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Rogue Wolf
An Easy Draw of a Sad Few
join:2003-08-12
Troy, NY

Rogue Wolf

Member

[Tech] New card, or two cards? The dilemma

My rig currently has an EVGA 660GTX card running in it, and while it's a nice card, it doesn't quite push the pixels as hard as I'd like on modern games, and overclocking hasn't brought much success. With tax-time coming and a decent return on the docket, I was looking into upgrading- but the most likely candidate, a GTX770, doesn't seem like that much of a step up on paper to justify the $400 price tag.

I've also seen that the 660 is now literally half the price of the 770, so the possibility of running an SLI setup is within my grasp. But I know that SLI can cause some issues, and there are some games that don't at all work well with that sort of setup.

So... upgrade or addition?

Ghastlyone
Premium Member
join:2009-01-07
Nashville, TN

Ghastlyone

Premium Member

said by Rogue Wolf:

My rig currently has an EVGA 660GTX card running in it, and while it's a nice card, it doesn't quite push the pixels as hard as I'd like on modern games, and overclocking hasn't brought much success. With tax-time coming and a decent return on the docket, I was looking into upgrading- but the most likely candidate, a GTX770, doesn't seem like that much of a step up on paper to justify the $400 price tag.

I've also seen that the 660 is now literally half the price of the 770, so the possibility of running an SLI setup is within my grasp. But I know that SLI can cause some issues, and there are some games that don't at all work well with that sort of setup.

So... upgrade or addition?

Just my opinion, but I would only SLI top end cards. Reason being, is that there are some games out there with no SLI support. When you run into that situation, you're still stuck playing a game with a single low end card (GTX 660)

You won't have that problem with a single more powerful top end card like a 770 or 780.

I'd sell the 660, because you can still get some decent money for those, and put that money towards a GTX 770 which completely trounces your 660.

a2nxtcrav3r
Pokes People With Stick
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join:2003-07-13
San Jose, CA

a2nxtcrav3r to Rogue Wolf

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What resolution are you running?

on a Single Monitor one "DECENT" card is enough, sli really isnt needed. Its beneficial to buy one then wait for the same one to go down in price then SLI but by then a new generation of GPU come out and SLI is preety meh.

you can also find many people on hardforum/overclock.net/evga forum/toms hardware/anandtech who have money to throw when a newer generation arrives and buy 2-3 to sli or tri sli and find out they reallllly dont need it for their single or tripple screen setups because they run a lower resolution and usually said cards are sold at loss.

Just happened recently when they announced Titan Extreme and 780TI kingpin edition, people are now selling their 780TI at a $100-150 loss and you pay no tax free ship even.

Nightfall
My Goal Is To Deny Yours
MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI

Nightfall to Rogue Wolf

MVM

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I would rather buy one high end card, save my money, and buy another one in 2 years that will be twice as powerful as the old card.
asdfdfdfdfdf
Premium Member
join:2012-05-09

asdfdfdfdfdf to Rogue Wolf

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to Rogue Wolf
Confirming at a couple of different site's benches, including anandtech, a 770 should be roughly 50-60% faster(sometimes more) than your 660(non ti) at 1920 resolution or higher.

Whether this is enough to justify $400 to you I don't know. If games are on the verge of being unplayable to you at the settings you desire and you need to get over the hump then it might be worth it. If you are fairly satisfied with where you are now or, at the other end, if you are wanting to move to something more extreme, like running multiple monitors in games then you will probably be disappointed.

TigerLord

join:2002-06-09
Canada

1 recommendation

TigerLord to Rogue Wolf

to Rogue Wolf
What resolution do you game at?

People always leave this detail out when they asking about upgrading, and it's the only criterion that really matters.

Rogue Wolf
An Easy Draw of a Sad Few
join:2003-08-12
Troy, NY

Rogue Wolf

Member

said by a2nxtcrav3r:

What resolution are you running?

said by TigerLord:

What resolution do you game at?

Yeah, sorry, neglected that. I do my gaming at 1920 x 1080.

a2nxtcrav3r
Pokes People With Stick
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join:2003-07-13
San Jose, CA

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»www.techpowerup.com/revi ··· /27.html

TRU
join:2005-07-21
Michigan

TRU to Rogue Wolf

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to Rogue Wolf
@Rogue Wolf - I always like to ask whomever I'm replying to a simple, basic question first. Before anything.

What does your budget look like? How much breathing room does this budget give us, if any?

These are very important questions and by answering them I'll be able to make an informed decision that is tailored to your own personal financial limits.

Also, besides your budget... what do you plan on using your computer for? Is this mainly for high-end & highly demanding gaming or instead for just some light gaming with most of the emphasis needed for work/business tasks.
Let me know your budget.

