Looking to game at 1440p. Upgrades from GTX 970?

[falcon7370]

I am looking to buy an Acer XB270HU 144Hz WQHD G-SYNC WidescreenLED IPS Monitor, but I currently only own an MSI GAMING 4G GTX 970 4Gb (or 3.5 if you wish to think about that whole memory debacle). I know there are many routes to go, such as either adding another 970 to my rig, or just to go for the 980 Ti or Titan x and try to sell my 970 or put it to another use (maybe just a dedicated PhysX card).

I just wanted some advice in what would be the best route? Thank you!

 

EDIT: For SLI, my CPU only supports 28 lanes, so SLI would have to run in x8/x8.

[Tedster]

Hm.

 

I'd sell the 970 and get a 980Ti.

[bomerr]

Buy a 980 Ti and OC it. 

 

Source: Me gaming at 1440p on a 980. 

[PineappleHolidays]

the cheapest would be add a 970,

you could save some $ and get a freesync MG279Q, but then you would need AMD ( something like the fury if you can get it for cheap )

 

But a 980ti and XB270 would be best

[falcon7370]

Ive been thinking of where I could sell the 970. I just tried the whole memory debacle issue with Newegg and MSI to get a refund but that ship sailed long ago. I guess I could try on eBay and see what I could get for it. What would the difference between that and adding another 970 be?

[falcon7370]

Buy a 980 Ti and OC it. 

 

Source: Me gaming at 1440p on a 980. 

Hows the performance?

[Arct1c0n]

Sli the 970 or get a 980ti, if you can find one.

I got my first 1440p monitor last week and my 980 crawls on witcher 3.

[falcon7370]

Sli the 970 or get a 980ti, if you can find one.

I got my first 1440p monitor last week and my 980 crawls on witcher 3.

Wow really? Well I've never done an SLI setup before. I only got into PC gaming around 2 years ago. So I upgraded from a GTX 680 with 2gb of memory to my 970. Also, I should note I'm using an Intel processor that only has 28 PCIe lanes, so SLI would run at x8/x8. Does that make a big difference?

[rafazafar]

i think in your case another 970 wil work well. dual 8x is plenty enough.

[falcon7370]

For SLI, the low memory in the cards (3.5gb) won't be an issue?

 

It just seems like a low amount of VRAM for gaming at high FPS in 1440p, when the Gtx 980 Ti has 6gb.  

[bomerr]

Hows the performance?

 

Sli the 970 or get a 980ti, if you can find one.

I got my first 1440p monitor last week and my 980 crawls on witcher 3.

I OC'd my 980 to 1530/8000 and i get good performance (Ultra-60FPS+) in all games besides Witcher 3.

 

 In Witcher 3 I set Hairworks AA to 4x in the .ini; put foliage and shadows on high instead of ultra; and turned of AA along with a few other post-processing effects. I maintain about 55 FPS Avg so it's playable. If I had a 980 Ti I could run it on Ultra everything (4x HW instead of 8 tho @ 1440p).

 

I would point out tho that my 980 OC'd gives about the same performance as a 980 Ti at stock, for the TI to be better it'd have to be overclocked too. 

 

 

[falcon7370]

I think I may try and sell my GTX 970 then at this point. It seems that the way to go for 1440p gaming is the 980ti. I wonder how much I could get for my used GTX 970.. Does anyone know of anywhere else that might be a possible way to sell it other than eBay, like maybe a hardware trade-in service somewhere or something similar?

[bomerr]

Wow really? Well I've never done an SLI setup before. I only got into PC gaming around 2 years ago. So I upgraded from a GTX 680 with 2gb of memory to my 970. Also, I should note I'm using an Intel processor that only has 28 PCIe lanes, so SLI would run at x8/x8. Does that make a big difference?

 

Don't do SLI.

 

I had my friend buy a 980 (since that was the best card last christmas) and for shits and giggles I SLI'd our cards together.  In GTA V for instance SLI only give me about 30 FPS AVG increase in other words 90 FPS became 120. Furthermore I'd experience micro-stutter from time to and time and the game would crash. 

 

In an ideal world SLI would give double the performance but you'll be lucky to hit 50% improvement and it's not worth dealing with the SLI profile optimization.

 

EDIT: ^ Craigslist? 

[falcon7370]

 

 

Don't do SLI.

 

I had my friend buy a 980 (since that was the best card last christmas) and for shits and giggles I SLI'd our cards together.  In GTA V for instance SLI only give me about 30 FPS AVG increase in other words 90 FPS became 120. Furthermore I'd experience micro-stutter from time to and time and the game would crash. 

 

In an ideal world SLI would give double the performance but you'll be lucky to hit 50% improvement and it's not worth dealing with the SLI profile optimization.

 

EDIT: ^ Craigslist? 

 

Im not going to do SLI. It seems people have way to many issues with it than what it's worth. I will probably go the route of the Gtx 980 Ti. I do have a question though, why does nobody recommend the Titan X?

[Arct1c0n]

Im not going to do SLI. It seems people have way to many issues with it than what it's worth. I will probably go the route of the Gtx 980 Ti. I do have a question though, why does nobody recommend the Titan X?

 

Because the 980ti is 95% of the performance for $350 less. 

