Need advice for new GPU!

[ESavvy]

Hi all! I just created an account because I saw the support that this community offers and I wanted some advice and also because I love watching the channel

 

I'm looking to upgrade my GPU because I will be purchasing this monitor when it is released ( http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/acer-predator-xr341ck-34-curved-gaming-screen-with-g-sync.html) in short its a 21:9 ultrawide monitor that is 3440 x 1440 which runs at 144hz with G-sync. I'm currently using 2 X  Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 OC 3GB Video Card and I doubt that these will pull off the AAA titles that are coming out in the future at this new resolution with high frame rates AND high image quality. I was thinking about getting 2 x GTX 970 or 980, the 2 x 980 are quite pricey and I'm curious if the performance difference justifies the price difference. Anyway this is my problem and any advice/help would be greatly appreciated  

 

Also, (sorry about posting so much) im currently using the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme motherboard, does this in anyway stop me from using the GPU's stated above? I have heard of some people who have had problems with the 970 and 980 in SLi together with this motherboard..

 

Thanks all in advance !!!

[xAcid9]

Wait for 980 Ti imo. 

[Moredeath]

Hi all! I just created an account because I saw the support that this community offers and I wanted some advice and also because I love watching the channel

 

I'm looking to upgrade my GPU because I will be purchasing this monitor when it is released ( http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/acer-predator-xr341ck-34-curved-gaming-screen-with-g-sync.html) in short its a 21:9 ultrawide monitor that is 3440 x 1440 which runs at 144hz with G-sync. I'm currently using 2 X  Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 OC 3GB Video Card and I doubt that these will pull off the AAA titles that are coming out in the future at this new resolution with high frame rates AND high image quality. I was thinking about getting 2 x GTX 970 or 980, the 2 x 980 are quite pricey and I'm curious if the performance difference justifies the price difference. Anyway this is my problem and any advice/help would be greatly appreciated  

 

Also, (sorry about posting so much) im currently using the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme motherboard, does this in anyway stop me from using the GPU's stated above? I have heard of some people who have had problems with the 970 and 980 in SLi together with this motherboard..

 

Thanks all in advance !!!

 

Not sure about the problems you are referring to, but I'd get the strongest single card solution possible before going SLi, like a Titan X instead of 2 980s. That being said you should be good for a while on 2 980s

[CalebTheEternal]

If you're going to go with the SLI 970 or a single 980 go with SLI 970, better price/performance.

[lukky211111]

grab a titan x at that price id say that 12gbs of vram will be very nice to have.

[ESavvy]

If you're going to go with the SLI 970 or a single 980 go with SLI 970, better price/performance.

 

Do you think SLI 970 is better performance than a titan X??

[CalebTheEternal]

Do you think SLI 970 is better performance than a titan X??

I've heard it's better on 4k than the titan but not 100% sure on that because 1k GPU vs $700 GPU...

[ESavvy]

grab a titan x at that price id say that 12gbs of vram will be very nice to have.

 

Would I really need a titan X unless im planning to play in 4K resolution??

[lukky211111]

Would I really need a titan X unless im planning to play in 4K resolution??

eh even then you wouldnt need a titan x a 980 with 4gb of vram can still handle 4k okish i personally would grab a titan x if i could but ill just settle for my 980 for now and maybe go sli later. but that 12gb of vram.....

[ESavvy]

eh even then you wouldnt need a titan x a 980 with 4gb of vram can still handle 4k okish i personally would grab a titan x if i could but ill just settle for my 980 for now and maybe go sli later. but that 12gb of vram.....

haha yeah 12 gb would be awesome so you are running a single 980? what monitor are you currently using out of curiousity?

[lukky211111]

haha yeah 12 gb would be awesome so you are running a single 980? what monitor are you currently using out of curiousity?

my build isnt quite finished yet but i just ordered my asus pb238q its a 23 inch ips monitor.

[Churts]

According to tftcentral, the monitor will only support 75hz unfortunately..
There are no panels yet that supports that resolution with 144hz..

Here's my source:http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/news_archive/33.htm
 

 

[ESavvy]

According to tftcentral, the monitor will only support 75hz unfortunately..

