Can two OC'd GTX 970s play triple 1440p monitors at a fairly good resolution with modern games?

[Mark Angelo]

Title.

Also, should I get a 850w PSU or more?

Thanks.

 

[dovah-chan]

I think a high quality 850W PSU would work fine. Probably the best two options are the Cooler Master V850 or the Corsair AX850.

And regarding performance across three 1440p monitors, thats around 10 million pixels versus one UHD (4K) monitor which has around 8 million. I wouldn't expect stellar framerates but it might turn out to be playable if you turn off MSAA or just use SMAA or FXAA.

 

[xDarkxIdealsx]

I think a high quality 850W PSU would work fine. Probably the best two options are the Cooler Master V850 or the Corsair AX850.

And regarding performance across three 1440p monitors, thats around 10 million pixels versus one UHD (4K) monitor which has around 8 million. I wouldn't expect stellar framerates but it might turn out to be playable if you turn off MSAA or just use SMAA or FXAA.

The unfortunate problem with the 900 series GPU's is that even with their much higher stock clocks and 4gb VRAM memory, their 256 memory bus limits their performance at super high resolutions like 4k. Although even all the way up to 1440p and 1600p on a single monitor they do FANTASTIC, a single 970 can max most games at 1440p with the exception of games like crysis 3 and metro 2033 which get around 40fps maxed out @ 1440 which would go up to 45-48fps with a GTX980, or with two 970's in SLI you can easily hit 60fps, or if you prefer single GPU i would reccomend trying the new GTX980 Classified Super-Overclocked to 1,398mhz, but 970 sli will still beat it.

I'm building a rig now, taking my Gigabyte G1 super overclock GTX970 and adding in a 2nd one for SLI, and putting in a Devi's Canyon I7-4790K CPU with a liquid cooler (h100i) and even with that setup i still will have trouble with 4k gaming on some games. I can actually get 59fps on Bioshock Infinite at 4k, but going to Crysis 3 even with AA turned down and a few other settings down to high you only get around 30-35fps at 4k. The fact that this setup will give near constant 60fps at 1440p on the demanding games like Dragon Age Inquisition, The Evil WIthin, Crysis 3 etc.. but not at 4k shows the memory bus limitation, even SLI 980's only gets ~42fps in Crysis at 4k, the reason the memory bus is the culprit is that if you run two 780 ti's or even two R9 290X or an R9 295x2 you get up to ~50-52fps at 4k with crysis/metro etc.. due to their 384 and 512 bit memory bus.

So in regards to TC's message, yes two 970's will "play" with 3 1440p monitors, but you will likely only get around 25-30fps, although if you get the best 970 models like the G1 gaming edition or the MSI golden edition you can hit around 35fps but that's about it. If you want to do 3 monitor setup at 60fps with two 970's you'll be quite satisfied with 1080p 3 way setup as you'll easily get 50+ fps in any game with three 1080p panels.