Upgrading From GTX 580 SLI to...

[Robert Stark]

Hi,

my current rig:

Phenom II x6 @ 4Ghz
Crosshair V Formula
8GB G.Skill Ares
Gtx 580 1.5GB Sli @ 930Mhz @ 1.15V
Corsair HX 1050
Samsung 830 256GB SSD

The CPU and GPU's are watercooled with a custom loop with a 360mm rad and a 240mm rad (the thicker ones)

My Monitor is 2560 x 1440.

Ok so basically im looking to change the GPU's and i looked at pricing atm, these were my findings:

GTX 770 2gb - £230
GTX 780 - £360
R9 290 - £320

I looked at the performance of the cards and found that the 780 is only about 15% faster than the 770 and with that price difference has made me wonder if i would be better off with the 770 then just put another one in when i get a chance. I know that initially its a downgrade but its less power consumption, access to the newer features and would allow me to go up to 3 cards in time if needed.

Thoughts anyone?

 

[huilun02]

Just so you know, having two cards won't give you double the performance of a single card. It's more like +40-60% for the second card and something really low for the third. Some games don't even use more than one card.

I'm assuming the R9 290 available to you is not the reference design. In that case it would be on par or outperform the more expensive 780.

So either that or the 770 if you want to be adding a second card sooner.

Also your old CPU will probably bottleneck performance with those new cards.

 

[Robert Stark]

40-60%? is that all it is these days? When i upgraded to my sli 580's i saw a much higher gain than that. I know not all games use both cards but generally speaking when that is the case they aren't that graphically intensive anyway.
The r9 290 is reference
It just seems the price difference is way out of sync with the performance or am i missing something?

 

[huilun02]

Reference R9 290 is a no go. You can trike that off the list.

As for price and performance, graphics cards don't cost X% more for an X% increase in performance. You pay more premium the better the card performs. A sports car that goes twice as fast as a normal car would definitely cost more than double.