There are no panels yet that supports that resolution with 144hz..

Here's my source:http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/news_archive/33.htm

 

 

I have no idea how i missed that!! i swear i read somewhere that it was up to 144hz!! either way thanks for pointing that out

[XionEternum]

Key points to consider:
1; Just how much performance you're getting from two 7970s (280Xs). This should be akin to trading blows with a single 980 or two 960s in SLI.
2; You are not going 4K, but you are going 144Hz 21:9 1440p. To get even modern games to push that monitor's pixel count and refresh would require two TitanX in SLI. However, even then you are relying on SLI optimizations and the resolution to be supported by the games. Also, your price to performance ratio is very poor at this level. No... no matter your setup in this case you will not be maxing out ALL games (AA should always be the first to go) with current available hardware on that display and get that sweet spot of 40+ as your minimum. So let's focus on that.
3; What does your budget allow after that monitor? Is there a limit? Or are you more concerned with optimal price to performance? If you are in the latter, then oddly enough you already have a decent amount of power that gets expensive to match in those two 7970s. Again, it takes a single 980 to even trade blows with that. Does a minimum $600 investment to even start improving your graphical performance sound fiscally viable to you? My rule of thumb here is; "If you don't see a 50% MINIMUM improvement, you will likely not notice a performance gain."
4; What uses more than 3GB of VRAM and how? Well GTAV and Shadow of Mordor do as far as I know in all the testing I've seen and done. But these tests like all testing done by reviewers are with ALL settings maxed out. At 1440p and higher resolutions one of the most demanding options of all becomes far less relevant and far more demanding. I myself run a single 290 on a 1440p 16:9 27" display and only ever use the bare minimum AA if I can spare the framerate. Reducing AA also heavily reduces VRAM usage. Other obvious options like texture detail use VRAM. nVidia's new resolution scaling (which AMD can now do too, but aren't boasting about it) also uses fairly large amounts of VRAM due to storing each frame in memory to be scaled. This also plays into frame buffering; more frames buffered means more VRAM usage. V-sync (and by extension G/free-sync) on its own does not store more than one frame. Some games do obfuscate frame buffering into V-sync though. Really the only way to see for sure is to install/run MSI Afterburner and set the VRAM to graph and to your max VRAM capacity. Load up your most demanding games and play around in some taxing areas. Alt-tab out and see what your VRAM is pulling. You'ld be surprised how little is actually used in most modern games right now. Especially after my VRAM usage tweaks.
5; Last thing to consider is likely the most controversial. G-sync monitor with AMD graphics cards. I can hear the angry mob already... but here is the truth: Static refresh vs G/free-sync is largely dependant on the max refresh. Results differ greatly comparing a 60Hz static refresh to G/free-sync vs 144Hz to the same and here's why. When a newly rendered frame misses a refresh, it's sitting there waiting for the next. Actually let me reiterate; when a new refresh happens and the monitor hasn't received any new frame data it refreshes with the old frame until it does. It'll also refresh while the GPU is overwriting the old frame in some cases. Not all monitors do that and will wait until the frame is completely overwritten. These tend to be slightly higher input latency though. Now let's consider where these new frames end up after 'missing' a certain number of refreshes. Let's keep this simple with 1-10 missed refreshes and keep in mind that this plays just like raw fractions. So 3 missed refreshes is 1/3rd and 6 missed refreshes is 1/6th of the display's maximum refresh rate. This also means that 1/10th which is our comparative maximum frame delay is a mere 100ms or 0.1 seconds. 60Hz breaks down like this: 60, 30, 20, 15, 12, 10, 8.6, 7.5, 6.7, and 6. 144Hz on the other hand breaks down like this: 144, 72, 48, 36, 28.8, 24, 20.6, 18, 16, and 14.4. Now what does this mean? This means that these are the respective visible framerates of these refresh rates. Due to a higher maximum refresh rate, the jumps down on a 144Hz display are nowhere near as severe below 60 as a 60Hz display. Most actually find 40+ acceptable and 36 isn't far below that. Is this an argument against G/free-sync? Not at all. I fully support and encourage free-sync, and I'll nod my head at G-sync just for pushing an open standard into the market. This is merely meant as a sort of 'fully informed what to expect' realist's perspective.

