best dual gpu setup for your buck?

[Nythion]

I was wondering what the best GPU setup for your buck currently was.

I found the "Best GPU'S for your buck" on your site to be extremely unhelpful as you didn't include multi GPU comparisons and most of the top 10 cards on your list suck and are for the extremely poor 16 year olds or casual gamer I am neither.

I'm looking for a GPU setup within the $1,000 range and I've been thinking of the following two setups but am open to suggestions.

2x Ati Radeon 7970 ghz editions
or
1x Geforce GTX Titan

I was wondering if there was much of an increased difference (if any) between 7970 Ghz Edition CF and a single GTX Titan. Obviously two titans would be the best of the best setup but I don't want to spend over 2 grand on a GPU setup.

A simple google search wasn't of much help with this question. I did find a bench on amdandtech but I didn't know how accurate it was as it uses 10 year old games and says that 7970 ghz edition CF was considerably better. I think that they would be close or a little better. If there isn't much of a difference I'd rather pay $200-$300 less as you can get 2 ghz editions for $800-$850 vs the titan which is $1,000-$1,100.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

With the recent price drop, you can likely get two 7970GHz for under 700 bucks, possibly closer to 600.

[Toffie]

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/N...an_SLI/22.html

Get 2x770 which should cost you 800 $ imo.

[a21fa7c67f26f6d49a20c2c51]

A quick bit of googling shows that 2x7970 is probably a better choice than 1xTitan.
However, frame rate isn't everything: 60 FPS is awesome until you're getting that in chunks of 120 FPS during the first half second and then no frames for the second half. The latency between frames is important and on that end Titan is a much better choice. You can expect a lower average frame rate but possibly smoother game play. That's something you'll have to work out for yourself: it's difficult to quantify and personal experience will vary. Some people aren't annoyed by microstutter, just as some people don't seem to mind tearing.

You are also talking about spending ~$800 (and getting some games) vs ~$1000 and getting some recording software (eventually, one day) and possibly needing to upgrade other components (2x7970 is a large power draw and they're hot so you might need to improve your case to get optimal performance).

2xTitan is impossible to fit into your budget but 2x GTX780 offers performance ±5% of SLI Titan (depending on if we're comparing stock speeds vs overclocks and non-reference cooling system+ alternative bios). At roughly $1300 it's not too far out of your budget and offers substantially higher performance than 2x7970ghz. If you can't stretch that far, SLI 770s should also offer a small over on 2x7970 and have pretty comparable pricing (~$400 a piece).

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

A quick bit of googling shows that 2x7970 is probably a better choice than 1xTitan.
However, frame rate isn't everything: 60 FPS is awesome until you're getting that in chunks of 120 FPS during the first half second and then no frames for the second half. The latency between frames is important and on that end Titan is a much better choice. You can expect a lower average frame rate but possibly smoother game play. That's something you'll have to work out for yourself: it's difficult to quantify and personal experience will vary. Some people aren't annoyed by microstutter, just as some people don't seem to mind tearing.

A different quick bit of googling shows that AMD intend to release a fix for micro-stutter/frame-latency at the end of July

[Deleted]

Where is this "Best GPUs for you buck" list?? Cant find it under the stickies....

Anyway, best would probably be SLI 770s at the moment. And those will fit your budget.

[Deleted]

Not really sure what this "Best GPU'S for your buck" is either...

More importantly at what resolution and which monitor setup are you playing at/with?

GTX 780 is basically a $650 Titan or as I like to call it "7itan".

[yurano]

A different quick bit of googling shows that AMD intend to release a fix for micro-stutter/frame-latency at the end of July

Doesn't necessarily mean it will bring AMD up to Nvidia's level.

Plus, new drivers are frequently problematic. Wouldn't get my hopes up just yet.

[Deleted]

Doesn't necessarily mean it will bring AMD up to Nvidia's level.

Its been a while since i checked it, and I dont have the time right now. But, last I checked the scaling on AMD cards was generally speaking better as was the fps. So if they fix the stuttering, it could be better than Nvidia.

But I want to see the results first

[vesseblah]

A different quick bit of googling shows that AMD intend to release a fix for micro-stutter/frame-latency at the end of July

They've released all kinds of beta drivers all year, but no sign of real fix yet. Maybe the end of july release does it, maybe not.

[Deleted]

They've released all kinds of beta drivers all year, but no sign of real fix yet. Maybe the end of july release does it, maybe not.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphic...ototype-Driver

That one should be released I think. Or something similar.

