760 SLI, Yes or no.

Should I go 760 SLI or wait for the new CPU's & GPU's?

  • Yes

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No

    Votes: 4 100.0%

  • Total voters
    4

Zethio

Distinguished
May 9, 2014
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I strongly thinking about buying me another MSI 760, but I'm still quite uncertain about whether I'm going to , or not. I have a few issues making it difficult for me to decide.

1) I'm currently using the motherboard ASUS P8Z68-V PRO, Socket-1155 (For more info: http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8Z68V_PRO/)

Please note that it has no PCI-E 3 slots, meaning I currently am running on PCI-E 2 slots, with a PCI-E 3 card, and I'm considering going SLI with this.

2) Another thing, I'm currently expecting to buy the new Asus 1440p monitor that can go 120HZ, would they be able to handle it?

3) My PSU is 750 Watt, so as far as I'm concerned, it's enough.

4) I had also been considering upgrading the entire rig when Maxwell & Haswell-E comes along. I know that I have to change the most of my machine if I had to this, because of the new CPU slots, etc. Thus it has to be said if the rumors are somewhat true, I'll be very unhappy with the bus.

5) Please note, I do know that single GPU is preferable to dual GPUs, but since I got a 760 already, I'm not interested in upgrading to 770+, furthermore I currently hate Nvidia for making cards with little Bus, and Vram.

6) And, would heat become a problem me?

So would you guys recommend me to this or forget it.

Current PC specs are something like this

GPU: Msi 760 (Got this due to my old 580 broke)
Motherboard: ASUS P8Z68-V PRO, Socket-1155
CPU: i5 2500k
Cooler: Noctua NH-D 14
Ram: 16gb ddr3 1600mhz (Random ones)
Case: Coolermaster 922 HAF
PSU: Some Corsair on 750 which I can't remember.
 
Actually if you sli the 760s in just one 1080p it would be an overkill as those two has enough power to compete with a 780,so my recommendation would be go for a single 760 and that should give you more than 50 fps at 1080p,60hz and if more you want than that resolution like 1440p then switch to 4gb
 


agreed, can you prove that?
 


I'm sure I can find benchmarks showing increased frame time latency because of lack of Vram however I've done the testing myself.

Bf4 with everything set to ultra uses over 2 gb of vram @ 1440p. "over 2.3 gb of vram"

Titanfall maxed out @ 1440p uses on average around 3gb of vram.

I did testing with two 770's with 2gb and the gaming experience wasn't very good when the cards didn't have enough Vram.

The only solution is to lower the settings to experience smooth gameplay.

There are many games that don't need over 2gb of VRAM even at 1440p however the games that require more VRAM on ultra will significantly impact your gaming performance.

This is common sense - Do you guys own a 1440p monitor?

Another example, I play Bf4 on ultra with my 780 ti and the game uses around 2.3 gb of VRAM, One day I decided to increase the resolution scaling and the game slowed down to a crawl. This is what happens when video cards don't have enough VRAM.

I suggest you guys try a 1440p monitor and you will understand.
 
I also tried running Bf4 with 3 monitors at 5760x1080 on ultra With 2x gtx 770's and the game was frozen. " this is a symptom of lack of VRAM"

I haven't tried it yet however I'm sure with 2x Titan blacks the game would be playable because of the more powerful card and 6 gb frame buffer.
 




VRAM usage doesnt equate to a bottleneck. If you have more VRAM available the game may take more. I have seen this personally when playing the same game, at the same settings with two cards.

I have also seen people with GTX 690s with only 2gb of Vram (per GPU) not get VRAM bottlenecked at 1440p.

Your theorys are not facts, if they were then you would be able to post benchmarks proving it.
 
I know what you're talking about however I suggest you do the testing and do some research and you find that there is a correlation between insufficient vram and frame time variance.

This is based on my experience - have you seen Bf4 at ultra settings with a 1440p monitor with a 690 or two gtx 770's?

As I said earlier not all games require over 2gb of vram @ 1440p.

 
Can you Try running BF4 maxed out with your gtx 680 with 200% resolution scaling?

With 200% resolution scaling the game will use more than 2 gb memory and your gaming experience will not be very good.
I'm assuming you're using a 1080p monitor for the above to be true.
 
I suggest you read this: http://alienbabeltech.com/main/gtx-770-4gb-vs-2gb-tested/3/

You'll see 770 2GB compared to 770 4GB. They are using some over kill AA on these tests as well, at least in some cases. Their conclusion was that 2GB only because a problem at 5760x1080 when in SLI, and in most cases the games were unplayable using the settings that caused it to not be enough.
 


Do you honestly need 200% resolution scaling?
 


This is a small review site and perhaps some of Their testing is accurate however based on battle field 4 my results are different.

I think going forward next gen games will suffer with 2 gb of vram with extreme resolutions and AA.

This is a difficult point to prove however if you analyze all of tomshardware reviews depending on the game at extreme resolutions and AA the lack of Vram will increase frame time latencies in some cases and reduce the quality of the gaming experience.

This is not true for all games however in games like BF4 LACK of vram will hinder performance.

this will be the trend in my opinion and there is a reason why 760's, 770's and now 780's are offered with more vram.

Extreme resolutions & AA.

I know that 2x 770's or. 760's will
Will be sufficient for many games even at 1440p in some cases compromises need to be made for optimal peromance.


 


Read this page look at the frame time variance. This is a example of the 780 ti's 3 gb frame buffer being exhausted at 4k

The page is in the next post.

I believe my point is clear.






 


We are not talking about extreme resolutions, and why do you need extreme AA? After 4x MSAA, you get major diminishing returns. If you have a 1440p resolution, why would you need 200% resolution, only to be downscaled after? It is just another form of AA that is not needed.

With 760 SLI, you are not likely going to have the performance for that sort of AA anyways, and still get good FPS, unless you are happy with 30-40 FPS.

You are obviously an extremist, and if you are one, then I suppose you need to buy 6Gb cards, or at least 4Gb cards. Most of us are not so extreme. And don't forget, he already has 1 760. He is upgrading, not starting from scratch.
 
I'm happy with 1 gtx 780 ti with my 1440p monitor.

Sometimes I need to lower settings and I can live with that...

I just said @ 1080p with 2x 760's in SLI is okay
However @ 1440p with extreme aa more vram may be needed and Rob wanted me to prove that .
 


I don't argue that extreme resolutions with extreme AA is a problem, but why would you need both? There is major diminishing returns as you increase your AA, and as you increase your resolution, AA becomes less needed anyway.

So the point is, 2GB does work unless you cannot be reasonable with your AA settings.
 
This is another debate 1440p looks great why are people buying 4k?

Some people want better and certainly there is a diminishing amount of return with extreme setups.

A single gtx 760 is decent in many games with the settings turned down @ 1080p however some people are willing to spend more money to make sure all settings are maxed with mesa for example so they buy a 780.

0ther people want to use 120 Hz plus monitors.

For me the sweet spot is a 780 ti because I don't want to spend 2000 plus on 2x titan blacks to enable ssAA

 


Ooooooh you dun got called out.

However concerning OP's oroginal question I'd personally do it. To 760 SLI's are more powerful than any single card on the market obviously, which means you can brag that it's better than a titan!
 
4k is just a new technology, after that 8k, then idk 16k? tech will always change.
Also not all 1080p is created equal, my last 4 tvs have been 1080p and each has gotten better with each model. my newest tv is simply stunning unless sitting next to a 4K tv