Curious about upgrading or not.

[chemp43]

I currently have an ATI AMD Radeon HD 6990 4gb video card (havent had to really upgrade in 3-4 years) and am thinking about upgarding to the newest top of the line card so I don't have to upgrade things in my computer for another few years. Do you think I should upgrade? If so, which card would be high end?

Current specs;
Intel i7 2600k @ 3.4GHz
16.0 GB DDR3 @ 798MHz
Alienware 046MHW
ATI AMD Radeon HD 6990

ASUS VS248H-P x2

 

[Brantyn Gerik]

well first off, budget, because there are really 3 top tier cards right now, the 780, 780ti and amd 290/290x.

you personally do not need to worry about mantle, as it is only beneficial for lower end cpu's (beta drivers released today) and doesnt give much benefit to an i7

with that in mind, in north america, the 780 is about the best deal as far as super high performance vs lower cost and it can be overclocked to match the 290 (the 290x and 290 do not overclock overly well from what i have read)

if you want to go all out, the 780ti is the absolute single card performance king right now

 

[Brantyn Gerik]

though, your 6990 is still considered quite the beast of a card, single cards (one chip on a card vs the 2 on your card) are considered better in most cases in terms of better experience.

 

[Brantyn Gerik]

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-HD-6990-vs-GeForce-GTX-780

http://www.hwcompare.com/16410/geforce-gtx-780-ti-vs-radeon-hd-6990/

both are a jump up in performance, and i am only recommending the nvidia side if you are in an area where the amd cards are more expensive due to the bitcoin mining craze (ie, the 290 being more expensive than a regular 780)

 

[MasterMace]

The best single GPU graphics card is the GTX 780 ti. The best graphics card is the GTX 690. It's my opinion, as well as Tom's Hardware's, that putting 2 cards in SLI is better. GTX 690 runs about $1000, 2 GTX 770s runs about $630 - $660. The 2 770s perform better. If you were to upgrade to SLI, I would say it's worth the upgrade, if you were to try to get a GTX 690, it's not worth it.

 

[chemp43]

though, your 6990 is still considered quite the beast of a card, single cards (one chip on a card vs the 2 on your card) are considered better in most cases in terms of better experience.

I have loved my 6990 and it truly is a beast. I really thought they would've been more popular but I suppose they were too expensive. So running dual cards would be better?

 

[Brantyn Gerik]

Dual cards is better, but you run into the problems of heat and power consumption. Basically right now, if you have the money to spend, i would say go for one top tier card now, as it will be quite a bit faster than your 6990, a lot cooler and use a lot less power. then you can sli later (or crossfire if you choose the amd side of course)

 

[Brantyn Gerik]

The main problem with dual cards is that they do not scale perfectly in all games, where a single card is consistent throughout

dual cards in my lingo = one graphics card with two chips (6990, 7990, 590,690, 760 MARS)
personally i recommend a powerful single card over two less powerful single cards, as well as i recommend the powerful single card over a slightly more powerful dual card (780ti vs 690 or 760 MARS) as the 780ti is nearly as fast, but doesnt suffer the problems of dual card or sli problems

 

[chemp43]

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-HD-6990-vs-GeForce-GTX-780

http://www.hwcompare.com/16410/geforce-gtx-780-ti-vs-radeon-hd-6990/

both are a jump up in performance, and i am only recommending the nvidia side if you are in an area where the amd cards are more expensive due to the bitcoin mining craze (ie, the 290 being more expensive than a regular 780)

Thank you for your research, if I were to move to an SLI system which two cards would be recommended?

Edit; never mind just read your response. I have avoided dual-card SLI cards for the fact that they haven't ran well with games from time to time.

 

[Brantyn Gerik]

well it depends on your budget of course, for the price of the 780ti, you can get two gtx 770's which will perform better in some games, but not in all due to imperfect scaling and drivers

 

[Brantyn Gerik]

Also remember your power supply needs to be able to support the two cards (of course the 6990 was a power hog, so i assume you at least have a moderatly good power supply) you need at least 850 to run two gtx 770's (recommends 750 but for safety reasons i highly suggest the 850 watt) you also need to make sure the power supply is sli ready and have 42amps on the 12v rail

 

[chemp43]

Also remember your power supply needs to be able to support the two cards (of course the 6990 was a power hog, so i assume you at least have a moderatly good power supply) you need at least 850 to run two gtx 770's (recommends 750 but for safety reasons i highly suggest the 850 watt) you also need to make sure the power supply is sli ready and have 42amps on the 12v rail

Currently running a 750 watt psu. Would I need to upgrade for the 780ti? In the benchmarking link you posted I saw that the 780 runs cooler and with less energy.

 

[Brantyn Gerik]

You would not need to upgrade your psu for any modern card, as they have actually become more power efficient since your 6990. the 780 does run slightly cooler and use less energy than the 780ti, but it is also slower

 

[Brantyn Gerik]

You would be recommended to upgrade it if you planned on going sli or crossfire with a top tier card though

 

[chemp43]

Sounds good, thank you for you research and hard work. I think I will be buying a 780ti, any recommended brands? I'm familiar with ASUS, but unsure if theres some to stay away from.

 

[Brantyn Gerik]

Eh most are fine actually, though i hear a lot of things about evga having coil while :/

The asus one is pretty freiking fast, but i mean the rest are all pretty close

Zotac, pny, palit, are all kinda the lower name brands for nvidia, but still nothing really wrong with them

 

[chemp43]

Sounds good, thank you very much!