[Cyanotical]

A different quick bit of googling shows that AMD intend to release a fix for micro-stutter/frame-latency at the end of July

while i welcome this, it doesn't solve the many other issues with crossfire


the simple thing is if you plan on gaming and want multi gpus get nvidia, end of story

if you are using openCL, or are into benchmarking, crossfire is not bad, but it's atrocious for gaming, i have multiple friends to went the crossfire route and now will never touch an AMD GPU again, there are more than just framerating issues

that being said, the best multi GPU setup for your money is usually tri x60 series cards, i haven't seen any of the reviews on the 760 yet, but i imagine it will run pretty close to the 660ti, and 3x for $750 makes it hands down the best performance per dollar for multi GPUs

dual 770s is not bad either, and a 690 is still close to the top end of performance, but the 690 is probably going to provide the best multi gpu gaming experience

[Deleted]

I guess we'll see when OP return but like I mentioned earlier maybe SLI isn't even needed? It's possible a single 780 is more than enough, again depending on resolution and monitor setup.

[Deleted]

I guess we'll see when OP return but like I mentioned earlier maybe SLI isn't even needed? It's possible a single 780 is more than enough, again depending on resolution and monitor setup.

For 1080p/60 Hz a single 770/7970 is more than enough. You could get away with a 760/7950/7870 xt, I think.

If you go higher (1440p/1600p, 1080p/120Hz/eyefinity/Nvidia Surround), than SLI will become a much more viable option to consider. Altho, at 1440p I have had zero issues with my 7970 so far. But for people who crave 60 fps all the time, SLI is probably the better option.

[Deleted]

Yeah I know that's I'm curious. For 1440p/1600p I'd argue the 780 is the best card (both price and performance considered).

[Nythion]

sorry for the late reply I was busy for most of the day yesterday. I'll answer everyone's questions/comments.




"You can probably get 7970 ghz editions for $600-$700 now with the recent price drop"

Really? I was unable to find any with nextag and they're around $400 each on ebay where are you getting those figures? If I can pickup a set for $600-$650 I don't think there'd be any reason to be looking at a titan or any other combo. That's pretty cheap.


As for what resolution I'm looking for I'm looking for around 2560x1600 which you need CF or SLI for and it would be nice to setup dual monitor. Oh another setup I'd consider (And I don't think it was posted here) would be a gtx 680 SLI since it's around the same price. If that's slighlty better i'd go with that to go away from ATI. I've loved ati throughout my childhood but today I just go with the best of the best.


To those asking what list I was referring to I had copy/pasted the topic from another site I was posting on as I was in a rush (I had to leave within a couple of minutes later)

The List I was refering to is located here:

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_value.html

They only take single video cards into account. No multi gpu's and they till have the GeForce GTX 560 Ti as the best gpu for your buck on a budget. Which I agree with, I however am not on a budget. I want a video card setup for epeen and awesome gaming. I spent $525 on a regular 7970 last year and loved it, still do but I think it's time for an upgrade. And obviously dual titans would be the best setup you can currently buy but yeah, I'm not that rich to be sticking 2 grand into video cards. I'll do half of that if I have to but not the whole amount. If I was going to spend 2k on something I'd grab a Intel Xeon E5-2690 first. CPU speed over video games ftw.

As for the 780 argument I would consider that as well. I'll have to do some more research on that.

[Deleted]

Yeah that website or at least that "benchmark" is so bad and needs to die in a fire

Check out this review on the 780 at 2560x1600

[Deleted]

Yeah I know that's I'm curious. For 1440p/1600p I'd argue the 780 is the best card (both price and performance considered).

Im not so sure. When looking at Dutch prices, SLI 770 is about 720-750 euro and the 780 with a custom cooler is 650-700 euro, even more for some models. So SLI 770 is only 50-100 euros more expensive. But the boost in performance is quite big for those extra 100 euros.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages...review,19.html (just look at the big 1600p graph I also wished techpowerup did some SLI reviews, with all the cards they got should be easy enough -.- )

[Deleted]

Im not so sure. When looking at Dutch prices, SLI 770 is about 720-750 euro and the 780 with a custom cooler is 650-700 euro, even more for some models. So SLI 770 is only 50-100 euros more expensive. But the boost in performance is quite big for those extra 100 euros.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages...review,19.html (just look at the big 1600p graph I also wished techpowerup did some SLI reviews, with all the cards they got should be easy enough -.- )

Yes, my comment was about single card not SLI

[Cyanotical]

They only take single video cards into account. No multi gpu's and they till have the GeForce GTX 560 Ti as the best gpu for your buck on a budget. Which I agree with, I however am not on a budget. I want a video card setup for epeen and awesome gaming. I spent $525 on a regular 7970 last year and loved it, still do but I think it's time for an upgrade. And obviously dual titans would be the best setup you can currently buy but yeah, I'm not that rich to be sticking 2 grand into video cards. I'll do half of that if I have to but not the whole amount. If I was going to spend 2k on something I'd grab a Intel Xeon E5-2690 first. CPU speed over video games ftw.

As for the 780 argument I would consider that as well. I'll have to do some more research on that.

4 titans is the best you can get on a single machine

and the E5-2690 is not really a fast CPU