Should I upgrade from single GTX 780 to SLI?

[jcbullen]

I'm currently running the following build:

Mobo - ASrock P67 Extreme4 Gen3
CPU - i5-2500K clocked @ 4GHz
Cooler - Hyper 212 EVO
Memory - 8gb Corsair Vengeance
HD1 - Crucial M4 128GB SSD
HD2 - Western Digital 1TB 7200RPM
HD3 - 3TB HDD
PSU - Corsair Professional Series HX750
GPU - GTX 780 DirectCU II

With the new release of Geforce GPUs, there was a price drop in the previous gen. I could pick up a 2nd GTX 780 for $300 now. I doubt that those cards will go much, if any, lower before they stop being sold so I'm interested in popping another one into my current set up. Last time I waited to get an additional card for Crossfire (Radeon 7950 OC), they sold out and I couldn't get one anymore so I kind of want to get one of these soon.

Am I correct in saying that my PSU is technically enough power to run these cards without any OC? I imagine people will tell me to get at least an 850W PSU to be safe. I'm looking at different Corsair PSUs on Newegg between 850W - 1050W for less than $200 right now. I also plan on adding another 8gb of ram in the near future. I'll probably want to buy the card now, and then buy a PSU and ram around Black Friday.

My end game here is I also want to upgrade to a 1440p monitor and be able to max out new games with 60fps or higher. I don't think I'm ready for the 4K generation so I'm not looking to get a brand new card with a ton of vram yet. I think I can spend ~750 on parts ($300 card, $100 PSU, $300 monitor, $50 ram). Or am I looking at this wrong and I should just wait until 4K gaming is a little cheaper and then upgrade stuff at that point?

Also, would a card like the GTX 780 DirectCU II go any cheaper than $300, such as around Black Friday/Cyber Monday, or is this probably the low point that it will reach before it is discontinued?

 

[prit87]

its better if you sell the previous card for 200$ and get a gtx 970 or gtx 980 gtx 970 is 330$ and 980 is 550 $ and later on if you want then you can go for a SLI why spend 300 $ for gtx 780 when you can get gtx 970 for 330$ .

 

[cowboydude99]

I think 780 sli beats the 970 in FPS.

 

[prit87]

yes gtx 780 sli will beat the gtx 970 and gtx 980 as well but i am just saying that if he could sell the gtx 780 for around 200$ then he could get 2 x gtx 970 a single gtx 780 is around 300$ close to gtx 970.

 

[cowboydude99]

Oh- gotcha.

So he'll spend $300 on a 2nd 780...
or
2x 970 = 700 (roughly) - $200 (selling 780)

$500 for GTX 970 SLI. Not bad.

 

[jcbullen]

If I'm spending $500, I'll be tempted to just skip the SLI setup and get a GTX980 instead. It also looks like the new gen of cards out has 4gb of vram, which is only 1 more than if I were to upgrade to SLI. I doubt that would make a serious difference in gaming at 1440p.

I think the two 780s would tide me over for the next few years until I'm ready to make the leap to 4K. I imagine they would still sell for a decent amount at that time and that's when I could get rid of them.

 

[cowboydude99]

2x 780 will be faster than a single 980.

 

[prit87]

If I'm spending $500, I'll be tempted to just skip the SLI setup and get a GTX980 instead. It also looks like the new gen of cards out has 4gb of vram, which is only 1 more than if I were to upgrade to SLI. I doubt that would make a serious difference in gaming at 1440p.

I think the two 780s would tide me over for the next few years until I'm ready to make the leap to 4K. I imagine they would still sell for a decent amount at that time and that's when I could get rid of them.

First of all if you think SLI makes the GPU vram double then you are wrong 2x3 gb vram will not be 6 gb in sli setup it will still be the 3 gb and the 900 series the difference is not only the extra 1 gb vram the 900 series supports dx 12 GPUs include incredible performance and advanced technologies such as MFAA, DSR, and VXGI to deliver a truly elite gaming experience.

you are ready to spend 300$ for gtx 780 so if you can sell the gtx 780 for at least 200$ then you have 500$ in your budget so you have to add another 160 $ for gtx 970 SLI setup for now or later..

 

[cowboydude99]

Both options are good.

prit87's solution is what I'd spend my $ on.