Krisnatharok
PC Builder, Gamer
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join:2009-02-11
Earth Orbit

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to Rogue Wolf
said by Rogue Wolf:

said by a2nxtcrav3r:

What resolution are you running?

said by TigerLord:

What resolution do you game at?

Yeah, sorry, neglected that. I do my gaming at 1920 x 1080.

If you're considering the $350-450 for a GTX 770, save up for another month or two and get a GTX 780 for $490-590. It should max any game at 1080p, and you won't be settling at all, and won't ever need to consider SLI.

For an alternative viewpoint, if you aren't married to Team Green, the alternative is this non-reference Asus R9 290X for $580, which should be a slight step up from the 780. You get Mantle support, which will benefit games like Star Citizen and Battlefield 4, and you can even do crypto-currency mining, if that's your thing (make approx $7-9 a day).

Tirael
BOHICA
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join:2009-03-18
Sacramento, CA

Tirael to Rogue Wolf

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A single card solution is almost always better than SLI/Crossfire if you are not going to be buying R9 (AMD) or 770 or above (Nvidia) due to microstutter and the fact that a lot of games do not have full (or even passable) SLI support.

pr1mo
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join:2003-11-12
Chicago, IL

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I bought a Gigabyte GTX 780 (OC version, Windforce cooling) during this past weekend and it's such a phenomenal card. If you're contemplating on spending the money on a 770, I say think about just going in and purchasing an even better 780, it should be something like $90-$140 more, but IMO very worth it.

Rogue Wolf
An Easy Draw of a Sad Few
join:2003-08-12
Troy, NY

Rogue Wolf

Member

Sorry I haven't responded recently; been a rough few days. I did end up getting the 770 ($400 was the upper edge of my budget), but it wasn't the leap forward I'd hoped it was- my CPU is definitely holding me back, and I'm still seeing microstutter in a lot of games despite the higher graphical horsepower.

I think I might have to move up my upgrade schedule for the CPU and motherboard.

El Quintron
Cancel Culture Ambassador
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join:2008-04-28
Tronna

El Quintron

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said by Rogue Wolf:

I think I might have to move up my upgrade schedule for the CPU and motherboard.

Apologies if you've posted the spec already (I haven't seen it) but what CPU and Mobo do you have?

I'm of the opinion that it's unlikely, that anything except for an extremely old or underpowered CPU+Mobo combo would bottleneck your card so the problem may lie elsewhere.

EQ

Tirael
BOHICA
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join:2009-03-18
Sacramento, CA

Tirael to Rogue Wolf

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You want get microstutter on a single card, unless the card has a defect. Microstutter is almost exclusively an issue in SLI/Crossfire configurations.

Unless you are running on an old Core 2 Quad or less, CPU is probably not the issue.

a2nxtcrav3r
Pokes People With Stick
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join:2003-07-13
San Jose, CA

a2nxtcrav3r to Rogue Wolf

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Core2Duo E8400 or something similar will bottleneck you.
what is your CPU and how old is it? hopefully not pentium 4

Z87 stuff with an I5 should be preety cheap.

Krisnatharok
PC Builder, Gamer
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join:2009-02-11
Earth Orbit

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said by Tirael:

You want get microstutter on a single card, unless the card has a defect. Microstutter is almost exclusively an issue in SLI/Crossfire configurations.

Unless you are running on an old Core 2 Quad or less, CPU is probably not the issue.

This is true, although Microstutter is largely fixed as a widespread issue--Nvidia was much quicker with a fix than AMD was. By the time i moved my twin 7970s into a mining rig, i could play games like BF4 and Crysis 3 without issue.

It's worth noting, however, that Far Cry 3 was absolutely unplayable. Either microstutter was rampant in the game, or Crossfire was completely unsupported. So there are still games that don't play nicely with dual GP setups. My advice is to stick to one GPU unless you are using a resolution above 1920x1080.

fluffybunny
@cipherkey.com

fluffybunny to Rogue Wolf

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a 7970 3GB works fine at 2560x1600 for all the games i throw at it such as BF4 COD etc.
i dont do nvidia at all because of their lousy support for server OSes. I use windows 2012 r2 on my gaming machine (before that i was using windows 2008 r2).
dual GPU is not a good idea IMHO. games dont support it and the electricity waste makes it not worth it.

Rogue Wolf
An Easy Draw of a Sad Few
join:2003-08-12
Troy, NY

Rogue Wolf

Member

I'm running a Phenom II X6 1090T (with 8GB of RAM) on an ASUS M4A89TD PRO. As I type this I'm testing a 3.6GHz overclock on it via Prime95.

