Where to go from 470GTX Sli?

[MeatLoaf]

Personally id stick with the 470s if youre gaming @ 1680x1050 as they will run anything you lioke at pretty much top whack.

However the upgrade itch is pretty strong which is why i went from SLI GTX480 to a single 680.

In terms of performance tho it was a sidegrade and was no faster ( slower in some cases ) than the 480s.

Have ytou thought of getting a new TFT?

 

[oll3h]

Cheers for the input/opinions guisey! Seems the subject of new TFT has been brought up a few times now. Add to that the need to throw more cash at a single card than funds allow, I might be better off looking at a new TFT. Guess I am stuck with these bad boys a bit longer! On the plus side though at least the room my PC is in wont need any heating this year

 

[shuzzbutt]

Cheers for the input/opinions guisey! Seems the subject of new TFT has been brought up a few times now. Add to that the need to throw more cash at a single card than funds allow, I might be better off looking at a new TFT. Guess I am stuck with these bad boys a bit longer! On the plus side though at least the room my PC is in wont need any heating this year

Only reason to upgrade would be if you wanted better minimum fps when running games like arkham city in dx11 maxed with full physx.

Personally I will always prefer a setup that offers me superior minimum fps even if the Max fps isn't as high.

 

[arc@css]

Personally I will always prefer a setup that offers me superior minimum fps even if the Max fps isn't as high.

+1

 

[no_1_dave]

Stick with the 470s.
You will get no benefit from upgrading seeing as 1 470 can handle most games maxed at your resolution.

You only need to upgrade from 470 SLI to a 670/7950 if you are gaming at 1440p or multi monitor. It is a sideways step & you will see zero benefit from it.

 

[Rusty0611]

Utter garbage.

Why can't you recommend a GTX 670 or a GTX 660 Ti?

OP is gaming at 1680 x 1050 the nVidia cards will blitz this resolution and 1080p for that matter.

You can't recommend them because they're over priced compared to their AMD counterparts.

A faster card, of which the 7950 is, will last longer than a slower card such as the 660Ti.

 

[Rroff]

One thing people miss with the 470s - most of them overclock extremely - with no voltage adjustments most will hit 23-25% overclocks no sweat (750-775MHz) and quite a lot do 800MHz (31% OC) with only minor voltage adjustments - above that you start to hit the heat problems fermi was notorious for but those brave enough to upgrade the cooling and stick some voltage through them have hit 900MHz without any premature card failures I know of. So a pair in SLI with a fair overclock put up some pretty good performance even when compared to the current generation setups.

Theres very little worth upgrading to currently from even stock GTX470 SLI unless your playing at 2560x or triple screens where they run out of VRAM.

While I find it incredibly hard to reccomend any of the 6xx cards from nVidia at the current prices anyone ignoring that AMD have a history of less than ideal support and typically more likely to be troublesome probably doesn't have as broad an experience of GPUs as they think they have - and less of this "both have problems" as if that somehow makes them equal as thats just an extremely silly way to look at it. As silly as anyone trying to make out that nVidia is a problem free experience.


EDIT: Tho as someone mentioned above a sidegrade to a current generation card that negates any reliance on SLI is potentially worth it if you can get a good price for your 470s tho I've not had any issues from the SLI side of it with my setup.

 

[PCZ]

You really need to upgrade that monitor.
That you will notice and it will enhance your gaming pleasure.

SLI 470's at 1680 is well enough with the expection of a tiny handfull of titles using maxed out settings.

A GPU upgrade = money wasted if you are keeping your current screen

Get a bigger screen and enhance your gaming experience.

 

[Gregster]

Catch 22...New screen = 1GB vram struggling with modern games at 1080P max quality or new GPU being overkill for 1680 res.

 

[Cleeecooo]

Catch 22...New screen = 1GB vram struggling with modern games at 1080P max quality or new GPU being overkill for 1680 res.

1.3gb - it should be fine tbh, just need to turn down AA a notch and he'll be good to go rocking 1080 goodness

 

[setter]

Catch 22...New screen = 1GB vram struggling with modern games at 1080P max quality or new GPU being overkill for 1680 res.

True, i had sli 470's prior to the 670wf in sig. On bf3 for instance, at 1920x1200 with 2x msaa, ultra preset applied, vram usage hit around 1230mb. With a hefty oc on it, the 670 gives better minimum/average fps in game, and no problems with vram limitation. But the 670 series are extremely expensive compared to amd equivalents, add in the fact that gtx 470's dont fetch an awful amount now second hand. A new monitor would be the best solution, but it would mean having to drop a few settings down a bit in games.