 

[azzazel_99]

I would say a 2nd 780 and he'll you could water block them and really oc them to get some power. 2 780's > 1 980. Most of the benchmarks done for the new 970 and 980's are tested against stock 780's and 780ti's. I don't think I have seen a benchmark yet that uses a ghz or classified or lightning model 780 or 780ti against the 970 and 980. I think with a good oc card vs a 970 or 980 would be a different story. So I say a 2nd 780 for $300 and maybe even cheaper if you get on eBay would be a good idea if you're gaming at 1440p by the time 4k becomes mainstream it'll be time to upgrade anyway. Also nvidia already said fermi and kepler will both fully support direct x 12 so that's not a selling point for the new cards. Also direct X 12 will be for windows 10 so if you run 8 or 7 you won't be able to use it anyway. At least that's what's been said this far. That may change with some updates but I wouldn't expect it.

 

[jcbullen]

If I'm spending $500, I'll be tempted to just skip the SLI setup and get a GTX980 instead. It also looks like the new gen of cards out has 4gb of vram, which is only 1 more than if I were to upgrade to SLI. I doubt that would make a serious difference in gaming at 1440p.

I think the two 780s would tide me over for the next few years until I'm ready to make the leap to 4K. I imagine they would still sell for a decent amount at that time and that's when I could get rid of them.

First of all if you think SLI makes the GPU vram double then you are wrong 2x3 gb vram will not be 6 gb in sli setup it will still be the 3 gb and the 900 series the difference is not only the extra 1 gb vram the 900 series supports dx 12 GPUs include incredible performance and advanced technologies such as MFAA, DSR, and VXGI to deliver a truly elite gaming experience.

you are ready to spend 300$ for gtx 780 so if you can sell the gtx 780 for at least 200$ then you have 500$ in your budget so you have to add another 160 $ for gtx 970 SLI setup for now or later..

I understand that the VRAM does not stack. Are you saying that the 700 series will not be able to access DX12 features? Or are you saying that the 3gb of VRAM will not be enough to utilize these fully?

I'm willing to drop the 300 now, and if I were to sell my current card, I'd have around 500. Then it's still another 200 minimum to get some good non-reference 970s. It would be nice to have those in SLI, but probably a little more than I want to spend ATM.

 

[jcbullen]

I would say a 2nd 780 and he'll you could water block them and really oc them to get some power. 2 780's > 1 980. Most of the benchmarks done for the new 970 and 980's are tested against stock 780's and 780ti's. I don't think I have seen a benchmark yet that uses a ghz or classified or lightning model 780 or 780ti against the 970 and 980. I think with a good oc card vs a 970 or 980 would be a different story. So I say a 2nd 780 for $300 and maybe even cheaper if you get on eBay would be a good idea if you're gaming at 1440p by the time 4k becomes mainstream it'll be time to upgrade anyway. Also nvidia already said fermi and kepler will both fully support direct x 12 so that's not a selling point for the new cards. Also direct X 12 will be for windows 10 so if you run 8 or 7 you won't be able to use it anyway. At least that's what's been said this far. That may change with some updates but I wouldn't expect it.

From what I've (briefly) read, it looks like DX12 will be supported on Windows 7 and up?

 

[prit87]

If I'm spending $500, I'll be tempted to just skip the SLI setup and get a GTX980 instead. It also looks like the new gen of cards out has 4gb of vram, which is only 1 more than if I were to upgrade to SLI. I doubt that would make a serious difference in gaming at 1440p.

I think the two 780s would tide me over for the next few years until I'm ready to make the leap to 4K. I imagine they would still sell for a decent amount at that time and that's when I could get rid of them.

First of all if you think SLI makes the GPU vram double then you are wrong 2x3 gb vram will not be 6 gb in sli setup it will still be the 3 gb and the 900 series the difference is not only the extra 1 gb vram the 900 series supports dx 12 GPUs include incredible performance and advanced technologies such as MFAA, DSR, and VXGI to deliver a truly elite gaming experience.

you are ready to spend 300$ for gtx 780 so if you can sell the gtx 780 for at least 200$ then you have 500$ in your budget so you have to add another 160 $ for gtx 970 SLI setup for now or later..

I understand that the VRAM does not stack. Are you saying that the 700 series will not be able to access DX12 features? Or are you saying that the 3gb of VRAM will not be enough to utilize these fully?

I'm willing to drop the 300 now, and if I were to sell my current card, I'd have around 500. Then it's still another 200 minimum to get some good non-reference 970s. It would be nice to have those in SLI, but probably a little more than I want to spend ATM.

The dx 12 part for 700 series is not cleared by nvidia yet hope the previous card support dx 12 .
V ram does matters at higher resolutions so at 4k res the extra vram is good plus gtx 970 is about 15- 20 % better than gtx 780 in performance also consumes less power almost half of gtx 780 better thermal design.
i know the suggestion i am giving you is expensive 2x gtx 970 non reference version will cost you around 700$ if you able to sell the gtx 780 at 200$ or more and you already have 300$ budget then you will have 500$ cash in your hand and after a few months you could add another gtx 970 plus with your current PSU you can easily OC the 2x gtx 970 and your cpu and still left with lots of head room.

