Keep the 780ti classified or sell and get r9 290x crossfire?

[Cheeky_Chris]

Hello!

I was recently looking into purchasing a 4k monitor to begin to play at 4k, however, it has occurred that even though the 780ti classified is a beast of a card it probably isn't going to be enough to handle 4k at an acceptable frame rate. Maybe it is time to sell it and go for a dual 4gb 290x setup? I'm making this decision now as I know full well that the 800 series cards are just around the corner and I would like to sell my 780ti before all the prices fall for around £500-£550. 2 r9 290xs will set me back around £750-£800, about £200 of which will be of my own money (the rest from the sale of the 780ti). I will get much better performance for a fraction of the price of buying another 780ti, and with 4gb of VRAM will walk through 4k much more acceptably. There are however 2 things holding me back. Firstly, the monitor I was thinking of getting was gsync. Now I know I can just change my selection but will I really notice the lower frame rates of the single card with gsync smoothing it out? Also I haven't heard much about crossfire performance, but I remember from when I was more into pcs that the last gen of amd cards were famed for having terrible crossfire reliability.

Any advice would be very helpful indeed, my specs can be found in my signature

(Just realised my motherboard isn't in the signature, it's an Asus Z87 Sabertooth)

Cheers,
Chris

 

[Havo_k]

Both of em will not play 4k at decent frames. You should be looking at 295x2

 

[firo40]

Crossfire performance is pretty buggy personally I'd keep the 780ti gsynch will make lower frame rates look smooth. The 780ti is no slouch at 4k anyways especially the classified version.

 

[Cheeky_Chris]

Both of em will not play 4k at decent frames. You should be looking at 295x2

I dunno, from what I've looked at the 2 290xs are slightly better than the 295x2
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1057?vs=1187

 

[Cheeky_Chris]

Crossfire performance is pretty buggy personally I'd keep the 780ti gsynch will make lower frame rates look smooth. The 780ti is no slouch at 4k anyways especially the classified version.

That was my only worry, I've never used an AMD card and like the solidity nvidia's drivers offer. However is gsync actually that good? I've heard some very positive things about it but there's nowhere I can actually see it without buying a monitor. Also, wouldn't the 3gb of VRAM hold me back with the 780ti? Some people have said that certain games utilise closer to 4gb at 4k

 

[geofelt]

A very good question.
I think I would wait and see how you do at 4k.
You would then be in a better position to determine what you need to do.
Even with dual cards, 4k may be tough enough so that g.sync is really needed even then.

Who knows what is coming? Those who know can't tell, and those who tell don't know.
My guess is that we will see a card or two that offer incrementally stronger performance at a more reasonable price. My Guess is the GTX8xx cards will be 28nm implementations and the real performers will not be out until next year at 20nm.
Your card is a top card, and top cards always tend to retain their value.

On the vram, it may not matter much. Read this and look at the triple monitor tests:
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/

I am also waiting on a 4k 60hz monitor, but I want 40-50" size.
My plan with a GTX780 is to see how it does and then decide if I want a second gtx780 or the next best thing.

 

[legend001523]

The classified can get good 40-55fps in 4k?

 

[Cheeky_Chris]

A very good question.
I think I would wait and see how you do at 4k.
You would then be in a better position to determine what you need to do.
Even with dual cards, 4k may be tough enough so that g.sync is really needed even then.

Who knows what is coming? Those who know can't tell, and those who tell don't know.
My guess is that we will see a card or two that offer incrementally stronger performance at a more reasonable price. My Guess is the GTX8xx cards will be 28nm implementations and the real performers will not be out until next year at 20nm.
Your card is a top card, and top cards always tend to retain their value.

On the vram, it may not matter much. Read this and look at the triple monitor tests:
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/

I am also waiting on a 4k 60hz monitor, but I want 40-50" size.
My plan with a GTX780 is to see how it does and then decide if I want a second gtx780 or the next best thing.

Thanks for the reply, the monitor I want isn't released until the 9th of September, so no too much of a rush.

However, just a couple more questions.
If I'm not getting great performance on 4k I'd like the ability to scale it down to 1440p. I have heard though that running monitors in non-native resolution is going to mean the results won't be great. Is this entirely true?

Just for reference this is the monitor I'm looking at http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-065-AC

 

[geofelt]

I have no experience, yet with 4k. Any time you run a monitor at less than normal resolution, the monitor must do extra work to scale it. That process probably differs a lot between monitors.

More likely to get better fps, you would reduce or eliminate anti aliasing. That is one of the heaviest tasks a gpu has. With more pixels, the need for aa is reduced.

 

[Cheeky_Chris]

I have no experience, yet with 4k. Any time you run a monitor at less than normal resolution, the monitor must do extra work to scale it. That process probably differs a lot between monitors.

More likely to get better fps, you would reduce or eliminate anti aliasing. That is one of the heaviest tasks a gpu has. With more pixels, the need for aa is reduced.

Yeah I wasn't planning on running AA, as it's not really necessary at 4k. I probably should have put that in my original post 😛