Upgrade to second GTX 690 or buy two GTX 780 ti?

[dvs2]

Hi there,

I am upgrading my PC and I am stuck with a decision regarding my graphics card. I currently have one GTX 690 and wanted to get a second one. However, after a few hours of research I am now interested in getting two 780ti's instead. Adding a second 690 is a cheaper saving me about £200.

My main concern is if the extra cost is worth the performance as most benchmarks seem to indicate that they are pretty much similar. Secondly, I'm not convinced on Quad SLI - does anyone have any bad experiences with that?

Any advice would be much appreciated!

 

[AMDRadeonHD]

I would NEVER go above 2 GPU's, 780 Ti SLI is a much better choice, since most of the games are not 3 and 4 way SLI optimized.

 

[AMDRadeonHD]

Also, if you decide to go with the second 690, what's your power supply, motherboard and CPU? It's important to have atleast 1 PCI-E x16 and 1 PCI-E x8 slot and a good CPU that will hold those beasts, Intel Core i5-3570K MINIMUM.

 

[dvs2]

Hey, thanks for the prompt response. I have a maximus V with a 3770k cpu and a AX1200i PSU. I think my motherboard manual suggests that I plug the cards in the first 16x slot and the third 8x slot.

That was my concern as well. Do you have any benchmarks that support that? I cant seem to find 690 Sli vs 780 ti sli benchmarks...

 

[Eggz]

Think about it. If a single GPU is as fast as the two in your system, and games don't take full advantage of more than one GPU, then you're better off with the single GPU. Also, since games that use SLI do so reliably up to only 2 GPUs, you are currently at your max SLI configuration. Getting a single 780 ti gives you the same performance but with room for growth in terms of SLI.

To me the 780 ti seems like a no-brainier. Even if you get another 690 for 200 less, you'll still pay 400 - 500 for little to no performance increase, and be left with no room for growth in terms of SLI.

 

[AMDRadeonHD]

Think about it. If a single GPU is as fast as the two in your system, and games don't take full advantage of more than one GPU, then you're better off with the single GPU. Also, since games that use SLI do so reliably up to only 2 GPUs, you are currently at your max SLI configuration. Getting a single 780 ti gives you the same performance but with room for growth in terms of SLI.

To me the 780 ti seems like a no-brainier. Even if you get another 690 for 200 less, you'll still pay 400 - 500 for little to no performance increase, and be left with no room for growth in terms of SLI.

Exactly!

 

[dvs2]

Thank you for the answers, it makes more sense and you guys just confirmed my concerns I had for having two 690's. I might as well pay a little extra now to avoid problems/lack of expansion in the future.