PC Gaming Hardware discussion. Rigs, Upgrades, pics, and news.
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On paper, sure. and in a few games it shows, but the 2 cards mostly give same performance where the difference is 3-4 FPS.
Anything below a R9 280 I wouldn't even consider for 1080p gaming, anything below a 660 Ti I wouldn't consider for 1080p gaming on the nvidia side. There are 3 games there that the difference is 10+ fps in favor of the 760, some of the other games the 760 has a 3-4 fps advantage. At that point I would much rather go with the 760 just for Nvidias software, Geforce experience, shadowplay, ease of updating/installing drivers, PhysX, nvidia gamesworks all of those IMO outweigh the small benefits of AMD's Mantle.
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So I'm thinking about getting a new case and throwing in another 780, but I don't know if I want to because the heat build up is going to be insane. I already live in a hot as hell state (Tucson, Arizona. It has been 105+ degrees all freaking week).
Decisions, decisions.
Decisions, decisions.
So I'm thinking about getting a new case and throwing in another 780, but I don't know if I want to because the heat build up is going to be insane. I already live in a hot as hell state (Tucson, Arizona. It has been 105+ degrees all freaking week).
Decisions, decisions.
If you're going to go SLI 780's it's usually best to have the stock cooler one's so it blows the heat out of the back of the case. When I had SLI 770's they have the ACX coolers that dumped the heat back into the case and it heat up everything pretty significantly, and that was with a 200mm and 140mm exhaust fans running at full speed. I had 4x120mm fans and a 200mm fan intaking cool air and the 4x120mm fan setup was blowing right on the cards. Top card ran at about 70-75C and the bottom ran at like 60-65C and that was with a custom fan curve on the cards, too. I will never go SLI again, too many quirky issues, but micro stutter was not one of them. Just my take on my SLI experience.
So I'm thinking about getting a new case and throwing in another 780, but I don't know if I want to because the heat build up is going to be insane. I already live in a hot as hell state (Tucson, Arizona. It has been 105+ degrees all freaking week).
Decisions, decisions.
have you considered water cooling ?
Remember with water cooling that the ambient temperature still affects temps alot, the only thing water is better at is absorbing the heat and bringing it away from the water blocks to the rads to be cooled by the fans, but if I was going to do SLI again I would def water cool the cards.
Oh to be sure, but it is much more efficient. With those sort of ambient temperatures and a possible high power SLI set up, you want as much as you get. I have used a water set up though. Thinking of poppin my cherry when I upgrade my entire rig.
Yea I have a water set up now, and as it has gotten warmer even with AC on I have seen my temps rise about 5-10C on average.
I thought micro stutter with SLI is pretty much unavoidable?
You're always going to have it simply because of the nature of SLI; two cards rendering different frames each second.
Yeah.....see even with the AC on down here the ambient is higher as you said.
I really hope the 800 series is a dramatic improvement.
I think I'll just hold out for now until I hear more about those cards.
I should reword my statement, I didn't experience any noticeable micro stuttering, and that is something that I notice right away.
From what I can tell, it tends to happen more with AMD cards. Or at least it tends to get noticed more from AMD users.
Yea, that's because the frame pacing has been worked on much more, and is more refined w/ Nvidia as they pretty much invented dual card rendering.
That used to be the case but now AMD has frame pacing on par or better than nvidia. The r9 290 series even has dedicated hardware for frame pacing.
"Those times have changed, at least on the new Radeon R9 290/X series. The new CrossFire technology has improved upon the CrossFire experience in a vastly positive way. Playing games on the Radeon R9 290X CrossFire configuration was a smooth experience. In fact, it was smoother than SLI in some games. It was also smoother on the 4K display at 3840x2160 gaming, and it was noticeably smoother in Eyefinity at 5760x1200."
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013...290x_crossfire_video_card_review#.U5u8CfldWL0
"Then again, over time things like micro-stuttering is slowly becoming a thing of the past. On that note the latest frame-pacing drivers definitely seem to work nicely. And if you get a 290/290X then the new XDMA Crossfire interface eliminates this in Ultra HD as well. That's a win-win."
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/radeon_r9_290_crossfire_review_benchmarks,23.html
Forgive my ignorance upfront, i haven't been graphic card/PC updating since about 2010/2011, so i am rusty in this area. My situation is the following- i have a desktop i have gamed on for a few years now and was thinking of upgrading this one rather than buying a new one, since i started playing the PC much more this past year. I am not seeking to have the ultimate gaming PC, but i do want one that is capable of playing games like Skyrim with quite a bit of texture mods. Generally, i can still play games like Tomb Raider/NBA, etc on high settings but the fore-mentioned Skyrim is struggling in some areas with the additional mods.
