SLI Titans

[Vitalius]

How much Wattage would a rig with SLI Titans use?

According to my build list on pcpartpicker, 713Watts total. Link: http://pcpartpicker.com/user/TremorAcePV/saved/1hWl

How big of a PSU would be recommended for said wattage?

Advice appreciated. :D

[GTX590]

GTX titan uses an 8 and a 6 pin. Which means the max draw is 300/gpu. At stock speeds they can pull up to 250, 300 is the max OC they can handle w/o SATA power to the board. I would say 750W is pretty safe, but 850 if you want to Oc the entire rig

[hiyayhi]

I would be going with something like an corsair 860i for dual titans.

I couldn't help notice though that you are only putting a 3570k on an extreme 4 motherboard. When you are spending that much on videocards you really need to have a better CPU than that. You want everything to be as ballanced as possible so that there is as small amount of bottleneck as possible. You probably also want more than 8x 8x pcie slots which means going to the 2011 platform. If you actually want to run dual titans you should be spending more than what you are going to so that you actually get the performance wanted. You could however just run a single titan with the build you have there.

[Vitalius]

I would be going with something like an corsair 860i for dual titans. I couldn't help notice though that you are only putting a 3570k on an extreme 4 motherboard. When you are spending that much on videocards you really need to have a better CPU than that. You want everything to be as ballanced as possible so that there is as small amount of bottleneck as possible. You probably also want more than 8x 8x pcie slots which means going to the 2011 platform. If you actually want to run dual titans you should be spending more than what you are going to so that you actually get the performance wanted. You could however just run a single titan with the build you have there.

I feel like you are trolling me. Thank you for your opinion if you aren't, however... I have these objections to it.

Firstly, it takes a GTX 690 to saturate a PCI-e 2.0 x16 bus. My motherboard is PCI-e 3.0, which is double that bandwidth. Meaning PCI-e 3.0 x8 is the same as PCI-e 2.0 x16 in bandwidth. Now, that means both Titans would have the bandwidth that a GTX 690 saturates and obviously a Titan is less than a 690 if only by so much.

Secondly, the only (real) upgrade I can make is to a 3930k, as the 3770k isn't exactly a large improvement. However, for gaming, the 3930k is actually beaten by the 3770k. So I'm willing to bet, with a little overclocking, I'll be fine with the 3570k.

Lastly, after reading your responses (thanks btw), I've decided when I get the second Titan, I'll upgrade to a 850-1000Watt PSU. I'll need the extra plugs for the dual TItans anyway, and I'd prefer to keep the actual percentage of the PSU used on the low side for duration's sake.

Still open for more input. Just wanted to address those concerns.

[FluffyNuggets]

I think a Corsair AX850 would be more then enough to handle dual Titans. I do agree with hiyayhi that you should get a better CPU for Titans in SLI. I don't understand why you'd spend $2000 for Titans and only $220 for a CPU. You might find your CPU is bottlenecking the Titans which defeats the entire point of paying that much for them.

In my personal opinion, you should go 3-way SLI with 680's or 670's since they will be faster/same as two Titans for less money. Then you can dump the rest of the money into something else like a custom watercooling setup or monitor or whatever else you feel like buying. I think the Titans are the absolute worst valued GPU on the market and just about every benchmark agrees with me. You are essentially paying twice the price of a GTX 680 and only getting 10-15fps more! At the end of the day it's your money but don't go cheap on your CPU in order to afford the Titans.

[Vitalius]

I think a Corsair AX850 would be more then enough to handle dual Titans. I do agree with hiyayhi that you should get a better CPU for Titans in SLI. I don't understand why you'd spend $2000 for Titans and only $220 for a CPU. You might find your CPU is bottlenecking the Titans which defeats the entire point of paying that much for them. In my personal opinion' date=' you should go 3-way SLI with 680's or 670's since they will be faster/same as two Titans for less money. Then you can dump the rest of the money into something else like a custom watercooling setup or monitor or whatever else you feel like buying. I think the Titans are the absolute worst valued GPU on the market and just about every benchmark agrees with me. You are essentially paying twice the price of a GTX 680 and only getting 10-15fps more! At the end of the day it's your money but don't go cheap on your CPU in order to afford the Titans. [/quote']

Thanks for your input.

Here's the situation:

I already own the Motherboard, CPU, PSU, Case, and two SSD's. This is a build that is being done over time as I get the money. So I'm not skimping on some things to afford others. I purposefully got the 3570k because I didn't see a reason to get anything more.

