two 780s, three 680s or three 770s?

[LiljaCat]

I have quite a bit of space on my current mobo and would like to occupy my pc slots with additional graphics proccessing. I would like a 6 monitor set-up where I could game on 3 and trade stocks on the other three and currently own a single EVGA 4GB 680 FTW+ card. My budget is ~1000usd and would like to know if I should purchase the two 780s and sli across three monitors and keep the 680 for running stock data and additional gaming. Or should I buy two more 680s and 3-way sli... or three 770s sli next to the 680. (My mobo had 7pci-e slots).

Or maybe there is a solution that I missing? My current monitor is 1440p and I intend to get two more 1440p monitors and 3 1080p monitors.

 

[M0j0jojo]

Just wait for the GTX 790 its coming this month and use GTX 680 for dedicated physx

 

[LiljaCat]

Just wait for the GTX 790 its coming this month and use GTX 680 for dedicated physx

Any idea how much that card would cost? The proposed specs would blow anything on the market away.

 

[BlankInsanity]

idk but your monitor differences seem a bit odd, to my thought if you want to sli you'd want to have the screens all the same resolution but I highly doubt this, just my thought.Take into thought if your PSU can handle this, also are you sure all 7 of those slots are PCIE 2.0 or 3.0 and not 1.0 otherwise if you put one card into a PCIE 1.0, then the other cards are gonna have to scale down to reach the bandwith of the card in the PCIE 1.0, which means lower performance. Have you considered the 780ti?

Also if your not in a rush you could wait for the GTX 800 series or like M0j0jojo said wait for the 790 but who knows the price of that as well as how it would compare to two 780s in sli. Not to mention you'd have to wait another month or two for aftermarket versions of the 790 to come out.

If you're not affected by the 25% increase on AMD cards why not an R9 290X? two of those in Xfire seems a bit overkill imo though.

So basically take this into consideration:
~Can my PSU handle all this?
~Should I buy now or wait?
~Does my mobo have to proper PCI-E Slots.
~How will my CPU cope(Bottlenecking)
~how will I cool all of this?(SLI can raise temps by 10% or so)

 

[BlankInsanity]

Just wait for the GTX 790 its coming this month and use GTX 680 for dedicated physx

Any idea how much that card would cost? The proposed specs would blow anything on the market away.

Not really.. it wouldn't, Two 780s in sli would perform a tad bit slower than the 790 while being alot cheaper.
You see the 790 is two GPUs in one with a total of 5GB GDDR5 over 320Bit wide memory and a total of 4992 CUDA cores, it uses the GK110 GPU same as the GTX 780(Notice these aren't fully enabled unlike the GTX 780Ti)

Now look at this, two 780s in sli would produce 6GB GDDR5 memory over 384 bit wide memory with 4608 CUDA cores and also like the GTX 790 it uses the GK110 GPU.

On the plus side, the GTX 780 is already released with aftermarket coolers released, while the 790 hasn't been released yet not to mention the 1-2 month wait for aftermarket coolers.

 

[LiljaCat]

If you're not affected by the 25% increase on AMD cards why not an R9 290X? two of those in Xfire seems a bit overkill imo though.

So basically take this into consideration:
~Can my PSU handle all this?
~Should I buy now or wait?
~Does my mobo have to proper PCI-E Slots.
~How will my CPU cope(Bottlenecking)
~how will I cool all of this?(SLI can raise temps by 10% or so)

To the point about the specs:
Here is what I currently have in my rig...
1300W Gold PSU
ASRock X79 Extreme11 (7PCI-e x16 slots with up to 4-Way SLI support and 4-Way Crossfire support)
Water cooled Intel i7-3930k
EVGA GTX FTW 4gb
Corsair Obsidian 800D

The monitor setup would look like 3x Asus 27" 1440p monitors along the bottom and bracket mounted 1080p monitors above for monitor stocks.

Would keeping the 680 for the three 1080p monitors and getting a 290 crossfire for the bottom 1440p monitors work well or would I run into dirver issues? I never have built a system with both ati and nvidia. Also, what cooling would you suggest for the video cards, if I took the 290 approach vs the 780 approach. Getting two 780ti or 290x would push the budget a bit too hard

 

[BlankInsanity]

Quite a beefy setup you got there.Im not sure how the AMD and Nvidia drivers would work togethor nor do I reccomend it.Your best bet is two GTX 780s preferably by EVGA, MSI, ASUS or Gigabyte. They should handle all the monitors just fine.

As for cooling any aftermarket GTX 780 would work fine so long as your case has the proper cooling however expect the temps of the cards to rise a little bit. You could always create a water loop but thats complicated, You'd require a water block for the card but it has to be compatible with the PCB for example MSI uses a custom PCB for their cards and so you would have to find a compatible PCB. Your best bet is getting a reference 780 and the appropriate waterblock and create a water loop then overclock them but like I said this takes time and alot of researching

 

[LiljaCat]

Quite a beefy setup you got there.Im not sure how the AMD and Nvidia drivers would work togethor nor do I reccomend it.Your best bet is two GTX 780s preferably by EVGA, MSI, ASUS or Gigabyte. They should handle all the monitors just fine.

As for cooling any aftermarket GTX 780 would work fine so long as your case has the proper cooling however expect the temps of the cards to rise a little bit. You could always create a water loop but thats complicated, You'd require a water block for the card but it has to be compatible with the PCB for example MSI uses a custom PCB for their cards and so you would have to find a compatible PCB. Your best bet is getting a reference 780 and the appropriate waterblock and create a water loop then overclock them but like I said this takes time and alot of researching

I figured as much with AMD and Nvidia mixed. A couple more questions (I know Im asking a lot here). Is my current PSU enough to support the two additional graphics cards? I fear I may be cutting a bit close. Also, would the stock coolers work fine for now until I can afford the additional cost of liquid cooling, as well as take the time to figure all of that out?

I will probably end up with an EVGA card.

 

[BlankInsanity]

Quite a beefy setup you got there.Im not sure how the AMD and Nvidia drivers would work togethor nor do I reccomend it.Your best bet is two GTX 780s preferably by EVGA, MSI, ASUS or Gigabyte. They should handle all the monitors just fine.

As for cooling any aftermarket GTX 780 would work fine so long as your case has the proper cooling however expect the temps of the cards to rise a little bit. You could always create a water loop but thats complicated, You'd require a water block for the card but it has to be compatible with the PCB for example MSI uses a custom PCB for their cards and so you would have to find a compatible PCB. Your best bet is getting a reference 780 and the appropriate waterblock and create a water loop then overclock them but like I said this takes time and alot of researching

I figured as much with AMD and Nvidia mixed. A couple more questions (I know Im asking a lot here). Is my current PSU enough to support the two additional graphics cards? I fear I may be cutting a bit close. Also, would the stock coolers work fine for now until I can afford the additional cost of liquid cooling, as well as take the time to figure all of that out?

I will probably end up with an EVGA card.

Your PSU will be just fine I've seen someone do four way sli with a setup like than on a 1000W PSU. If you're getting a EVGA GTX 780 then I don't think you would be needing liquid cooling at all unless your die hard about temperatures. Just expect your temps to be in the mid 70s instead of the 60s

 

[LiljaCat]

Thanks for all of your help! The temperature increase wont be too bad then.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130918 This is the card I will end up with.

 

[BlankInsanity]

That card would perform great, hope you enjoy it. Remember to choose best answer