Upgrading form 2 cards to 1.. And Lowering Case Temperature

[waKeExe]

My computer runs really hot with two cards. I am currently running two EVGA Geforce GTX560 Ti's in SLI and am looking to go to upgrade to a single video card but I have a few questions. I am looking to buy an EVGA Geforce GTX 960 based mostly on the value price wise with the possibility of adding a second one later. How much more performance if any will I be getting with the single card? or should I just bump up to the 970 for $80 more? Would either of those be a significant upgrade and lower the temp at all? Also would the 960 be a good card for SLI as well? Would those 2 cards run hotter than my current two cards? Might want to SLI again later because I am running 3 Asus 144hz Gaming monitors in Surround at 144hz and I dont think I can do that with 1 card. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Thank You

Current Setup
Asus P6X58-E Pro
Intel Core i7 970 @3.20GHz Asetek 550LC Liquid CPU Cooler
2x EVGA Geforce GTX560 Ti [SLI]
16GB [4x4GB] Corsair Vengence DDR3 1600 RAM
2x SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series 128GB RAID 0
2x 3TB Seagate Barracude 7200rpm 64mb Cache
Corsair 850W Power Supply
Windows 7 Premium Home Edition

 

[Sergeant_Sneaky]

The 970 would be an upgrade on its own but with SLI scaling you can get a whole range of performances in different games depending on it's SLI compatibility.
Having a single card would decrease the amount of heat being pushed into your case.
Both the 960 and 970 work for SLI but the GTX 960 only has 2GB VRAM which can bottleneck 2 960s in some games.
The GTX 970 only really has 3.5GB of usuable VRAM though, once your usage goes past 3.5GB stuttering can occur.

 

[waKeExe]

OK, so Im gonna have to pay a little more to get a perfromance upgrade and go with the 970. Quick question tho when would usage go past 3.5 GB? Is that something you can control or something that needs to be monitored? And if I go with the 970 would there be any power issues with my 850w PS? And what about for two 970's?

 

[Sergeant_Sneaky]

OK, so Im gonna have to pay a little more to get a perfromance upgrade and go with the 970. Quick question tho when would usage go past 3.5 GB? Is that something you can control or something that needs to be monitored? And if I go with the 970 would there be any power issues with my 850w PS? And what about for two 970's?

Good choice
The usage will go past 3.5GB while using higher resolutions, like 1440p or at lower resolutions with Ultra textures and/or 4x/8x MSAA. It's quite rare and I only saw it in Call of Duty: Ghosts and GTA 5 at pretty much the highest settings.
Going over 3.5GB VRAM usage will just cause your game to stutter and you will get FPS drops, it's still better than having a 2GB card though, even if it is annoying.

 

[waKeExe]

Hey Sergeant_Sneaky I have 1 more question, I saw they had a 2 different 4GB versions of the 960 on Amazon, about $100 dollars less than the 970, Im not trying to cheapout but would one of those still be an upgrade as a single card and might those work in SLI better than a 2GB version?

 

[Sergeant_Sneaky]

Hey Sergeant_Sneaky I have 1 more question, I saw they had a 2 different 4GB versions of the 960 on Amazon, about $100 dollars less than the 970, Im not trying to cheapout but would one of those still be an upgrade as a single card and might those work in SLI better than a 2GB version?

I can't find much about 560ti sli vs gtx 960 but 2 4GB 960's in SLI will beat a 3.5GB 970 by a fair emount.
4GB cards for SLI would be ideal yes, otherwise the 2GB VRAM will bottleneck the SLI setup.