This is a "for fun" build. I'm not particularly interested in "performance vs price" ratios as I simply want the best. I get that a 3570k isn't what most would consider "the best", but as I've said, any upgrade is not meaningful enough to be worth it. If the upgrade isn't worth bothering to get it, I will save money where I can. That may sound contradictory to why I'm getting Titans over GTX 680's, but compare the performance difference. A 3770k isn't really that different from a 3570k (hyperthreading is the only real difference) and it beats the 3930k in gaming. Upgrading from a 3570k to a 3770k would change nothing and by that, the same would be true of a 3930k. Whereas, upgrading from a GTX 680 to a Titan makes a huge (15 FPS is a lot in some cases) difference.

Whether I bottleneck or not with SLI Titans is irrelevant imo. I mean seriously, I don't think 10-15FPS is gonna matter when I'm getting at least 60 FPS mins in every game at max settings (or close to it). Having SLI Titans simply means I won't need to upgrade GPU's for a long time. If I upgrade the rest of my system and this current system was bottlenecking them, I'll see a slight performance boost when I do.

Every time a card is added, the scaling gets worse overall because most games aren't built to deal with multi-GPU's. From what I've seen anyway.

I'll be making it water cooled after I get the Titans (or at least 1 to start), so that was in the plans anyway.

[FluffyNuggets]

What resolution are you running at that requires two Titans over two 680's?

[Nertballs]

i really think even one titan would be enough here. while i see where you're coming from with the 3570k, it seems kind of pointless building one part of a system to be "futureproof" and leaving the rest (soon) to be obsolete..

[Vitalius]

What resolution are you running at that requires two Titans over two 680's?

Nothing now. 4K eventually. I don't prepare for now. I prepare for the future.

i really think even one titan would be enough here. while i see where you're coming from with the 3570k' date=' it seems kind of pointless building one part of a system to be "futureproof" and leaving the rest (soon) to be obsolete..[/quote']

I understand that. This whole build isn't a "what I need", it's a "because i can" kind of build. It's a hobby.

[ShiverMePenguins]

well your hobby is a horrible build honestly.

[url=http://pcpartpicker.com/p/RAwT]http://pcpartpicker.com/p/RAwT[/url=http://pcpartpicker.com/p/RAwT]

[FluffyNuggets]

i really think even one titan would be enough here. while i see where you're coming from with the 3570k' date=' it seems kind of pointless building one part of a system to be "futureproof" and leaving the rest (soon) to be obsolete..[/quote']

How are you not running a resolution now? Honestly I have no idea where you're coming from with this whole thing. If you are building it for 4K resolutions then there's absolutely no reason to buy anything now. New CPU's and GPU's will be out long before you'll probably own a 4K monitor. Also, two Titans will struggle with 4K so there's a major issue with your entire thought process right there. Even at 2560x1440 a single Titan can't maintain 60FPS in demanding games. You're going to be severely disappointed with Titans @ 4k resolutions, especially running a i5. You may think the only difference between a i5 and i7 is hyperthreading and you don't need it but you'd be wrong. I can almost bet your performance with a i5 and Titans will be terrible compared to somebody running an i7 with 680's.

It's your money so spend it how you want to but you shouldn't be asking advice if you don't want to hear it. I just think it's absolutely stupid to pay over $2,000 on GPU's and run a $220 CPU! There's absolutely no reason why anyone would do that!

[Vitalius]

I just think it's absolutely stupid to pay over $2' date='000 on GPU's and run a $220 CPU! There's absolutely no reason why anyone would do that! [/quote']

How about... because they can? :| Sounds like a reason to me.

Also, "if you are building.." And there's your problem. I'm not explicitly building for anything. I'm building to build. Because I enjoy it. You asked a question, I gave an arbitrary answer.

"I can almost bet..." And that sounds like trolling.

I'm not saying I don't want to hear it. I'm responding to it. Not denying it's worth. Two different things. Thank you for your advice.

[ShiverMePenguins]

you just sound like someone that doesn't know computing. you want to build 2 titans, yet you spend so little on components like your video card, your cpu, your psu, your keyboard, a shitty overpriced monitor, a bad mouse, sub performing ram, and a mediocre mobo.

that all sounds like troll to me. if you can invest the time and money into building a 4000$ computer, you should put the effort towards learning what you should actually spend the money on.

