I'm done with multi-GPU - so when should I upgrade?

[drfish]

7800GT, 8800GTX and currently 5870 2GB, I've had two of each. The 7800GTs were the only time I've ever bought both at the same time, for the others I swore one card was enough but I was cursed by finding "good deals" and justified purchases by telling myself I'd have have an extra card to re-purpose when I eventually upgraded. Not this time! I just want one.

I've got the upgrade bug and I'm partially motivated by wanting to shed the multi-GPU hassle - BUT it seems that short of going crazy and getting a Titan my other options just don't give me the bump I usually look for from an upgrade... What's a guy to do? Its been almost three years since I bought my last video card and even if I spend $400-500 on a new card it seems all I can hope for is marginally better performance than my current solution... What's going on?

[flip-mode]

Yeah, it's pretty hard to multi-gpu to single-gpu and "get a bump". You're probably looking at a 5 to 6 year wait for anything that feels meaningful. I think you're options are limited if you want to get a bump - the Titan, or a 690, or a 7990. Of those I'd pick the Titan. But sheesh, what kind of monitor and game setup are you playing on to need a Titan?

I'm so happy I don't game anymore! I've downgraded from an HD 5870 to a FirePro v3800 at home which is the equivalent of a HD 6670, and I put a passive heatsink on the v3800.

[DancinJack]

Yeah, it's pretty hard to multi-gpu to single-gpu and "get a bump". You're probably looking at a 5 to 6 year wait for anything that feels meaningful. I think you're options are limited if you want to get a bump - the Titan, or a 690, or a 7990. Of those I'd pick the Titan. But sheesh, what kind of monitor and game setup are you playing on to need a Titan?

I'm so happy I don't game anymore! I've downgraded from an HD 5870 to a FirePro v3800 at home which is the equivalent of a HD 6670, and I put a passive heatsink on the v3800.

Even then, don't those multi-gpu cards still have issues too?

At least wait for next gen from both camps. A single 680 nets you about the same performance right now, I think. Maybe the combination of lower power, less heat, higher compute, and more graphic (filtering/AA/whatever) features in the next-gen can entice you enough to pull the trigger.

Flip I think it makes you happier to tell everyone you don't game anymore than actually not gaming.

[CaptTomato]

When are the next powerful but affordable GPU's being released?
I want Titan power for 3-$4oo hhahahahaahaa

[flip-mode]

Flip I think it makes you happier to tell everyone you don't game anymore than actually not gaming.

There honestly is some pleasure in seeing the costs that I'm spared and in not suffering "the itch" nearly as frequently. But, yes, I do tend to share my feelings pretty freely sometimes

[Krogoth]

What resolution are you gaming at?

If you are still in the 2Megapixel range. 7850, 660, 7870, 660Ti, 7950 and 670 will suffice even with some AA/AF thrown into the mix for the vast majority of gaming titles and for the foreseeable future.

If you are shooting for 4Megapxiel gaming w/o AA/AF. 670, 7950 hand handle it while 680 and 7970 can pass with some degree of AA/AF. GTX Titan is only needed if you want set everything up to 11 with 4Megpixel gaming which normally requires a SLI/CF setup of the aforementioned list of GPUs.

Tri and Quad SLI/CF never made much sense outside of synthetic benchmarks, 3D rendering and number-crunching.

[drfish]

I have a 27" Korean monitor, so 2560x1440. It just seems like AMD has no plans for anything new for awhile, probably content with the console design wins, and it seems Nvidia is pretty unlikely to release anything between the 680 and Titan anytime soon...

[Ryu Connor]

If you're desire to go back to a single GPU stems from headaches with dual card technology it might be because you're presently using Crossfire.

Evidence implies that Crossfire is into some shenanigans.

I was already in a position after the headaches I had with the 4870X2 not to do Crossfire ever again due to my own personal and anecdotal issues. The above article definitely seals that viewpoint.

Again personally speaking only, my GTX 295 & 590 have been reliable and trouble free work horses.

If I was bound and determined to leave SLI behind, I'd throw down for a Titan myself. If I had considerably less income to do that, then I suppose a single 680.

[CaptTomato]

Flip I think it makes you happier to tell everyone you don't game anymore than actually not gaming.

There honestly is some pleasure in seeing the costs that I'm spared and in not suffering "the itch" nearly as frequently. But, yes, I do tend to share my feelings pretty freely sometimes

PC gaming box is $150-$300 more than a email/HTPC.....no biggie!!!!

[flip-mode]

Flip I think it makes you happier to tell everyone you don't game anymore than actually not gaming.

There honestly is some pleasure in seeing the costs that I'm spared and in not suffering "the itch" nearly as frequently. But, yes, I do tend to share my feelings pretty freely sometimes

PC gaming box is $150-$300 more than a email/HTPC.....no biggie!!!!

What? You crazy. PC gaming box needs a better CPU than "email/htpc". Besides, $300 is a big deal to me, but I'm glad for you if it's no big deal for you. I don't begrudge other people's wealth.

