Add another Asus 660 Ti, or swap for a 770?

[RyuuzakiMasato7]

Hi folks, need some advice - considering options for a GPU upgrade later in the year/early next year, and I'm torn. Current specs:

CPU - i5-3570K with stock cooler
GPU - Asus GTX 660 Ti DirectCU II
RAM - 8 GB Corsair Vengeance
Mobo - MSI Z77A-G45 Gaming Edition
2 TB HDD
Asus 24" LED HD monitor

Now, I'm considering two options right now. First is to add another identical graphics card to run them in SLI - my other option is to sell my current one, to part fund an upgrade to a single GTX 770. I've been looking for comparisons or identical benchmark tests etc with no luck, what do you guys recommend?

 

[RyuuzakiMasato7]

Heres a review on 2 and 3 way sli. Buy another 660ti if your using a single monitor and less than 4k res.

Be warned that due to the limited bandwidth and 2gb vram you wont be able to run multiscreen high res games with full msa and highest settings in games like BF3, Crysis 3 BF4 and Rome 2 etc... (Brother had 3 in sli and would crash out in bf3 when ultra was applied in surround (3 screens). Which games do you play?

If you use 1 monitor at 1920x1200 you will fine imo..

Look at how msa and higher resolution kills performance in terms of FPS..........

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/geforce-gtx-660-ti-sli.html

Thanks for that, helpful article! Dual 660 Ti is looking better now then - I am indeed using a single, 1080p monitor, I don't plan on upgrading to 1600p or anything for a good while yet... From other benchmarks I've found, Crysis 3 for example, SLI seems about equal to 770 single, equal or better. In that regard, might I be better off going the slightly cheaper route of a new 770 now after selling my 660 Ti, so I can upgrade with ANOTHER 770 further down the line once I get promoted?

 

[RyuuzakiMasato7]

I don't particularly plan on going multi monitor tbh, so 4GB, doesn't seem worth the extra in that regard. I guess half of my dilemma is trying to predict which will be better when I get around to the upgrade - which will be around the time of, or a couple months after, the launch of next gen consoles and the games that come with them. Stuff like AC4, Watch_Dogs, that kind of thing. I'm pretty sure I'm wanting to upgrade to either or at the time, it's just figuring out the best route. I have a 1080 LED monitor at 60hz, I'm perfectly happy with it, no enormous desire to go higher than 60fps or upgrade my monitor to allow for it. Thoughts?

 

[RyuuzakiMasato7]

yeh there is that article out there about 'future proofing your PC for next gen consoles'.

the new consoles have 8gb of ram shared between CPU and GPU, which I think is kinda cool.

It will probably be months years but they speculated that when we see better ports from the consoles over to PC (they should be better this time...) we will need as much V-ram as we can get our hands on.

I don't think its entirely unreasonable therefore to get a 4gb card, depending on when your next upgrade cycle is.

ah found it, an interesting read:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-future-proofing-your-pc-for-next-gen

Thanks for that, really is an interesting article! Several good points, tbh I'd missed the part about 8 GB unified memory, very interesting.

I think I've decided to stick with 660 Ti in SLI. I can see just the one doing pretty damn well with next gen games once they start hitting, adding another seems the better choice. Plus, this time NEXT year I should be in a considerably better job, so I can maybe think about selling two cards to fund a nice, pretty, 780... I do have one question regarding SLI though - does the second card have to be identical? If not, is it more beneficial to add an identical card or does it not matter as much? And if so, do you recommend anything besides my Asus DCU2 card?

Guys, thank you so much for all your input, it's much appreciated. I think I'm gonna like it here.

 

[RyuuzakiMasato7]

It should be the same chip and have the same amount or vram. So if your getting a 660ti 2gb it would be best for it to be the same gpu with 2gb

Cheers! From a brief search the OC edition of my current card seems about the cheapest, so it'll likely be that. It's a while off yet though.