Hey guys, first time poster in this forums
Current setup
3770k OCd 4.0ghz undervolted
16GB at 1.35v
SSD(OS)+HDD(Data)
HD 6870 1GB
580W beQuiet 80plus gold PSU
3x 1920x1080 21.5" 60Hz monitors (all LED 30w max consumption per)+ 1x 1280x800 projector
Activities on PC
work(office, PDFs, chrome w. 30-50tabs) 20-30% games (tanki online (10%), wurm online(30%), nfs world(5%), tera online(5%)) - typically on one screen, with wurm online being the only game that could go at times on all 3 current screens movies 20%
Issues
Although a good and solid card, my HD6870 is really struggling with both lack of VRAM (expecially visible in wurm online - at max settings im using 99% of VRAM + 300 MB of dynamic memory with just one client open) and GPU power (max settings in tanki 28-30 FPS; max settings in wurm 15-40 FPS; medium settings in tera 30-60 FPS; medium-high in NFS world 30-50 FPS)
What is the plan
Well, I plan on getting a 4th 1920x1080 60Hz screen to put on top of the main one (the other 3 are horizontally arranged) - i just need the screen space for work
Now, I was looking at the MSI Gaming 4G GTX 970 (don't really fancy EVGA because of the coil whine and gigabyte and asus are meh for me) and connecting all 4 1080p panels to it with the one on top as utility display or whatever is called, and the projector using the HDMI of the integrated intel GPU as its only gonna be used for movies (some in 3D but still)
As you might notice, my whole PC tries to be very powerful (within reason and with optimal cost/performance, except the CPU that i really wanted good) but as energy efficient as possible - atm in idle is drawing 95-105W and another 85-98W for the 3x screens so around 200W all together. Obviously energy efficiency is a big thing for me (due to energy prices around here but also heat generation)
Also the GTX 970 is quite expensive for my budget, and I will have to stretch quite a lot to fit it, but seems (for my own judgement) the best card from the perspective of price/performance/future/energy efficiency in my (super stretched) budget
Questions
Looking at my current setup, future additional screen and my gaming profile, is the ram on the GTX 970 (3.5GB) good enough or I would be spending a ton of money for something that is still not good enough for my gaming profile for at least 2-3 years to come? Is there a better alternative (price wise, future-thinking) than this card within this budget and power requirement? (yes ive looked at the R9 390 with 8G ram but the 275W max is UNGODLY much) Am I looking to spend too much money when I don't need to spend as much? (i do think the 960, even if it would have had 4G of VRAM would have been a bit too weak for 2-3 years?)
Thank you guys for reading and sorry for the long post
Looking forward to reading your suggestions/ideas
Thank you
Best,
Armodar