[clone]

I've got the upgrade bug and I'm partially motivated by wanting to shed the multi-GPU hassle - BUT it seems that short of going crazy and getting a Titan my other options just don't give me the bump I usually look for from an upgrade... What's a guy to do?

buy a car, get out of the house, do something outside, PC gaming isn't nearly as fun as we wish it was which is why some endlessly throw coin at it in a desperate bid to chase the dragon. (relive the early experience)

If I was bound and determined to leave SLI behind, I'd throw down for a Titan myself.

why throw so much money at console ports?

[CaptTomato]

What? You crazy. PC gaming box needs a better CPU than "email/htpc". Besides, $300 is a big deal to me, but I'm glad for you if it's no big deal for you. I don't begrudge other people's wealth.

Depends....I do encoding etc, and the last thing I want is a slow CPU.
I'm not rich, but I buy a mid range gaming box every few yrs, and I'm due for another one right now!!

[JohnC]

PC gaming isn't nearly as fun as we wish it was

Yes, yes, you definitely know what's "nearly as fun" for me (and for other people) better that I myself do

[drfish]

If I was bound and determined to leave SLI behind, I'd throw down for a Titan myself. If I had considerably less income to do that, then I suppose a single 680.

The Titan is so frustrating... I hope Nvidia comes out with a 3GB, less premium materials version of the GK110 at around $700 (cripple the compute stuff if they have to). A pipe dream I know but they would actually have a chance selling a decent number of those given the outlook for GPUs in the next year. Not that the Titan won't sell, but the people that want one are still going to get one, and the people that just can't justify it might be able to stomach a Titan Jr.

[JohnC]

Just get the Titan... You know you want to - it will be the most powerful single-GPU card for quite a long time and I hate to use this dumb abbreviation, but it's very fitting here, so... "YOLO"

[Airmantharp]

I'm on a single GTX670 after coming from a pair of HD6950 2GB cards on a 30" panel- and while the AMD cards were technically faster, the single Nvidia card felt like an upgrade, playing mostly Skyrim and BF3.

Best advice I could give would be to wait another generation, if you don't feel that the current crop of single cards are fast enough. As you said above, Titan isn't worth it; if you want to spend money, get a pair of the GTX670's that have the GTX680 cooler (EVGA's FTWs).

[flip-mode]

Best advice I could give would be to wait another generation

This is, IMO, very reasonable advice.

[JohnC]

With such mindset I'd say wait at least 2-3 generations. Teh generation after these will be even faster! And perhaps more affordable... Unless, of course, AMD will continue derping around, or will resell the "ATI" portion to Nvidia by that time

[auxy]

buy a car, get out of the house, do something outside, PC gaming isn't nearly as fun as we wish it was which is why some endlessly throw coin at it in a desperate bid to chase the dragon. (relive the early experience)

You say some pretty ridiculous things. Are you taking your medication? ＼( ｀.∀´)／

I'm enjoying gaming more now than I ever have, and that's why it's so frustrating that I have so little time with which to do so! Blacklight: Retribution, Dark Souls, Rage, TERA Online, and even ol' Skyrim -- so many great games to enjoy! (*≧▽≦)

Just because you're old, bitter, and nostalgic doesn't mean that those of us who are younger (like me) or more enthusiastic for life (like JohnC) feel the same way! Come on, cheer up! ლ(╹◡╹ლ)

My single GTX460 seems to run everything pretty well in 1080p, although admittedly without much MSAA. I haven't tried BF3 or Crysis 3, but I do have to crank down stuff in Metro2033. If you're having trouble with your 5870s, I'm surprised! Try some games with Crossfire disabled. My girlfriend recently acquired one of my GTX460s, but she was using an HD4870 1GB for the longest time and it did okay for her; the GTX460 wasn't that much of an upgrade.

[JohnC]

I'm not enthusiastic, I just already have a car, a house (several, actually) and other thingies and I already visited many places in the world So now I just throw $$$ at PC hardware

[JustAnEngineer]

GeForce GTX460 and Radeon HD5850 are neck-and-neck in most titles. Radeon HD5870 is slightly faster, but not spectacularly so.

If the obscene price tag of Titan is too much to stomach, then either get a single Radeon HD7970 now (like the $410 -20MIR Sapphire 100351SR with Crysis 3 and BioShock Infinite) or wait for the next generation of GPUs. The recently-revealed delay of next-generation GPUs from both manufacturers is one more thing to be annoyed about.

[drfish]

The 7970GE is my current front runner if I were to get something now, probably specifically this one. One of my current 5870s is a "Toxic" and the Vapor-X cooling has been nice and kept me from feeling the need to use an aftermarket cooler. The Toxic version of the 7970 is just too spendy though.

One thing I'm waiting for is SimCity benchmarks, lol, how weird is that? That's like the only AAA title I even care about right now and I still don't know if its worth supporting EA for.

The other thing is that I can't help but feel Nvidia screwed us all over this generation by pricing the GTX 680 how it did (not that it wasn't smart business wise). It should have been a $299-350 card like the 4870 was when it launched, that would have left room for a $499-599 GK110 based "Titan Jr" (think 8800GTX) and even a ~$800 "Titan Sr" (think 8800 Ultra) for the really high end. Maybe if AMD had gotten their ass handed to them like that they wouldn't be dinking around in the tropics like they are now...