[FluffyNuggets]

you just sound like someone that doesn't know computing. you want to build 2 titans' date=' yet you spend so little on components like your video card, your cpu, your psu, your keyboard, a shitty overpriced monitor, a bad mouse, sub performing ram, and a mediocre mobo. that all sounds like troll to me. if you can invest the time and money into building a 4000$ computer, you should put the effort towards learning what you should actually spend the money on.[/quote']

I gotta agree with you. It honestly sounds like he's trolling because he says he doesn't care about performance but then says he's buying the Titans for performance. Anyone who builds computers would want the best components possible. I have honestly never heard of somebody wanting to drop $2,000 on GPU's but refusing to spend more money for a better CPU. You bought the i5 to save money because you didn't want to pay more which clearly indicates to me that you don't have enough money to afford 2 Titans or a 4k monitor.

Either you're trolling or just not very smart. Not trying to be mean or anything but you really have no business building computers because you don't appear to know anything about the hardware you're buying and you're unwilling to listen to people trying to help you out. You're making horrible choices that will result in terrible performance and you're trying to argue with everyone that you know what you're doing when clearly you have no idea.

The dead giveaway that you're trolling is when I asked what resolution you're running and you said "none". If you don't know what resolution you're running at then you clearly don't need a Titan.

[Vitalius]

you just sound like someone that doesn't know computing. you want to build 2 titans' date=' yet you spend so little on components like your video card, your cpu, your psu, your keyboard, a shitty overpriced monitor, a bad mouse, sub performing ram, and a mediocre mobo. that all sounds like troll to me. if you can invest the time and money into building a 4000$ computer, you should put the effort towards learning what you should actually spend the money on.[/quote']

I'm not understanding your response honestly.

Don't get me wrong, I understand this stuff costs money and buying quality parts matters; however, saying I have to buy the best of the best to make 2 Titans work is silly.

"yet you spend so little on components like your video card" ... $2000 on Titans isn't enough ya say?

"your cpu" I've already explained that. There is no reason to upgrade as the only two upgrades there are aren't really upgrades for gaming and if so, not worth the extra money considering I already own the 3570k. It'd simply be unnecessary to bother buying a new cpu when the one I have is fine for what it needs to do.

"your psu" Is that not what I am asking about? Did you not read the first post of this thread?

"your keyboard" This is the one thing I agree with you on. I haven't touched a Mechanical Keyboard. I will likely do that and purchase whichever switch color I prefer. Green is novelty, so maybe...

"monitor" It's the cheapest 1440p 27" monitor on PCpartpicker's site, but it's overpriced? Riiiight.

"mouse" I like novelty. HDST is an interesting idea and I like it. This comes down to opinion.

"RAM" Explain when I'll need RAM to "perform" while gaming. I mentioned that's what I'll be doing. As long as the sticks aren't bad, any DDR3 RAM would be fine for this. Absolutely any kind. Me having two sets of different RAM was a mistake. I'll fix that... eventually.

"MoBo" It has PCI-e 3.0 x8 for both TItans and 4 SATA 3.0 ports. Which I would prefer to have for my SSD's. It does everything I need it to do to support dual Titans.

As I said, acting like I have to have a best of the best rig to make SLI Titans work is silly.

Let's see... I know that the difference, gaming wise, between a 3570k, 3770k, and 3930k ranges from non-existent to within margin of error. That clock settings on RAM mean nothing for gaming, within reason. That PCI-e 3.0 x8 will never be saturated by a Titan. And that any bottleneck in the system I am to build either can't be fixed because there's nothing good enough within reason to fix it, or will be fixed some time far into the future when I inevitably do upgrade my system.

[Vaoh]

I would be going with something like an corsair 860i for dual titans. I couldn't help notice though that you are only putting a 3570k on an extreme 4 motherboard. When you are spending that much on videocards you really need to have a better CPU than that. You want everything to be as ballanced as possible so that there is as small amount of bottleneck as possible. You probably also want more than 8x 8x pcie slots which means going to the 2011 platform. If you actually want to run dual titans you should be spending more than what you are going to so that you actually get the performance wanted. You could however just run a single titan with the build you have there.

