Worth selling 680 2GB and buying 680 4GB?

[hthorntonp7]

Hey guys. I currently have a 680 2GB EVGA card (Superclocked edition) and was thinking about buying two more monitors for a tri-monitor setup. I want to be able to play BF3 on max settings on all three monitors (5760x1200). Can two 680 2GB cards handle this, or should I sell my 2GB card and buy two 4GB cards?

 

[xl2aNd0m]

Best to wait a little bit more the 700 series shouldn't be too far off 780s will fair better.

 

[mojin7]

If money isnt that big of a deal then go for it bud. I mean you can ALWAYS wait for then next big thing no matter how long you wait. I just made this exact move and love my 4gb cards! Just my view though. Good luck either way

 

[hthorntonp7]

Ooh haven't thought about waiting for the 780s. Does anyone know an approximate release date?

 

[Au_equus]

Amd, maybe nvidia, will release their next gen cards q4 this year.

 

[hthorntonp7]

Alright, seems like I'll wait it out and stick with one monitor for now and then grab two 780 4GBs when they hit the market. Thanks for the help!

 

[CaptainTom]

Hey guys. I currently have a 680 2GB EVGA card (Superclocked edition) and was thinking about buying two more monitors for a tri-monitor setup. I want to be able to play BF3 on max settings on all three monitors (5760x1200). Can two 680 2GB cards handle this, or should I sell my 2GB card and buy two 4GB cards?

NEVER get the 4GB 680/70 for anything! It is not able to handle that much RAM with a 256 bus. If you are gonna triple monitor game, 7970 GHz CF is exactly what you are looking for. There really isn't any other option besides overpriced Titans.

 

[hthorntonp7]

So if I went with the 7970s, is 3GB enough for future games, or would the 6GB be better? I don't want to have to replace these cards in a year or two.

 

[rwayne]

No, I would not sell it.

The depreciation loss on your current card vs. the marginal gain is not worth it at all.

You got an awesome piece of hardware. I would hold on to it and enjoy gaming.

 

[timil]

680 4GB will be better but don't buy now... Wait for 780

 

[hthorntonp7]

Alright, if I held onto it and possibly bought another for SLI, would it be able to run BF3 at Ultra on three monitors?? With good fps (around 55-60)?

 

[CaptainTom]

So if I went with the 7970s, is 3GB enough for future games, or would the 6GB be better? I don't want to have to replace these cards in a year or two.

3GB is enough. The most I could use was 2.2 GB in Far Cry 3 with crazy high AA on. FYI I still had 30+ FPS...

However the 7970 GHz Toxic does have 6GB and it IS the strongest single GPU card made. It would be worth it for triple 1920x1200 IF you got two of them. Buy them before they are sold out!

 

[hthorntonp7]

I can't seem to find the toxic in stock anywhere, but how's the vapor-x? And if I stuck with my 680 will its VRAM be enough for BF3 on Ultra on tri-monitor?

 

[CaptainTom]

Alright, if I held onto it and possibly bought another for SLI, would it be able to run BF3 at Ultra on three monitors?? With good fps (around 55-60)?

I kinda doubt it. I usually use 1.5GB of VRAM online with one 1080p monitor. Three of those would kill your framerate on 2GB. Again, 7970 GHz/Toxic CF is your ONLY option.

 

[CaptainTom]

I can't seem to find the toxic in stock anywhere, but how's the vapor-x? And if I stuck with my 680 will its VRAM be enough for BF3 on Ultra on tri-monitor?

Here you go!

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=7970%20GHz%20toxic

And it comes with Crysis 3 and Bioshock Infinite!

 

[hthorntonp7]

Alright thanks for the help. I can't find anywhere that has the Toxic in stock, do you know of anywhere? I also found the Vapor-X (also 6GB)- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202005 -would it be similar enough to the Toxic?

 

[CaptainTom]

Alright thanks for the help. I can't find anywhere that has the Toxic in stock, do you know of anywhere? I also found the Vapor-X (also 6GB)- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202005 -would it be similar enough to the Toxic?

Oh that is the same thing! Sorry for the confusion...

 

[hthorntonp7]

Oh so the Vapor-X is just another name for the Toxic?

 

[CaptainTom]

Oh so the Vapor-X is just another name for the Toxic?

I think the Toxic was just a special edition version that came with an auto-overclock feature that boosts it to 1200/1600 with a button. However you can easily manually overclock the Vapor-x to much higher with Trixx.

 

[seriousgamer]

I'm not a pro at GPUs or anything but I found this on newegg, it has 6gb of ram I dont know if it'll do you any good or not but check it out

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131483&Tpk=7990

 

[blazorthon]

There is no reason to go for the 6GB models unless you're doing something crazy like triple 2560x1440/2560x1600. 3GB is enough for every situation around 5760x1080 and below for current games and the next several years for the amount of performance that you can get with 7970s.

 

[blazorthon]

I'm not a pro at GPUs or anything but I found this on newegg, it has 6gb of ram I dont know if it'll do you any good or not but check it out

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131483&Tpk=7990

Dual-GPU cards don't share memory despite the name implying that they do. That's two Radeon 7970 3GB cards in Crossfire on a single card and they don't share memory.

 

[CaptainTom]

There is no reason to go for the 6GB models unless you're doing something crazy like triple 2560x1440/2560x1600. 3GB is enough for every situation around 5760x1080 and below for current games and the next several years for the amount of performance that you can get with 7970s.

Well triple 1200p is slightly above 1080p. I feel two 7970 GHz could use that much ram within a year easily. If there was ever a reason for them, this is it. Though two 3GB vapor-X's would really be way more economical...

 

[blazorthon]

Triple 1200p won't make much difference over triple 1080p. Also, it'll take at least three 7970s for 3GB to even be possibly a barrier. It takes two to three 670s for 2GB to have a few rare issues even with their weaker memory bndwidth and AMD also has better memory handling and some lossless compression going on, so I don't see you running out of memory with the 3GB models in any reasonable situation even several years from now. They'd run out of GPU performance before that point. The 6GB models are extremely difficult to really stress to the point where they best 3GB models without running out of performance.

 

[mightymaxio]

I wouldn't wait for the GTX 700 series like a poster said previously in the thread. Both Nvidia and AMD are delaying the new cards until early 2014 for general availability. Unless you want to wait a whole year I would not recommend waiting.