Ultimately the choice still remains yours. I stand by my claim you'll need to spend at least $600 just to side-grade, and it only grows quickly after that for any viable improvement. I won't argue with bragging rights though; if you can get a TitanX and you do you will NOT be disappointed. Two 970s in SLI (or two 290Xs without the following caveat) have been seen to outperform the TitanX in most SLI supported games for less money, but only have 512MB of usable VRAM over your current setup. Also consider that DX12 is around the corner and your 7970s are very likely compatible. Do check on that though as this will likely drastically extend the lifespan of your two 7970s if I'm correct.

EDIT: Hadn't refreshed replies before posting. 75Hz breaks down like so: 75, 37.5, 25, 18.75, 15, 12.5, 10.7, 9.4, 8.3, and 7.5.

[ESavvy]

Key points to consider:

1; Just how much performance you're getting from two 7970s (280Xs). This should be akin to trading blows with a single 980 or two 960s in SLI.

2; You are not going 4K, but you are going 144Hz 21:9 1440p. To get even modern games to push that monitor's pixel count and refresh would require two TitanX in SLI. However, even then you are relying on SLI optimizations and the resolution to be supported by the games. Also, your price to performance ratio is very poor at this level. No... no matter your setup in this case you will not be maxing out ALL games (AA should always be the first to go) with current available hardware on that display and get that sweet spot of 40+ as your minimum. So let's focus on that.

3; What does your budget allow after that monitor? Is there a limit? Or are you more concerned with optimal price to performance? If you are in the latter, then oddly enough you already have a decent amount of power that gets expensive to match in those two 7970s. Again, it takes a single 980 to even trade blows with that. Does a minimum $600 investment to even start improving your graphical performance sound fiscally viable to you? My rule of thumb here is; "If you don't see a 50% MINIMUM improvement, you will likely not notice a performance gain."

4; What uses more than 3GB of VRAM and how? Well GTAV and Shadow of Mordor do as far as I know in all the testing I've seen and done. But these tests like all testing done by reviewers are with ALL settings maxed out. At 1440p and higher resolutions one of the most demanding options of all becomes far less relevant and far more demanding. I myself run a single 290 on a 1440p 16:9 27" display and only ever use the bare minimum AA if I can spare the framerate. Reducing AA also heavily reduces VRAM usage. Other obvious options like texture detail use VRAM. nVidia's new resolution scaling (which AMD can now do too, but aren't boasting about it) also uses fairly large amounts of VRAM due to storing each frame in memory to be scaled. This also plays into frame buffering; more frames buffered means more VRAM usage. V-sync (and by extension G/free-sync) on its own does not store more than one frame. Some games do obfuscate frame buffering into V-sync though. Really the only way to see for sure is to install/run MSI Afterburner and set the VRAM to graph and to your max VRAM capacity. Load up your most demanding games and play around in some taxing areas. Alt-tab out and see what your VRAM is pulling. You'ld be surprised how little is actually used in most modern games right now. Especially after my VRAM usage tweaks.

5; Last thing to consider is likely the most controversial. G-sync monitor with AMD graphics cards. I can hear the angry mob already... but here is the truth: Static refresh vs G/free-sync is largely dependant on the max refresh. Results differ greatly comparing a 60Hz static refresh to G/free-sync vs 144Hz to the same and here's why. When a newly rendered frame misses a refresh, it's sitting there waiting for the next. Actually let me reiterate; when a new refresh happens and the monitor hasn't received any new frame data it refreshes with the old frame until it does. It'll also refresh while the GPU is overwriting the old frame in some cases. Not all monitors do that and will wait until the frame is completely overwritten. These tend to be slightly higher input latency though. Now let's consider where these new frames end up after 'missing' a certain number of refreshes. Let's keep this simple with 1-10 missed refreshes and keep in mind that this plays just like raw fractions. So 3 missed refreshes is 1/3rd and 6 missed refreshes is 1/6th of the display's maximum refresh rate. This also means that 1/10th which is our comparative maximum frame delay is a mere 100ms or 0.1 seconds. 60Hz breaks down like this: 60, 30, 20, 15, 12, 10, 8.6, 7.5, 6.7, and 6. 144Hz on the other hand breaks down like this: 144, 72, 48, 36, 28.8, 24, 20.6, 18, 16, and 14.4. Now what does this mean? This means that these are the respective visible framerates of these refresh rates. Due to a higher maximum refresh rate, the jumps down on a 144Hz display are nowhere near as severe below 60 as a 60Hz display. Most actually find 40+ acceptable and 36 isn't far below that. Is this an argument against G/free-sync? Not at all. I fully support and encourage free-sync, and I'll nod my head at G-sync just for pushing an open standard into the market. This is merely meant as a sort of 'fully informed what to expect' realist's perspective.