I feel like you are trolling me. Thank you for your opinion if you aren't' date=' however... I have these objections to it. Firstly, it takes a GTX 690 to saturate a PCI-e 2.0 x16 bus. My motherboard is PCI-e 3.0, which is double that bandwidth. Meaning PCI-e 3.0 x8 is the same as PCI-e 2.0 x16 in bandwidth. Now, that means both Titans would have the bandwidth that a GTX 690 saturates and obviously a Titan is less than a 690 if only by so much. Secondly, the only (real) upgrade I can make is to a 3930k, as the 3770k isn't exactly a large improvement. However, for gaming, the 3930k is actually beaten by the 3770k. So I'm willing to bet, with a little overclocking, I'll be fine with the 3570k. Lastly, after reading your responses (thanks btw), I've decided when I get the second Titan, I'll upgrade to a 850-1000Watt PSU. I'll need the extra plugs for the dual TItans anyway, and I'd prefer to keep the actual percentage of the PSU used on the low side for duration's sake. Still open for more input. Just wanted to address those concerns. [/quote']

You're correct that we're not even saturating PCI-E 2.0 x16, you're also correct on the CPU front. Unless the title in question supports Hyperthreading or multiple cores (Only Crysis 3 currently comes to mind, however I do expect this to change within 2-3 years.) However, if you aren't in ownership of the 3570k, I'd say wait for Haswell. Though to be completely fair, you'd need at least 3 Titans to see a CPU bottleneck at that sort of resolution even with a lightly overclocked i5. It's the whole mentality of go big or go home in the PC world.

[FluffyNuggets]

You're looking at benches between the i7 and i5 as far as gaming goes. You are not looking at what it will do when running two Titans. Go ahead and buy two Titans with the i5 and show us 99% usage on both cards. If you show us the i5 isn't bottlenecking the Titans then I will apologize. I've ran two 670's and there was a slight bottleneck with my i7-2600k. What do you think is going to happen with a i5 with more powerful cards? You're going to end up paying for the Titan but getting the performance of a 680. Does that seem smart to you?

[Vaoh]

You're looking at benches between the i7 and i5 as far as gaming goes. You are not looking at what it will do when running two Titans. Go ahead and buy two Titans with the i5 and show us 99% usage on both cards. If you show us the i5 isn't bottlenecking the Titans then I will apologize. I've ran two 670's and there was a slight bottleneck with my i7-2600k. What do you think is going to happen with a i5 with more powerful cards? You're going to end up paying for the Titan but getting the performance of a 680. Does that seem smart to you?

Here's my two Titans with a 3770k with Witcher 2 at 2560x1600 with ubersampling enabled. Resolution plays a huge part in CPU bottlenecks and even multi-GPU scaling. At 1080p there are CPU bottlenecks without a doubt, but moving up in resolution things change.

[FluffyNuggets]

You're looking at benches between the i7 and i5 as far as gaming goes. You are not looking at what it will do when running two Titans. Go ahead and buy two Titans with the i5 and show us 99% usage on both cards. If you show us the i5 isn't bottlenecking the Titans then I will apologize. I've ran two 670's and there was a slight bottleneck with my i7-2600k. What do you think is going to happen with a i5 with more powerful cards? You're going to end up paying for the Titan but getting the performance of a 680. Does that seem smart to you?

Here's my two Titans with a 3770k with Witcher 2 at 2560x1600 with ubersampling enabled. Resolution plays a huge part in CPU bottlenecks and even multi-GPU scaling. At 1080p there are CPU bottlenecks without a doubt' date=' but moving up in resolution things change.

Well you'd be the perfect person to help him out since you have two Titans. Would you recommend the i5 with two Titans or the i7-3770k?

[Vaoh]

You're looking at benches between the i7 and i5 as far as gaming goes. You are not looking at what it will do when running two Titans. Go ahead and buy two Titans with the i5 and show us 99% usage on both cards. If you show us the i5 isn't bottlenecking the Titans then I will apologize. I've ran two 670's and there was a slight bottleneck with my i7-2600k. What do you think is going to happen with a i5 with more powerful cards? You're going to end up paying for the Titan but getting the performance of a 680. Does that seem smart to you?

Here's my two Titans with a 3770k with Witcher 2 at 2560x1600 with ubersampling enabled. Resolution plays a huge part in CPU bottlenecks and even multi-GPU scaling. At 1080p there are CPU bottlenecks without a doubt' date=' but moving up in resolution things change.

Well you'd be the perfect person to help him out since you have two Titans. Would you recommend the i5 with two Titans or the i7-3770k?

