EVGA GTX 780 (x2) .vs. MSI GTX 780 Ti (x1)

robbob_70

Honorable
Sep 16, 2012
167
0
10,680
Hi, i'm building a gaming rig and i've decided to go with the build below:

CPU - Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5 GHz
Motherboard - ASUS Z97 Pro
CPU Fan - Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Video Card - EVGA GTX 780 ?
Video Card - EVGA GTX 780 ?
RAM - Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB
SSD - Crucial M500 240GB
HDD - Western Digital Blue 1TB
Case - CM Storm Stryker – Full Tower
Power Supply - Seasonic M12II-850
Optical Drive - Samsung 24x SATA DVD RW

I've posted about this, and was advised the MSI GTX 780 Ti will be a lot 'easier'.
But i'm not sure what was meant, exactly.
will i get better performance from a single MSI GTX 780 Ti? As i have heard SLI isn't always optimised for gaming.. thus the 2x GTX 780 might not be a worthwhile purchase.
Also, seeing as the 780 Ti, has the edge i can always buy a second one later, as opposed to starting from scratch?

cheers,
Rbx

 
Solution
sli 780 is overkill for 1080p and usually 1440p too. You'd be looking at 4k gaming. One 780ti will play all optimised games fine.

And yes, both sli and crossfire is not good in certain games.

Romeru

Honorable
Jan 11, 2013
491
0
10,960
sli 780 is overkill for 1080p and usually 1440p too. You'd be looking at 4k gaming. One 780ti will play all optimised games fine.

And yes, both sli and crossfire is not good in certain games.
 
Solution

RazerZ

Judicious
Ambassador
I would go with the more powerful single card initially, so later on you can add a second one, rather than being stuck with two of the same card and have no room to upgrade.

Another cheaper alternative to the 780ti that offers very similar performance is the R9 290x.
 

robbob_70

Honorable
Sep 16, 2012
167
0
10,680
hey, thankyou for the replies, i currently have a really small,,, shitty monitor..
but i plan on getting a 2560×1440….. (just gotta save up more money… )

will my rig (with the 780ti) be able to handle that resolution with high settings and good fps?

Thanks.
 

RazerZ

Judicious
Ambassador


It will be fine for 1440p. 4K resoltion is when you need a really beefy graphics card.
 

robbob_70

Honorable
Sep 16, 2012
167
0
10,680
cheers again,
Going by Amazon prices:
1x R9 290 Vapor-X, costs: £284
1x MSI GeForce GTX 780 Ti, costs: £499.99

so 2x R9x would be: £568

So not too big a price difference… how significant would the performance difference be? - i like my eye candy and FPS :) , but i am concerned about the dubious nature of crossfire/SLI… and also the 'future proofing' of buying two cards.. as opposed to one top of the range.. (as mentioned i could in the future buy another 780ti)

not really sure now…. (completely new to all this ;) )

Rx
 

RazerZ

Judicious
Ambassador


There's barely a difference between the two. Here's a site showing the comparison of the 290x CF/ 780Ti Sli

http://www.eteknix.com/4k-gaming-showdown-amd-r9-290x-crossfire-vs-nvidia-gtx-780-ti-sli/
 
The problem is, no single board will give you 60 FPS on all games, not even the 780ti.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_780_ti_review,25.html

You can see that the 780ti gives only 44 FPS at 2560x1440 while the 290 gives 39. However, two 290's will give you over 60 fps.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/radeon_r9_290_crossfire_review_benchmarks,18.html

Keep in mind this is an early R9 290 with the bad cooling system that tended to underclock itself. The Sapphire R9 290 Vapor-X runs cool, fast, and silent. Note that here the old version R9 290 CF runs 67 fps.
 

robbob_70

Honorable
Sep 16, 2012
167
0
10,680
^ ah thanks.. that's very interesting.

so, taking; TOMB RAIDER 2013 - Ultra graphics @ 4k~….:
1x GTX 780 Ti = AVG FPS: 42
2x AMD 290 Vapor-X crossfire = AVG FPS: 78

considering there's only a 10~% difference in price that's quite impressive. ^^

The only thing reading through the summary was that the R9 290x apparently heats up quite considerably, and has some frame drop issues on pre-directx11 games.

^a solution recommended for the heating issue was to buy a: 'PowerColor R9 290X OC 4GB' - £359.99 *
But then that raises the price considerably.. … out of my budget.

if i were to go with the normal AMD 290 Vapor-X - then i'd have the option finically to go crossfire..
However i'm wary of the heat this may cause.. - as the rig i've planned is designed for EVGA GTX 780 SLI… which has less heating issues..
-----

I was originally not even thinking of going 4k,,,, i was just thinking of getting:
2560×1440: ASUS PB278Q 27-Inch WQHD LED-lit ($519.00)
Response Time: 5ms (Gray-to-Gray)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009C3M7H0/?tag=bbst81-20

But….. i found this 4k monitor:
Samsung 28-Inch Ultra High Definition LED Monitor ($646.09)
Response Time: 1-millisecond
8 million pixels!!
60hz
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-28-Inch-Definition-Monitor-U28D590D/dp/B00IEZGWI2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395497852&sr=8-1&keywords=U28D590D

i don't get how there's only a difference of $100~ between those two! that's insane…. and the 1ms response time is Impressive!.

My heads spinning a bit now.. i don't know what to do :(

i guess the main question is:
should i game at 4k, with crossfire 290x
Drawbacks: some current games don't even get up to 60fps average on ultra @4k… let alone future games.. - so that seems like a deal breaker for 4k at the moment (GPUs can't handle it)
and possible heating issues.. inherent to the 290x.
Positives: it's 4k.

Or should i stick with a 2560×1440 monitor and also go crossfire 290x
Drawbacks: it's not 4k (meh)
positives: it'll run everything VERY well at that resolution with all the eye candy e.t.c and be pretty future proof for the games on the horizon.

Hey babernet_1 is this the new version your referring to?:
*Sapphire AMD R9 290 TRI-X OC Graphics Card (4GB, HDMI, PCI-E)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=The+Sapphire+R9+290+Vapor-X
As i can get this ^ one for £284.. (doable)
(i'm not sure which version they used in the tests in the link RazerZ posted)

thanks so much for helping out everyone.
sorry this post got a bit long… but this new world is so confusing to me :)

Regards
Rx
 

TRENDING THREADS