Gtx 970 SLI for Triple Monitor Gaming

[RussellS]

I am planning on building a new pc soon, and I want to make sure that my system can run on three 23inch 1080p monitors at High-Max settings at an average of 50fps. Here it is:
i7 4790k OC
Asus Z97M-Plus
16gb Corsair Vengeance
850w Evga SuperNova
Samsung EVO 250gb SSD
1tb Seagate HHD
2x Gtx 970 OC

If it can't run at those settings, or if there is another option where I could potentially save money or get more perfomance with, I am open to any suggestions. I have thought of using AMD cards but I have not really looked into it. Give me your wisdom, fellow men.

 

[Mokyu]

Good to go!

 

[Tinkmaster Overspark]

No point using AMD cards at the moment, as the AMD cards are blown away by the current GTX 970 and 980 for value and performance.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_970_sli_review,16.html - From a framerate perspective, you're looking at an area inbetween 4k and 1440p because of the amount of pixels that triple 1080p pushes. Battlefield 4 is one of the more demanding benchmarks on that review so i picked it as an example, you're definitely running above 50 fps average with a 970 SLI if you look.

I whole heartedly endorse that as the best option if you want 50-60fps on high in pretty much everything. You might struggle on say, crysis 3, but everything else should be absolutely golden.

You can probably get a 750w PSU too, these 900 series grpahics cards sip power compared to previous models like 780Ti. Even a SLI doesn't take you near 850w (to my research, you can run a triple 980 SLI and not use 850w yet in total system useage)

Very good build, you might save some money by only getting 8 gb of ram and im SURE some people are going to reccomend it, and i do too if you only game. 16gb of ram is for things like video editting or photoshop.

EDIT: i'll also add that some people are going to reccomend the i5-4690k, and its true you might not see all that much difference in a pure gaming perspective, so if you tend to game with ONLY the game open the 4690k is fine, but i personally prefer the 4790k and support you there, although to overclock it remember to get an aftermarket cooler (air cooling - noctua NHD15 is excellent, for water cooling you should get a CLC like the h100i, or the h220x or the Kraken x61 for example). Also the 4790k has hyper threading and i dont recall if the 4690k does, and at SOME point games are going to take advantage of hyper threading more than they do now, which will be a big point in favour of the more future proof 4790k.

Its your budget and decisions though of course, pick what is best for you and what you are personally happy to spend either way like i said, awesome system

 

[Mokyu]

To add on to the above post about hyperthreading and cores
4690K doesn't have hyperthreading and yes, games are starting to show more usage with more available cores, so hyperthreading will help

 

[RussellS]

Thanks guys, I think I'll go with this! I have one question though, will Gtx 780s in 3-Way SLI beat this?

 

[Tinkmaster Overspark]

Thanks guys, I think I'll go with this! I have one question though, will Gtx 780s in 3-Way SLI beat this?

When it comes to SLI, the fewer, more powerful cards the better, the simpler, the more supported.

You also have to take into account the monitors you're using. When you look at the benchmark from my last post (and this is assuming you're playing using all three monitors at once for a game, not just playing on one monitor with two others being there for multi tasking and such) you can see for the vast majority of games two GTX 970s gets you above 60 frames per second.

Beating sixty frames per second on 60hz monitors means basically nothing. you either have to deal with vsync or screen tearing, pick your poison, most people i know choose vsync.

The only time you would need to beat 60fps is if you bought three 120 or 144hz monitors, and then to get the full benefit you'd probably need two 980s. Seriously expensive, not worth considering unless you're fully aware of the cost and what you're getting and you're like, dayumn, dat some sexy hardware.

There ARE some benefits to having three card setups, but trust me, two 970s is really great, and 2 way SLI is very well supported in comparison to 3 way and 4 way. Also you'd need a new motherboard to support three way SLI, since you need to have a PLX chip, or upgrade into uber expensive X99 territory.

Hope this helps

 

[Mokyu]

Thanks guys, I think I'll go with this! I have one question though, will Gtx 780s in 3-Way SLI beat this?

Probably, but not much noticeable difference. You want the 970s in SLI for other reasons

 

[RussellS]

Alright just one more thing, what monitors should I gt, 60hz or 144hz?

 

[Mokyu]

Alright just one more thing, what monitors should I gt, 60hz or 144hz?

For 1080p and dual 970s, definately 144hz if you want to experience the power of your GPUs

 

[Tinkmaster Overspark]

Alright just one more thing, what monitors should I gt, 60hz or 144hz?

lets look at some benchmarks in here - http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_970_sli_review,16.html

Now, you'll be dealing with 3x 1080p monitors, so that's inbetween 4k and 2560x1440 as i said. If you go through the benchmarks on these, and take a value roughly inbetween 4k and 1440p you can find what (in a very rough way, and your rig might preform slightly differently) around what you can expect your frame rates to be.

if you intend to play very modern and demanding games, like battlefield 4, crysis 3, you wont get much more benefit at all, as you will be getting, or slightly below / above 60fps on the highest settings. The more you are willing to turn down settings, or the less demanding the games you play are, the more benefit you'll start seeing from 144hz.

144hz monitors will also be typically more expensive than 60hz ones. So it's really a question of what games you'll be playing, what level of graphics you're happy with and how much you care about 144hz. I've seen a lot of people say that once they go 144hz they just cant go back, so its definitely really good. I can't answer the question because its about what games you'll play and what frame rates and graphics levels you want too.

Just keep in mind there are titles you wont see as much benefit from 144hz from, and there are also titles where you wont see your rig's full potential at 60 hz. I hope this helps your decision making, feel free to ask me any more questions

EDIT: - that being said my answer is based on a 3-way nvidia surround kind of thing. If you were only to run a game on a single 1080p monitor, those 2 graphics cards can push 144 fps very easily and you would see a lot of benefit for that single monitor, but all of my answer above is based on a 3 way surround

 

[Corrupted Angel]

dayumn, dat some sexy hardware.



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