 

[jcbullen]

If I'm spending $500, I'll be tempted to just skip the SLI setup and get a GTX980 instead. It also looks like the new gen of cards out has 4gb of vram, which is only 1 more than if I were to upgrade to SLI. I doubt that would make a serious difference in gaming at 1440p.

I think the two 780s would tide me over for the next few years until I'm ready to make the leap to 4K. I imagine they would still sell for a decent amount at that time and that's when I could get rid of them.

First of all if you think SLI makes the GPU vram double then you are wrong 2x3 gb vram will not be 6 gb in sli setup it will still be the 3 gb and the 900 series the difference is not only the extra 1 gb vram the 900 series supports dx 12 GPUs include incredible performance and advanced technologies such as MFAA, DSR, and VXGI to deliver a truly elite gaming experience.

you are ready to spend 300$ for gtx 780 so if you can sell the gtx 780 for at least 200$ then you have 500$ in your budget so you have to add another 160 $ for gtx 970 SLI setup for now or later..

I understand that the VRAM does not stack. Are you saying that the 700 series will not be able to access DX12 features? Or are you saying that the 3gb of VRAM will not be enough to utilize these fully?

I'm willing to drop the 300 now, and if I were to sell my current card, I'd have around 500. Then it's still another 200 minimum to get some good non-reference 970s. It would be nice to have those in SLI, but probably a little more than I want to spend ATM.

The dx 12 part for 700 series is not cleared by nvidia yet hope the previous card support dx 12 .
V ram does matters at higher resolutions so at 4k res the extra vram is good plus gtx 970 is about 15- 20 % better than gtx 780 in performance also consumes less power almost half of gtx 780 better thermal design.
i know the suggestion i am giving you is expensive 2x gtx 970 non reference version will cost you around 700$ if you able to sell the gtx 780 at 200$ or more and you already have 300$ budget then you will have 500$ cash in your hand and after a few months you could add another gtx 970 plus with your current PSU you can easily OC the 2x gtx 970 and your cpu and still left with lots of head room.

I see what you are saying, and I could drop the $700 on the cards if I think it's going to be worth it. They are 4GB VRAM though, shouldn't I probably make the leap from 3GB to something much higher down the road instead of just going to 4?

 

[prit87]

900 series doesn't have more than 4 gb of vram yet.

the card i know have more than 4gb vram are titan 6gb 1k and titan black 12 gb 3k .

 

[prit87]

plus you can look up the eBay list i think you will get more than 200$ for gtx 780 and the new cheapest gtx 780 i searched is 340$ the rest is around 400$.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=gtx+780&_dcat=27386&rt=nc&LH_ItemCondition=4
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=gtx%20780&sprefix=gtx+78%2Caps

 

[azzazel_99]

Nvidia announced in their blog post THEY WILL fully support direct x 12 all the way back to fermi. Also evga has a 6gb 780 so there are other cards with more than 3gb in the Kepler lineup

 

[prit87]

Nvidia announced in their blog post THEY WILL fully support direct x 12 all the way back to fermi. Also evga has a 6gb 780 so there are other cards with more than 3gb in the Kepler lineup

Its good if dx 12 is supported with old cards but i have never seen a 6 gb version of gtx 780 care to send a link pls.

 

[jcbullen]

I found one 780 for 310 after rebate, the amazon one is 320 after rebate. I currently can't upgrade to a 6gb 900 series since they only have 4gb which I don't feel like is enough of an upgrade to warrant buying a newly released card.

It doesn't look like I would be able to get a previously released 6gb card as they are all expensive and sold out.

I feel like my best situation would be to just buy the 780 for 320 from amazon and SLI for a couple years. Once they've released some new GPUs that have 6gb VRAM, then would probably be the time to make the leap to more VRAM.

 

[prit87]

okk as you wish but one think more vram doesn't means more fps in games.

 

[jcbullen]

okk as you wish but one think more vram doesn't means more fps in games.

Well, the way everybody is talking about it, it looks like games will be utilizing more than 3GB somewhat soonish so it would be beneficial to have more than 3GB VRAM. I just think that if I were to get a card with more VRAM, I'd want to go with something higher than 4GB, which isn't really an option at the moment.

 

[sora]

Two 780s would outperform the 980 so I'd say to go for it.

 

[azzazel_99]

http://www.evga.com/articles/00830/

http://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=06g-p4-3787-kr

http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/09/19/maxwell-and-dx12-delivered/


Like i said 6gb 780's AND direct X 12 supported as far back as fermi...fully supported that is.