Advice on graphics card

[ryan0302]

I'm looking to build a new system and have most of my components figured out, but I'm stuck on the graphics card.

Currently my rig is as follows:
2x GTX 560 ti SC in SLI
i7 2600k @ 4.4ghz
8gig DDR3 1600
500gig 7200 rpm and a 120gig 10000rpm
Asus p8p67 pro

New build:
2x GTX 670 FTW SLI
high end Haswell
16g DDR3 1600
Same + 120g SSD
Whichever mobo tickles my fancy when intel haswell comes out.

My question is would it be worth it to upgrade to the 670's or should i just wait for the 700 series? I'm already going waiting for the new intel architecture (which comes out around Q3 this year i believe) and at that point im sure the 700 series will be well on its way or would it?

Feel free to suggest something different, but before you suggest i drop the SLI think of it this way. 2 670 can just about match a 690 and for only $780 vs $1000. Plus i figure i could sell those promotional things nvidia gives you when you buy a high end card (in this case i think its $150 of in game money for 3 popular f2p's), so $300 of promotial stuff vs only getting the $150 for buying a higher power single card.

Any feedback is appreciated.

 

[dademurphy]

I just upgraded to a 670 SLI setup and I must say it is pretty sweet. I think this is a pretty well future-proofed card combo. I am able to run every game maxed out at 1080p. I upgraded to a 2560x1440 monitor though and the frame rates got a little rough on a couple games when everything was maxed out thus the second 670 for SLI. Every game I've played so far has been extremely smooth at ultra everything plus 4x or 8x MSAA/SMAA/4x TXAA - whatever the highest available AA solution is for a given game. Frame rate seems to be locked at 60fps and I don't really expect that to change anytime soon (maybe Metro 2033 Last Light will give a run for it's money).

Supposedly, the 690 runs a bit cooler than a 670 sli setup but if your case can handle the extra heat of the 670, I see no reason to spend the extra $300. I have two Gigabyte GTX 670 OC gpus in SLI and each are overclocked to 1250mhz. The resulting power I think is pretty damn close if not more powerful than a 690. (I'll just stick with that because I want to believe my 670 sli setup is the best but it's really not far off - may even be true). Since an overclocked 670 can best a reference 680 and a 690 is two under-clocked 680's it stands to reason the overclocked 670 combo should be right in the same performance ballpark.

Also, if you are buying a $800-$1000 in graphics card(s), it shouldn't be too big a deal to buy a new case that can handle the heat. If I were to buy a $1000 graphics card though, it would probably be the Titan.

On the otherhand, if you're gaming at 1080p and the 560ti's are providing satisfactory performance for now, why not wait and see what the 700 series has to offer? I don't think you'll see any 700 series cards for quite a while though - maybe fall or winter 2013 so like 6-9 months out (just a guess). Unless you're having trouble with the games you're playing, I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to upgrade as 560ti sli setup should be pretty potent.

Who knows, maybe Intel's Haswell will have some killer integrated graphics and you won't even need a discrete card! (I kid)

 

[ryan0302]

Thanks for the feed back and yes thats exactly what i was thinking. I saw a benchmark somewhere around here where they pitted the two against each other and the 670's beat "The Beast" here it is, http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/39605-nvidia-geforce-gtx-670-sli-vs-the-beasttm/.

What I think I'm going to do is wait for my new monitor to come in and see how these 560's perform at 1080 on the latest drivers and everything because part of my reason for updating is that for one reason or another i keep on getting blue screens pretty much every other time i fire up bf3 (my primary game). I believe it has something to do with the the video card.

Also like i said I wanna sell all my old stuff while its still worth something and if this rig future proofs me enough than hopefully it will be 2.5-3 yrs before i decide to upgrade, but we'll see.