Specs i have-
OS- Windows 7, 64 bit
Processor- i3-550. 3.20 GHz
GPU- Geforce GTX 465, 1024MB
Ram - 8 GB DDR3
MOBO- Biostar TP55. http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=443#cpu
Prefer using a 1920 x 1080p display
My questions are the following:
1) Is the most bang for my buck upgrading the GPU to say the R9 270X 2GB? Would this card bottleneck with the current CPU?
2) Would upgrading the CPU to say a i5 or i7 be a better idea?
3) Am I better off just buying a new PC than milk a few more years out of upgrading this one? The motherboard i think limits me a making a larger jump with the GPU.
Thanks in Advance
Specs i have-
OS- Windows 7, 64 bit
Processor- i3-550. 3.20 GHz
GPU- Geforce GTX 465, 1024MB
Ram - 8 GB DDR3
MOBO- Biostar TP55. http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=443#cpu
Prefer using a 1920 x 1080p display
My questions are the following:
1) Is the most bang for my buck upgrading the GPU to say the R9 270X 2GB? Would this card bottleneck with the current CPU?
2) Would upgrading the CPU to say a i5 or i7 be a better idea?
3) Am I better off just buying a new PC than milk a few more years out of upgrading this one? The motherboard i think limits me a making a larger jump with the GPU.
Thanks in Advance
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Quoted for truth. I had SLi 780ti's with the ACX coolers. Bottom card ran at 60-70C. Top one hit 83C at full load with fans at 80%. Part of the problem was my motherboard, which had the cards literally sitting on top of one another. No amount of airflow can fix that. I'd try it again in the future with a better designed MB.
So Micro-Stuttering is the term for what I'm sometimes experiencing on the AMD R9 280X Crossfire eh (Flickering of polygon shapes while playing a game)?
Also having an annoying issue with the Official AMD drivers causing my secondary card usage is always max out when nothing is playing in the background which ends up freezing my comp after a certain period of time in which I have to turn off Crossfire, but it never does this with the beta drivers.
Very weird.
Also having an annoying issue with the Official AMD drivers causing my secondary card usage is always max out when nothing is playing in the background which ends up freezing my comp after a certain period of time in which I have to turn off Crossfire, but it never does this with the beta drivers.
Very weird.
I will answer all three questions with one simple answer: You need a complete overhaul.
Let's go ahead with each of the questions:
1) Fermi cards are outdated, so they need to be upgraded. Problem is, you are using a dual-core i3 from the first generation, which leads to...
2) You need to upgrade to either i5 or i7. Whatever GPU you would upgrade, there's going to be a bottleneck. i3 is not gaming-worthy anymore, if you are serious about it and wants to run something else than League of Legends.
3) So yes. Buy a new PC. You can go with the most recent Haswell chips, or you might want to wait a little bit for Broadwell, though I suspect there isn't going to be a huge performance upgrade from Haswell to Broadwell. Though, coming from Lynnfield, either choice would be a huge upgrade.
Micro-stutter is a brief second in the rendering of a frame where it pauses. It is very brief but noticeable, and it is a thing that has plagued SLI/Crossfire setups for years. One of the downsides to having a multi card setup. Though in recent years it has lessened to a degree.
What is your temperature like ? A lot of folks who get flickering of graphics often find there GPU/CPU is getting too hot.
^^ That was actually what I was going to ask next menace.
Artifacts/strange graphical anomalies usually happen when the GPU is getting too hot and or failing.
Artifacts/strange graphical anomalies usually happen when the GPU is getting too hot and or failing.
Tried something new. Added another 780ti and bought a 28 inch 4K (3,840x2,160). Have to admit. I wasn't as impressed as I thought I'd be. I guess I fell in love with my 30 inch dell monitor (2560 x 1600) cause I ended up sending the 4K one back.
I think screen size would be too small for 4K.
If you do not mind me asking, how much was that 4k monitor ?
Ahh, yes. I read reviews on that thing and they did not sound very good as far as image quality went. Plus it has a TN panel for horrible viewing angles. Considering your love for your Dell monitor I am surprised you did not go for their 32 inch 4K option. Uniformity aside, it sounds like a good bang for buck option.
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