Given the 3770k is just a 3570k with hyperthreading he can go either way. Up to him if he will use the benefits of hyperthreading or not. If not then the 3570k will do just fine, but I'd still say hold out for the 4670k.

[ShiverMePenguins]

here's some knowledge for you.

resolution itself is the hardest hitter to cpu performance. especially in terms of fps. at 1920x1080 you will not see a noticeable difference between i5 and i7 procs.

HOWEVER, if you stream, then you do get a huge hit with an i5, even if overclocked. the multithreading performance is nowhere near the i7.

at 2560x1440 it is also apparent. greatly more so when you keep increasing the resolutions.

so if you want a 4k monitor, you WILL have the gpu performance, but not cpu performance at all. it's understandable that you don't know things like this, as you seem to be new at performance building. also, because the i7 has MUCH better multi-threaded, multi-core performance it will be more "futureproof" as you and others say. the past few 2013 games have revealed that 64 bit architecture/ multicore enabled is quickly being adapted (whether in part to the future consoles or a final push to current hardware capabilities that is unknown, but it still persists).

not only that, but if you ever wish to: stream, video encode, audio encode, fold, mine, youtube, "photoshop" then having the 3770k will provide a tangible benefit anywhere from 10-25% increase in performance/processing times.

furthermore, you say you wish to purchase a 4k monitor, if so then don't waste all your money on a dell monitor in the first place. simply get a 120hz quality monitor, as there will be a more noticeable effect in that sector (since every game you could possibly play will get that fps average no matter what really). again, you admit you haven't used what I and many others consider delicacies (mech keyboard, good mouse, 120hz monitor). so you'd be more wise to spend 300$ on a good 120hz monitor, and put the rest into good case fans as well as good peripherals.

again, the ram i linked has better timings/latency AND a higher frequency, which means encoding, processing work (audio/video) and (i can't verify this cause i don't have other ram to use) streaming as well.

the soundcard you linked, compared to mine, has a lower noise threshold (bad), and isn't built with nearly the same grade of components. i've personally used quite a few audio cards, and if you are an audiophile of any caliber you'll notice the difference right away. especially on things dealing with higher bitrates like certain game audio and the such. the processing is just on another level.

so if you REALLY want to build an enthusiast machine then i'd take mine and others advice.

and last but not least, you are getting 2 titans for a system, you don't want your psu to ever get over 90% load, esp. with nice stuff like that. which is why you want better efficiency and a higher wattage/higher amperage. i'm not even sure that power supply you linked can provide the amps necessary to power everything in your system. esp. on the 12v.

[FluffyNuggets]

You're looking at benches between the i7 and i5 as far as gaming goes. You are not looking at what it will do when running two Titans. Go ahead and buy two Titans with the i5 and show us 99% usage on both cards. If you show us the i5 isn't bottlenecking the Titans then I will apologize. I've ran two 670's and there was a slight bottleneck with my i7-2600k. What do you think is going to happen with a i5 with more powerful cards? You're going to end up paying for the Titan but getting the performance of a 680. Does that seem smart to you?

Here's my two Titans with a 3770k with Witcher 2 at 2560x1600 with ubersampling enabled. Resolution plays a huge part in CPU bottlenecks and even multi-GPU scaling. At 1080p there are CPU bottlenecks without a doubt' date=' but moving up in resolution things change.

Well you'd be the perfect person to help him out since you have two Titans. Would you recommend the i5 with two Titans or the i7-3770k? Given the 3770k is just a 3570k with hyperthreading he can go either way. Up to him if he will use the benefits of hyperthreading or not. If not then the 3570k will do just fine, but I'd still say hold out for the 4670k.

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the hyperthreading help with bottlenecking GPU's? I remember when I was running a i5-2500k with two GTX 570's and then upgraded to the i7-2600k there was a performance increase. Before my GPU utilization would be all over the place and then after upgrading both cards would sit at 99%.

I'm also going by what CallsignVega said concerning the Titans since he's running i7-3970x with four Titans and he said he was hitting a CPU bottleneck. I've seen in his videos that his Titans only sit around 80% each.

I honestly think he's going to be in trouble trying to run two Titans with i5 at 4k resolutions regardless. I really don't even see two Titans being able to handle that resolution without turning settings way down!

