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780 x 2 possible with this PC?

deth502

deth502

deth502

Associate
Joined
7 Nov 2013
Posts
6
Hey

I recently upgraded and purchased an Asus pb278q 27" monitor along with a Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 WindForce and things have been running fine but was thinking about trying out SLI for the best performance at 2560x1440.

My problem is that I have no idea how much power my current set up is using and whether it could handle a 2nd card.

Specs:
i7 920 @ 3.8ghz
12gb 1600mhz
1 x SSD
1 x SSHD
2 x HD
Corsair RM 750 '80+ Gold' 750W PSU

Any ideas if this build can handle a 2nd 780?

Thanks :)
 
hmm would that be due to the CPU? Perhaps its not worth spending £400 for now if I wont get the most out of it. Cheers for replying :)
 
You will deffo be CPU bottlenecked. For one card, it should be fine but for 2, you would need a beefier CPU, which means a new mobo :(
 
Bah! ok cool thanks for the replies, time to look for a new CPU and Mobo then! Or perhaps trade my 780 for a 780ti? that may be the cheaper option
 
Last edited:
The performance increase over the 780 isnt massive in most situations.

It would come down to the cost to change from a 780 to a ti.

Also comes down to what you are playing and if its worth just sticking with the 780 on its own and looking at upgrading the rest of the system.
 
Hey fellas,

So after some thinking and convincing the missus that an upgrade is essential! I was wondering if the following upgrade would work:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-005-OG
ReAct MSI Z87 SLI - Intel Core i5 4670K @ 4.3GHz Configurable Pro Gaming Bundle

I would be buying a 2nd 780 to run SLI but am so out of touch with cpu's and mobos I was hoping I could get some help with this.

Is there any benefit to getting the i7 over the i5 for gaming / SLI
Which Ram is better? 1600 vs 2133 and are Teamgroup Vulcan any good?
Does the mobo come with the sli cable / bridge? (The 780 I have doesn't seem to come with one).

Money is not an issue I just want to get the best setup for 1440 gaming so I am hoping the above bundle specced correctly will run 2 cards great. Or if anyone has any other recommendations that would also be great :)

Thanks for all the help!
 
More knowledgeable users will steer you right,, But i doubt the i5 will be significantly better then your current i7 for a 400 quid investment .
If you want sli go for a 4770k imo
 
triss said:
More knowledgeable users will steer you right,, But i doubt the i5 will be significantly better then your current i7 for a 400 quid investment .
If you want sli go for a 4770k imo
Click to expand...

Yep definitely i7 over i5 if you're going 780 SLI.
 
So you're just really really bored and want to buy a new graphics card....now you're going to buy a whole new system? You probably won't even notice that big of a difference?
Save your money for the next big thing, " keep waiting for the next big thing and you'll never buy anything BS " Save your money and when the next flagship card comes out, buy it. Spend some of the money you have now on treating your wife lol
 
deth502 said:
Hey fellas,

So after some thinking and convincing the missus that an upgrade is essential! I was wondering if the following upgrade would work:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-005-OG
ReAct MSI Z87 SLI - Intel Core i5 4670K @ 4.3GHz Configurable Pro Gaming Bundle

I would be buying a 2nd 780 to run SLI but am so out of touch with cpu's and mobos I was hoping I could get some help with this.

Is there any benefit to getting the i7 over the i5 for gaming / SLI
Which Ram is better? 1600 vs 2133 and are Teamgroup Vulcan any good?
Does the mobo come with the sli cable / bridge? (The 780 I have doesn't seem to come with one).

Money is not an issue I just want to get the best setup for 1440 gaming so I am hoping the above bundle specced correctly will run 2 cards great. Or if anyone has any other recommendations that would also be great :)

Thanks for all the help!
Click to expand...

I understand your itch to upgrade (I am the worlds worst) but if you are going to do that. Change that CPU for a 4770K bud. It is the sensible choice for the long run and will allow a pair of 780's to run without being bottlenecked.

My thoughts anyway :)
 
Reality|Bites said:
So you're just really really bored and want to buy a new graphics card....now you're going to buy a whole new system? You probably won't even notice that big of a difference?
Save your money for the next big thing, " keep waiting for the next big thing and you'll never buy anything BS " Save your money and when the next flagship card comes out, buy it. Spend some of the money you have now on treating your wife lol
Click to expand...

Haha ye well I treat her well enough to be able to treat myself once in a while!

Its not that I am really bored, its just I am running 2 x 27" screens now and i am noticing it struggling a bit at that resolution (most recently playing Titanfall) so figured I would get a 2nd 780 as the performance increase seems to be worth it for gaming at 2560x1440.

I also have an older CPU that would cause bottleneck the GPU's plus I am running SSD's and my mobo doesn't support SATA3 or usb3 so it seemed like a good time to upgrade as long as the bundle linked was good enough.

Cheers Gregster, sounds like i7 is the right choice :)
 
just been reading this thread.. when you talk about a bottleneck what does it actually mean? a small % of the gpu not being used? surly if its within 1-5% its not a problem, im guessing part of it is fir benchmarking? to be able to say everything is running at 100% ?
 
n00b_monkey said:
just been reading this thread.. when you talk about a bottleneck what does it actually mean? a small % of the gpu not being used? surly if its within 1-5% its not a problem, im guessing part of it is fir benchmarking? to be able to say everything is running at 100% ?
Click to expand...

An example to use would be BF3 for me. I had a pair of 680's running on a 4.6Ghz 2500K but the second GPU would only reach 70% usage. I upgraded to a 3930K and at 4.6, both GPU's were running at 99% and frames had improved a good chunk (not sure how much but wished I had done some comparisons).

Newer games like BF4/Hitman are heavily CPU dependant and will cripple performance by a fair chunk because of the bottleneck.
 
n00b_monkey said:
could you not just heavily OC the CPU? im running an I5 and it seems perfect for gaming as long as its got a good OC on it.
Click to expand...

The more you overclock the CPU, the less the bottleneck would be however, not all CPU's are good clockers and my 2500K would not budge from 4.6Ghz regardless, whereas my 3930K has no problems running at 5.1Ghz but you are correct.

To clarify, what is your CPU speed and what GPU's are you running?
 
84926041df3e17d1bfd3890d3cea40b0.jpg


That is an example of a bottlenecked CPU and its effects.
 
im running an ivy at 4.5 and an r9 290 oc'd. i intend to put a second in soon.....
I hear what you are saying about how good the chip is... i guess there reaches a point where you will not go any further and from then on you are loosing performance on the GPU.
looking at the chart it makes quite a difference!
 
I dont get why everyone says bottleneck with 2 cards, theres only a bottleneck if looking for more than 60fps yet no one mentions that to people.
 
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