[falcon7370]

Ahh alright. I figured the price/performance ratio was not that great.. I'd be happy to get like 280 out of my 970. That will leave me at a 400$ 980 ti. 

[bomerr]

Also you can get a non reference 980 Ti and OC so the performance is higher than a Titan X. 

 

in truth tho, if you can wait, I would get Pascal next year. It'll offer a massive performance increase. 

[Arct1c0n]

Also you can get a non reference 980 Ti and OC so the performance is higher than a Titan X. 

 

in truth tho, if you can wait, I would get Pascal next year. It'll offer a massive performance increase. 

 

Next year is a shit ton far away and we know NOTHING about it, its vapor ware

[falcon7370]

Next year is a shit ton far away and we know NOTHING about it, its vapor ware

I agree. I almost bought a 700 series card early last year but decided to wait to see how the 800 series would be (which released as the 900 series cards) , so I really don't want to wait. We will always be waiting for the next amazing card or CPU, so I just need to buy one. The GTX 980 Ti seems to be a beast card for now. So, anyone wanna buy a GTX 970?   

[bomerr]

Next year is a shit ton far away and we know NOTHING about it, its vapor ware

 

 

I agree. I almost bought a 700 series card early last year but decided to wait to see how the 800 series would be (which released as the 900 series cards) , so I really don't want to wait. We will always be waiting for the next amazing card or CPU, so I just need to buy one. The GTX 980 Ti seems to be a beast card for now. So, anyone wanna buy a GTX 970?   

 

I do not.

 

Calling the Pascal 1080 Ti Vaporware is like calling Maxwell vaporware. Nvidia has already released it's pascal roadmap and unless the company goes belly up in the next year we know it's coming. We also know it's going to be 16nm fab process and it's going to support HBM2 vram. Essentially FPS could easily be 50% more powerful than todays Titan X/980 Ti. For reference a 980 Ti is only 20% more powerful than a 980. In other words it doesn't make sense investing heavily in a 1440p/980 Ti setup when next year will be the year of 4k. 

[Arct1c0n]

I do not.

Calling the Pascal 1080 Ti Vaporware is like calling Maxwell vaporware. Nvidia has already released it's pascal roadmap and unless the company goes belly up in the next year we know it's coming. We also know it's going to be 16nm fab process and it's going to support HBM2 vram. Essentially FPS could easily be 50% more powerful than todays Titan X/980 Ti. For reference a 980 Ti is only 20% more powerful than a 980. In other words it doesn't make sense investing heavily in a 1440p/980 Ti setup when next year will be the year of 4k.

Cool, you have fun waiting.

[bomerr]

Cool, you have fun waiting.

well I'm already gaming at 1440p with my 980. It's just that: 

 

A) I only spent ~1000 for a korean 1440p panel and the 980. So my level of investment was a lot lower than the ~1500 OP wants to spent on a gpu/monitor.

B) I bought the parts 9 months ago. So i'm getting about 1.5-2 yr worth of (near) top-of-the-line performance.

 

If the OP wants to spent 1500 on a 1440p/980 Ti setup that's cool, I just want to make sure he's aware of the fact that he'll be itching to upgrade it next year when a lot of us move onto pascal/4k. 

[falcon7370]

well I'm already gaming at 1440p with my 980. It's just that: 

 

A) I only spent ~1000 for a korean 1440p panel and the 980. So my level of investment was a lot lower than the ~1500 OP wants to spent on a gpu/monitor.

B) I bought the parts 9 months ago. So i'm getting about 1.5-2 yr worth of (near) top-of-the-line performance.

 

If the OP wants to spent 1500 on a 1440p/980 Ti setup that's cool, I just want to make sure he's aware of the fact that he'll be itching to upgrade it next year when a lot of us move onto pascal/4k.

So basically I'm late to the party haha  . Guess that's what happens when one starts college. Reason for the 'big' upgrade now is I have a well paying internship at the moment, and will have some extra cash. But yeah it would be around that much for a new GPU and the Acer monitor I really want.. decisions to make.. I do see your point, it seems that right now 4k gaming seems just out of reach and is so close. Hmmmm

[falcon7370]

bomerr, what is gaming at that resolution like? Other than seeing 4k TVs on display in stores, I've never really experienced anything above standard HD. 

[bomerr]

Ya exactly. I think it's better to be a cutting-edge of a new standard than at the tail-end of an old one. 

 

I've personally played at 1080p on my friends 50" TV snd 1440p on my 27" monitor.  There were 2 big differences I noticed.

 

First was that his TV has very poor color accuracy. Everything was red tinted and dark details like shadows were crushed to pure black. So I think display quality is more important than resolution; hence why I'm not buying a cheap 4k TN panel monitor. 

 

Second, resolution wise, everything was less sharp. The Witcher 3 which looked like a next-gen game on my monitor looks like an Xbox One game on his TV. The lower PPI was definitely noticeable. Especially jaggies / aliasing which was a lot more common at 1080p v 1440p. 

 

As for 4K I've only played around with the monitors at micro center. However I really did like the 31" 4K dell they had. Everything was super sharp and very nice looking. 

 

I'm personally waiting for a ~32" IPS 4K display possibly with g-sync for 700. I feel that kind of monitor would be good for at least 4-5 years.