.

I would prefer an SLI setup to reduce the overall heat and stress on a single card as my last card broke for that reason.

Manufacturer preference would be EVGA and Nvidia

 

[X79]

GTX 760 or the slightly higher performing GTX 670. SLI 670 is very good.

Not that I would recommend SLI if a single card will do, merely on the basis of a

previous card perhaps succumbing to having to work at what it's meant to do: pump

out delicious graphical juice.

 

[SniperMcRifle]

I'm thinking about getting two of these, how would the heat work out on that?

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130817

 

[X79]

Would work out fine if you cool it right, naturally.

Get a good sized case, make sure the cables are in order, add a fan where

necessary and ensure good airflow. I think that does it for most people.

Also: http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/3026/4/nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review---3-way-sli-included-asus-evga-and-msi

 

[SniperMcRifle]

Another question i have is, do i need a different mobo? the one i currently have has the two slots but says when it runs in sli they turn to two x8 instead of x16, will that be an issue?

Update: This is my mobo: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3815#ov

 

[X79]

No it won't; it's normal to get it distributed into things like 8x 8x.

As long as your motherboard is SLI compliant and all that, I think you're fine.

There's also the generation of the PCIe slots. Currently we're at Gen 3. So a Gen 3

x16 slot will be faster than a Gen 2 x16 slot. But neither will severely impact the GPUs

performance. It's only really if you go waaay back to Gen 1.1 and such. You should be fine.

That said, I don't know which motherboard you have.

 

[SniperMcRifle]

I updated my last answer with a link to my motherboard.

Thank you for the quick and helpful information by the way.

Here it is again: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3815#ov

 

[X79]

Hehe, no problem mate. I speed around these forums for hours on end.

All pretty much looks dandy to me. That's PCIe 2.0.

 

[SniperMcRifle]

I think I only have one more question, which is: would dropping the cards down from 3gb to 2gb but getting a better bitrate (196 to 256) give me better performance? Or should I just stick to the 3gb.

 

[X79]

An immediate answer would be 256; since the more VRAM is only really needed for multi-monitor

setups or very high resolutions (which multi-monitor would also give when you add the resolutions together).

2GB is the bare minimum these days. I don't think you'd notice the difference between 2 and 3GB.

All that said, I don't specifically know if you'll feel any tangible added performance if you could sit down

and try both; but to me, having a wider memory bus is neat. Remember that if you SLI, you have to keep

the GPU and VRAM amount exactly the same.

 

[SniperMcRifle]

At the moment I'm running two monitors at 1080, I would like to get a third.

I am getting twin cards, so the GPU/VRAM Won't be an issue.

You would recommend getting the 2GB cards with 256?

 

[X79]

Oh if you've got that many, you'll benefit from more VRAM. Essentially it's

where the GPU stores whatever it's working on; thus the bigger it is, the better.

Also, it will be an "issue" in the sense that despite that you might have two GPUs

with 2GB VRAM each, that does NOT equal 4GB VRAM actually. Each card will render

each monitors image. Thus the more VRAM each card has, the better.

 

[SniperMcRifle]

Alright, last question, I promise, haha.

Which of these would you choose for SLI?

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130836

or

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130817

OR Your recommendation!

 

[X79]

Leaning towards Ti, as it's a slightly better version of the 660.

You may also check this:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/10/31/galaxy_geforce_gtx_660_ti_gc_3gb_sli_review/11

Essentially another concept when you SLI/CF, is frame latency. You might get 100FPS, but if each

frame isn't being delivered at around the same time, you'll feel a stutter. So that's important too.

As I might've said, GTX 670 is also superb. Also, check out the GTX 650 Ti Boost SLI. Awesome and good

as they're cheaper I think. Just check this:

http://www.techspot.com/review/661-nvidia-geforce-gtx-650-ti-boost-sli/page3.html

And haha, the questions never end, as I browse constantly.

So just shoot.

 

[SniperMcRifle]

Thank you for all your help, and that review was a good read, I'll be buying my cards now.

 

[X79]

No problem mate.

Take good care and I wish you enjoy your experience.

If there's anything else, feel free to PM me.

 

[SniperMcRifle]

I won't buy anything from Gigabyte anymore, the card i had before (GTX 580 3gb) had Gigabytes "Windforce" fans on it, and they broke down in under a year. that's why my card started overheating and breaking down, hence why I'm getting new ones.