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Help friend with too much moneys GPU upgrade

Drojman

Drojman

Drojman

Associate
Joined
12 Jan 2010
Posts
541
Location
Cornwall
Hi all,

Friend saw my 3440x1440 monitor and decided he had to have one too.

Currently he only has one 760 in his PC. However he said he is willing to splash the cash. He wants all the bells and whistles etc.

He now has his heart set on SLI 980s. The rest of his rig is pretty good, I think a 4930k + 8GB RAM. Don't know his mobo but I think it's something decent.

He claims that the program he uses for his job only works with Nvidia. No idea if it's true or not, but lets say it is. Should he going for 980s? If money isn't an issue for him, should he just go ahead and buy it? The thing is, he's terrified something is coming out soon that will beat the 980s. He'd wait if there was. I have mentioned 970s, but he's a bit extremely bull headed about this.

Any help would be great.
 
Boomstick777 said:
If he's happy to wait a bit longer might make sense to hold out for AMD's response to GTX 980 and Nvidia's GM200.
Click to expand...
This.

Despite the 980 is the current fastest single GPU card, looking beyond the efficiency, from performance standpoint it is still just a glorified last gen level performance card. Would worth holding out and see what true next gen graphic card that AMD and Nvidia would bring.
 
Faster cards are coming, that's the way the world works.
If you need the upgrade now, buy now and don't look back.

If you really want to wait an unspecified time...by all means. Could be in for a fair wait.
 
OP I think you should walk away from this one

The thing is, he's terrified something is coming out soon that will beat the 980s. He'd wait if there was. I have mentioned 970s, but he's a bit extremely bull headed about this.
Click to expand...

As soon as you see this line in any of these type of threads you know you are wasting your time whatever advise you give as there is always something better coming out.

If I was you I would get your friend to join the forum and ask the question himself. The alternative is to find yourself in the middle of a debate that goes round and round in circles.

As to answering the money no object question for the resolution your mate is using the answer is something he won't like or go for -

4 x 8gb 290Xs.
4 x waterblocks and backplates.
3 x 480mm rads.
Pump and res.
A whole pile of custom watercooling accessories.
And a very big case.:D

If your friend must use NVidia change the 290Xs for 980s but these are not quite as fast at very high resolutions.:)
 
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970 SLI now and then replace with big maxwell whenever that comes along
rumours keep fluctuating between a 3-6 month launch or possibly longer, and going with 970's means it will cost him less to upgrade in the long run, 970SLI will be within a few fps difference so nothing he would actually notice in game
 
Drojman said:
Hi all,

Friend saw my 3440x1440 monitor and decided he had to have one too.

Currently he only has one 760 in his PC. However he said he is willing to splash the cash. He wants all the bells and whistles etc.

He now has his heart set on SLI 980s. The rest of his rig is pretty good, I think a 4930k + 8GB RAM. Don't know his mobo but I think it's something decent.

He claims that the program he uses for his job only works with Nvidia. No idea if it's true or not, but lets say it is. Should he going for 980s? If money isn't an issue for him, should he just go ahead and buy it? The thing is, he's terrified something is coming out soon that will beat the 980s. He'd wait if there was. I have mentioned 970s, but he's a bit extremely bull headed about this.

Any help would be great.
Click to expand...


I would let him get on with it...
 
First things first, check exactly what motherboard he has.... Need to make sure its dual or tri-sli compatible!

Also need to check PSU, again, is it going to be butch enough to run the cards he'd like to install. You do kinda need to work out the implications as to what else he'd need.

I understand his need to stick with Nvidia, I've had similar discussions many times with various people about whether Nvidia and Cuda is better than AMD and open-cl for things like video editing applications and in my experience it most definitely is. Yes, AMD does work, but certainly with premiere pro CC in my experience the Nvidia cards just seem to work better.

E-I
 
However he said he is willing to splash the cash. He wants all the bells and whistles etc
Click to expand...
Two MSI GeForce Titan Z should be better then GTX 980's for that res with having more vram

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-253-MS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1966

And they only cost 1k each now.So he can buy x2 of them for the price of what one used to cost ;)

So I would recommend he buys
X2 GeForce Titan Z
X2 EK-FC Titan Z - Acetal+Nickel Water Blocks
Silverstone Strider SST-ST1500 PSU
Plus motherboard that supports SLI plus waterpump/Rads/Res/Large Case
 
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I basically told him that he was never going to get the 'best' for long because there will always be something coming out.

I told him if he definitely needs Nvidia, go for the 980s.

If not and he can find them cheaply (£500ish) then pick up an R9 295x2.

I appreciate the suggestion for the waterblocked 290xs. In an ideal world (if it was my money!) I would do that. However he's not that hardware literate unfortunately and I think the benefits of me doing that for him would not be worth the cost/effort for something he wouldn't even notice.

Or maybe I'll make him buy this:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-156-GI&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1812

Thanks for the help guys. As for the suggestion of him joining the forum...I wouldn't want to inflict that upon you ;).
 
IMO 4gb at that resolution is cutting it fine.

Thus, I would either hunt for a set of Titans or buy 970s, as you'll be replacing them sooner or later and the premium on 980s isn't worth it due to the crap memory bus and lack of VRAM.

970s now, something else later.
 
You reckon 4GBs not enough? I thought so too at first, but 3440x1440 is only about 60% of 4k isn't it? I wouldn't have thought the VRAM ceiling would be hit unless there was a terrible optimised game.
 
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