Ultimately the choice still remains yours. I stand by my claim you'll need to spend at least $600 just to side-grade, and it only grows quickly after that for any viable improvement. I won't argue with bragging rights though; if you can get a TitanX and you do you will NOT be disappointed. Two 970s in SLI (or two 290Xs without the following caveat) have been seen to outperform the TitanX in most SLI supported games for less money, but only have 512MB of usable VRAM over your current setup. Also consider that DX12 is around the corner and your 7970s are very likely compatible. Do check on that though as this will likely drastically extend the lifespan of your two 7970s if I'm correct.

EDIT: Hadn't refreshed replies before posting. 75Hz breaks down like so: 75, 37.5, 25, 18.75, 15, 12.5, 10.7, 9.4, 8.3, and 7.5.

First off I would just like to thank you for putting your time into such an extensive response for someone else's problem !!

 

Second off, you said that i would have to run 2 titans X in SLI to run AAA games at that refresh rate, what if i was using the same monitor but it was 75hz max? Could one titan X pull off 60FPS steady or could my current Crossfire 7970 do the job aswell? 

 

Im thinking i might buy the monitor and see how my current 7970's can do the job and if not i might make a decision later about the titan X

[XionEternum]

From what I've seen in benchmarks (both mine and others) the TitanX can push that resolution and refresh with some minor tweaking starting with AA reduction in almost all current published games. Will it provide that minimum 50% performance difference? More than likely depending on the game and your OS optimizations. So no my original SLI two TitanX still relates to the 144Hz as stated. Now your current setup is no slouch either since it's noticeably better than my single 290 (stock Frestrike scores are in my signature with my personal Win7-64bit optimizations) in games that support CFX. That is the key caveat though "in games that support CFX" which are most when it comes to those that need the extra power, but not all. And in most cases you will have to wait for a driver update after game launch before it's optimal to play it due to AMD/nVidia needing to code in optimizations for at least single-GPU performance.
(rant)I swear, if game developers actually knew how to code their games correctly this would not need done; but the real heroes of game optimization are the AMD/nVidia driver coders adding key fixes via calls to redirects and other basic stuff to fix how broken developers leave their games at launch. And I'm not even talking about the obviously broken things like every major Ubisoft game of 2014; I mean ALL games. GTAV is a prime example of getting as close to optimized as possible, yet still not fully optimized. It's almost like it's hard-coded to not take full advantage of the system hardware if it's hitting 60fps+ because there are constant <100% loads across the board on high-end PCs. I've seen two SLI 980s hovering around the 60% load with a 5960X hovering around 40% load on the physical cores. This would imply a DRAM bottleneck, but in a game? Even with as little as I personally know about coding that shouldn't be possible.

(rant over)

Hopefully DX12 (and alternatives) will put an end to that nonesense. Which again leads back into: Should you save your money and wait for DX12 before investing in an upgrade if one is even needed? And again that's up to you.

[ESavvy]

I've decided thanks to your extensive opinion I will wait till DX12 comes out and then will research on a suitable upgrade.

I have already purchased the new monitor and it should arrive hopefully on the weekend so I will test it with some games and see what type of FPS I'm getting with AA turned off.

If I'm not getting reasonable FPS then I might look into how to tweak settings of games to increase performance overall apart from turning down AA.

Thanks again for your opinion!