 

[Gregster]

1.3gb - it should be fine tbh, just need to turn down AA a notch and he'll be good to go rocking 1080 goodness

Ahhh my bad, I thought they were 1GB

 

[setter]

To the op, id also look into overclocking the cpu a bit as well. A stock i7 920 will be a slight bottle neck with sli 470's, i found anything over 3.6ghz to be beneficial with my old 920 and sli'd 470's. Also consider oc'ing the cards a bit as well, 750mhz on stock voltage is easily achieved on the vast majority of 470's ive seen, good airflow in your case is essential though as theese cards can get pretty toasty.

 

[oll3h]

Hmm I did plan to OC the 920 when I got, I just never got round to doing it and having never OC anything before had the slight fear Maybe I will look into that again and man up a bit. I replaced the stock I7 stock cooler with a corsair water jobbie (don't remember the name now) with a view to doing it! OCing the cards is something I will most likely shy away from simply because they get so damn hot at stock and always seem to have. I have space for 4 120mm fans on the side of my case which would blow directly onto the cards, worth considering doing that and then maybe OC them?

 

[SkodaMart]

You can't recommend them because they're over priced compared to their AMD counterparts.

A faster card, of which the 7950 is, will last longer than a slower card such as the 660Ti.

My first post, repeated again for clairty:

Stick with your 470s for this generation.

There is nothing really worth upgrading to.
A single GTX 670 or GTX 660 Ti or a HD 7950 will give similar performance to your current SLi rig but it is a sideways 'upgrade'

I know because I made the same mistake.

Why not look at getting a bigger screen, prices have dropped a fair bit.

 

[TheRealDeal]

To the op, id also look into overclocking the cpu a bit as well. A stock i7 920 will be a slight bottle neck with sli 470's, i found anything over 3.6ghz to be beneficial with my old 920 and sli'd 470's. Also consider oc'ing the cards a bit as well, 750mhz on stock voltage is easily achieved on the vast majority of 470's ive seen, good airflow in your case is essential though as theese cards can get pretty toasty.

That was the first thing i seen when reading the op. The op will see a decent performance boost from giving his cpu a nice bump in clock speed as he will be cpu limited a lot from a stock 920 with gtx470sli.

To the op at your resolution you have all the gpu grunt you need and i don't see you having much problems with your gpu memory size.

If you want to get away from dual cards then a 7950 will see you good for awhile. If you want to upgrade the monitor it will still leave you with an option to go crossfire with 3gb gpu mem and plenty of bandwidth. Either way you are in a good situation atm.

Just get that cpu overclocked for a free performance boost.

Skodamart why would anyone want an inferior product for the same price. The only reason for a 660ti over a 7950 has to come from needing nvidia as theres nothing to gain as the 7950 is a class above in pretty much every way. I seen your thread and it all points to a bad card. look at rusty's thread and you will see a gtx680 owner telling you that when oc'ed the 7950 can just about match a good gtx680 with a good overclock. You are trying to recommend a gtx card thats 2 levels below.

 

[Greebo]

I have a similar dilemma. I am thinking about getting the DGM 27" monitor so will be running at 2560 x 1440 from my current 1920 x 1200.

I have two gtx470's in SLI, both w/c and overclocked past 800Mhz (830 from memory) so they perform well at 1920 x 1200.

How much am I going to struggle after the monitor upgrade? Is it worth replacing with a 7970 and w/c it? Or even a 7950?

ANybody got any comparisons between them at that res or how badly the gtx470 gets crippled at least?

 

[setter]

Iirc Greebo, no 1 dave on here was running gtx 470 sli at 2560x1440 prior to switching to a gtx 670. Personally at 1920x1200, ive found the single 670 to be an improvement over my old 470 sli setup. Im able to use much higher settings in game without having to worry about v ram limits. Power use is down an awful lot, not to mention the drop in temps/noise. 7950 is pretty comparable to the 670, better in some cases, and well priced compared to the very expensive non ref 670 im using.

 

[Boomstick777]

Only 3-4 months away until HD 8000 / GTX 700 series start to appear. A cheap HD 7950 3GB would an ideal card until then imho..

 

[Rroff]

I have a similar dilemma. I am thinking about getting the DGM 27" monitor so will be running at 2560 x 1440 from my current 1920 x 1200.

I have two gtx470's in SLI, both w/c and overclocked past 800Mhz (830 from memory) so they perform well at 1920 x 1200.

How much am I going to struggle after the monitor upgrade? Is it worth replacing with a 7970 and w/c it? Or even a 7950?

ANybody got any comparisons between them at that res or how badly the gtx470 gets crippled at least?

Not tried at 2560x1440 but I did try 5040x1050 and was running out of VRAM quite a bit if I didn't turn AA down/off or sometimes other settings so its gonne be running it close.