I've been having a problem with a lot of games and microstutter for a while. Even Minecraft, running at a solid 120FPS (verified by FRAPS) often seems jerky when I turn or move rapidly. This can even happen when both the video card and CPU are showing less than 60% usage (as shown on Windows gadgets I run on my second monitor).

I've been up and down my BIOS settings multiple times looking for some setting that might be causing a problem, but no dice.

Cthen
Premium Member
join:2004-08-01
Detroit, MI

Cthen to Rogue Wolf

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As someone who has run cards in crossfire for years now, I can tell you that you won't see a performance increase by adding a second card. (When it comes to gaming)

It seems the issue is with that particular card. »www.google.com/search?q= ··· &spell=1
asdfdfdfdfdf
Premium Member
join:2012-05-09

asdfdfdfdfdf to Rogue Wolf

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First thing, if you have been overclocking, is to return to stock clocks and see if the problem disappears. Also do you have the latest bios update for your motherboard?

Rogue Wolf
An Easy Draw of a Sad Few
join:2003-08-12
Troy, NY

Rogue Wolf

Member

said by asdfdfdfdfdf:

First thing, if you have been overclocking, is to return to stock clocks and see if the problem disappears. Also do you have the latest bios update for your motherboard?

I'm only doing the overclocking now; I've been running at stock speeds for months on both CPU and GPU and still have the problem. And yes, the BIOS is the latest available from the manufacturer.

Ghastlyone
Premium Member
join:2009-01-07
Nashville, TN

1 edit

Ghastlyone

Premium Member

You should also try bumping your video card voltage up slightly (without OC'ing). I believe Kris on the forums had an issue with a card not having enough voltage even straight from the factory. He was getting performance issues until the voltage was increased.

I'd try that out see if that fixes the problem. Your CPU definitely isn't an issue for you though.

El Quintron
Cancel Culture Ambassador
Premium Member
join:2008-04-28
Tronna

El Quintron

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said by Ghastlyone:

Your CPU definitely isn't an issue for you though.

Agreed, the CPU is excellent and as far as I know is highly overclockable. I don't see it (the CPU) as being an issue. The motherboard I have no experience with.

Raible
join:2008-01-23
Plainfield, IN

Raible to Rogue Wolf

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May be a shot in the dark but it's quick and easy to do. Run Drive Sweeper to clean out your video drivers and reinstall fresh.

Krisnatharok
PC Builder, Gamer
Premium Member
join:2009-02-11
Earth Orbit

1 edit

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said by Ghastlyone:

You should also try bumping your video card voltage up slightly (without OC'ing). I believe Kris on the forums had an issue with a card not having enough voltage even straight from the factory. He was getting performance issues until the voltage was increased.

I'd try that out see if that fixes the problem. Your CPU definitely isn't an issue for you though.

It was bad with the EVGA GTX 500 gen. Had that issue on both the 570 and 580.

Rogue Wolf
An Easy Draw of a Sad Few
join:2003-08-12
Troy, NY

Rogue Wolf to Raible

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said by Ghastlyone:

You should also try bumping your video card voltage up slightly (without OC'ing).

What's the easiest way to do this? I had to quit using MSI Afterburner when it started causing the display to hang/corrupt on boot for some unknown reason, when I was still using the 660.
said by Raible:

May be a shot in the dark but it's quick and easy to do. Run Drive Sweeper to clean out your video drivers and reinstall fresh.

It looks like the makers of DS moved to a new company and have a new product called Driver Fusion. Any idea if this is better/worse/the same?

Ghastlyone
Premium Member
join:2009-01-07
Nashville, TN

Ghastlyone

Premium Member

said by Rogue Wolf:

What's the easiest way to do this? I had to quit using MSI Afterburner when it started causing the display to hang/corrupt on boot for some unknown reason, when I was still using the 660.

Download and install EVGA Precision X. I think the current version is 4.2.1

Personally, I prefer Precision X over Afterburner, but that's just me. You'll see where you can increase the voltage, it's really simple. I got a sneaking suspicion that might be your problem.

Krisnatharok
PC Builder, Gamer
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join:2009-02-11
Earth Orbit

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said by Cthen:

As someone who has run cards in crossfire for years now, I can tell you that you won't see a performance increase by adding a second card. (When it comes to gaming)

I have to disagree: »As requested, Crysis 3 benchmarks

Rogue Wolf
An Easy Draw of a Sad Few
join:2003-08-12
Troy, NY

Rogue Wolf to Ghastlyone

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said by Ghastlyone:

Download and install EVGA Precision X. I think the current version is 4.2.1

Already happened to have that installed, but I'm not sure I've figured out these controls for this Voltage Tune thing. The gauge starts near the top and I can only move it up one notch for what appears to be a 12mV gain- is this a normal result?