To SLI 760's or not?

[adamjosiah]

Does anyone have any experience SLI-ing gtx 760s? I purchased a new motherboard and I'm wondering if my next upgrade should be a new graphics card for $400 or a second gtx 760 for $200? What card would I have to buy to beat out two 760's?

I've never SLI'd before, is stuttering a big issue with this configuration?

 

[atheus]

Not sure why you tossed out $400. I would think you'd be looking at a GTX 970 for $300. I personally stay away from SLI for two reasons:

1: you get higher average FPS, but your minimum FPS is often substantially lower than a similar performing single card solution
2: support for SLI is generally pretty good these days, but depending on your interests you may still find games that are either sloppily released or in some sort of perpetual beta state that just never seem to get around to adding support for it fast enough — in which case your great SLI frame rate will be nowhere to be seen.
3: If you pay your own power bills, using a single, powerful card rather than SLI can cut your total system power draw by anywhere from 100-250 watts, depending on the hardware options. That's actually quite a lot of electricity. For someone like myself who has a 3d environment up on my screen for a major part of the day, that kind of electricity represents some serious bucks in the long run.

This is how I count to two.

 

[adamjosiah]

Some very good points atheus, I would definitely be upgrading my psu in order to sli as well. However, $400 is realistic, I live in Canada and that's what gtx 970's are still going for. A 960 would be too weak of an upgrade

 

[renz496]

First your mobo is SLI certified of not? How much can you get for the second 760? Personally i think it is better for you to get better card instead of getting another 760. Also with multi gpu setup always expect troubles.

 

[adamjosiah]

The mobo I ordered is an asus z97e sli / crossfire

I'm not sure how much I could sell the 760 for, maybe $100?

 

[atheus]

It makes a lot of sense to look at used cards in your situation. There will be a lot of people in your situation who will opt to sell their old 760 instead. There are quite a lot on ebay right now for $100-150. The used 970's (often from people upgrading to a 980 Ti or R9 Fury) seem to be $250-290. You will likely want to put the real bucks into a nice video card when Pascal comes out spring/summer next year, which will likely involve a fairly massive jump in performance and value.

 

[adamjosiah]

I can probably live with one 760 until next year, I can still play new games on high settings believe it or not. I'm going to save for the "70" model of the next series of gtx cards. Thanks for the advice