[Vaoh]

You're looking at benches between the i7 and i5 as far as gaming goes. You are not looking at what it will do when running two Titans. Go ahead and buy two Titans with the i5 and show us 99% usage on both cards. If you show us the i5 isn't bottlenecking the Titans then I will apologize. I've ran two 670's and there was a slight bottleneck with my i7-2600k. What do you think is going to happen with a i5 with more powerful cards? You're going to end up paying for the Titan but getting the performance of a 680. Does that seem smart to you?

Here's my two Titans with a 3770k with Witcher 2 at 2560x1600 with ubersampling enabled. Resolution plays a huge part in CPU bottlenecks and even multi-GPU scaling. At 1080p there are CPU bottlenecks without a doubt' date=' but moving up in resolution things change.

Well you'd be the perfect person to help him out since you have two Titans. Would you recommend the i5 with two Titans or the i7-3770k?

Given the 3770k is just a 3570k with hyperthreading he can go either way. Up to him if he will use the benefits of hyperthreading or not. If not then the 3570k will do just fine, but I'd still say hold out for the 4670k. Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the hyperthreading help with bottlenecking GPU's? I remember when I was running a i5-2500k with two GTX 570's and then upgraded to the i7-2600k there was a performance increase. Before my GPU utilization would be all over the place and then after upgrading both cards would sit at 99%. I'm also going by what CallsignVega said concerning the Titans since he's running i7-3970x with four Titans and he said he was hitting a CPU bottleneck. I've seen in his videos that his Titans only sit around 80% each. I honestly think he's going to be in trouble trying to run two Titans with i5 at 4k resolutions regardless. I really don't even see two Titans being able to handle that resolution without turning settings way down!

Possibly because the 2600k either overclocked better or maybe because it comes with a slightly higher clock speed at stock. Could also be because said game was optimized to make use of hyperthreading. My experience is that hyperthreading does squat for gaming. And I'm not remotely surprised that he's hitting a CPU bottleneck, the CPU simply isn't fast enough to make use of all 4 Titans or he isn't playing at demanding enough settings. And I to doubt it'll handle 4k well. Most games released 2 or more years ago will run flawlessly on it, but otherwise you'll need more GPU horsepower.

[Glenwing]

I have to agree, as far as games are concerned, the i5 and the i7 are the same CPU. Hyperthreading even decreases performance in some games.

[GamerDude]

The i5 3570K is perfectly fine for gaming, Haswell would prolly bring better onboard gfx performance to the table, but as to how well it'd OC.....I think that's anyone's guess. As for PSU, a solid 850W (or higher) PSU from Corsair, Seasonic, XFX, etc would be fine. I think I'd better mention that Thortech 1200W PSU got bad reviews, and the 850W unit is, well, and unknown quantity.

Like the OP, when I was thinking of building a well-spec'ed gaming rig, it was for the sheer fun of building a rig that would crush all my previous rigs. Mind you, I was putting together my rig in November/December 2012, I was limited to SB and SB-E.....I decided to throw caution (and budget) out the window and got: (some components were added later, like better RAM, more cards). BTW, I'd wanted to build myself an Enthusiast level gaming rig.....so, I decided on these:

LGA2011 i7 3960X @4.5ghz

Corsair H100

Asus Rampage IV Extreme

4x 4GB G Skill RipJawsX 2133mhz @1.65v (swapped to Corsair Dom Plat 2133mhz @1.5v)

HD6950 @HD6970 spec (upgraded to 2x HD7970 at launch, now have 3x HD7970 TriFire)

120GB Corsair Force GT SSD (OS)

2TB WDC Black + 2x 1TB WDC Black (storage)

Corsair HX1050 (swapped to present Seasonic X-1250)

It was a rig I'd built to get me back into gaming, and since I'd been playing in EF surround mode of 5760x1200 since having 2x HD5870 at launch, I needed a good deal of CPU and GPU grunt. With my present specs, I'm not concern about Haswell (IB-E does not seem like much of an upgrade since it's still 6 cores), so I guess I'd made the right choice going SB-E since it's still a supported platform even when Haswell becomes mainstream.

Edit: BTW, a guy whom I'd traded hardware with, in a local tech forum, has asked me if I'd wanted to swap my 3x HD7970's + cash top up for his 2x GTX Titan. I've been pondering this and have more or less decided that I'd not see much, if any, performance gain in games....though two Titans would bench very well. But it is about gaming for me, and I cannot say I'm disappointed with my present setup.