[auxy]

The other thing is that I can't help but feel Nvidia screwed us all over this generation by pricing the GTX 680 how it did (not that it wasn't smart business wise). It should have been a $299-350 card like the 4870 was when it launched, that would have left room for a $499-599 GK110 based "Titan Jr" (think 8800GTX) and even a ~$800 "Titan Sr" (think 8800 Ultra) for the really high end. Maybe if AMD had gotten their ass handed to them like that they wouldn't be dinking around in the tropics like they are now... :x

Ehh? 【・ヘ・?】

The GTX680 is competitive with the 7970GE in terms of performance, and is priced as such. The Titan is hilariously overpriced, but the rest of the cards are priced appropriately for their performance. (=｀ω´=)

AMD's cards are very competitive this generation; the 7970GE is arguably faster than the 680 and certainly more powerful in terms of raw hardware specifications. (=’①。①’=)

So ... what?「(°ヘ°)

[flip-mode]

The other thing is that I can't help but feel Nvidia screwed us all over this generation by pricing the GTX 680 how it did

I'm absolutely not an Nvidia defender, but Nvidia didn't screw anyone. AMD came to market first and AMD set the bar. Nvidia could probably have significantly undercut AMD, but the bar was set and Nvidia's designs were near the end of the pipe. There was no incentive for Nvidia to do any other pricing than what Nvidia did. It's not like Nvidia needed to claw back market share or mind share. Those were already on Nvidia's side.

[Krogoth]

If I was bound and determined to leave SLI behind, I'd throw down for a Titan myself. If I had considerably less income to do that, then I suppose a single 680.

The Titan is so frustrating... I hope Nvidia comes out with a 3GB, less premium materials version of the GK110 at around $700 (cripple the compute stuff if they have to). A pipe dream I know but they would actually have a chance selling a decent number of those given the outlook for GPUs in the next year. Not that the Titan won't sell, but the people that want one are still going to get one, and the people that just can't justify it might be able to stomach a Titan Jr.

It is probable that Nvidia is going to release 670 and 680 refreshes in the form of lesser GK110 silicon sometime later this year (675/685 or 770/780). Probably the third or forth fiscal quarter.

[Airmantharp]

The other thing is that I can't help but feel Nvidia screwed us all over this generation by pricing the GTX 680 how it did

I'm absolutely not an Nvidia defender, but Nvidia didn't screw anyone. AMD came to market first and AMD set the bar. Nvidia could probably have significantly undercut AMD, but the bar was set and Nvidia's designs were near the end of the pipe. There was no incentive for Nvidia to do any other pricing than what Nvidia did. It's not like Nvidia needed to claw back market share or mind share. Those were already on Nvidia's side.

Exactly- AMD opened with a moderate performance jump and a high price jump, choosing to price the cards more towards their market value based on their performance relative to the previous generation than with an eye towards replacing the previous generation outright and maintaining the pricing status quo. Nvidia just followed suit, knowing that they had a competitive product.

If you want, you can go a step further, because neither of these companies would be able to charge what they're charging if there was a real demand for higher end hardware, and there just isn't, with mid-range GPUs being more than competent at average 1080p resolution running games whose development for the PC has been hampered by the anemic consoles on the market.

Expect that to change if Crysis 3 is any indication though, with console ports going forward likely to make much better use of the availability of extra cores, and with the PS4 coming in with 8GB of RAM (Microsoft will surely follow), we might be upgrading GPUs just for the VRAM in the near future.

[drfish]

Like I said, its not that it wasn't a smart move business wise, but it could have been cheaper (mid-range specs regardless of performance) and the fact that they decided it wasn't going to be seems to have setup the lull in price/performance gains we're seeing right now. I guess I'm just huffy because of the general state of GPUs right now, I can blame consoles or whatever but we were spoiled for a few years and now it's like, come on guys, we're waiting... The new consoles being decidedly low to mid-range at release isn't going to help either... Of course if I were a game developer I think I would be scared about what to do will all that graphical prowess too, especially considering what the idie world is producing without even trying to use it all... ...but now I'm just rambling...

[sschaem]

The cheapest 3GB 7970 I see is $389 with a free copy of crysis3 and bioshock infinite.
The 2GB GTX 680 is still at $460 with some online credits for games I never heard of.

Knowing the PS4 is GNC (like the 7 serie), and the xbox is 99% confirm to also be GCN... I expect all engine to have highly optimized GNC pixel & compute sharers going forward.

So you get 2 AAA games, 50% more GDDR5 memory, bound to have longer longevity (more optimization over time) , already faster with some games engine, for $70 less ?!

[auxy]

The cheapest 3GB 7970 I see is $389 with a free copy of crysis3 and bioshock infinite.
The 2GB GTX 680 is still at $460 with some online credits for games I never heard of.

$430 after rebate; that $390 is for a standard 7970 while the GE is still $430 itself. They're priced a lot more evenly than you make them out to be. (¬､¬;) Not literally evenly, but then, taken as a whole, the 680 tends to be very slightly faster than the 7970GE anyway.

Knowing the PS4 is GCN (like the 7 serie), and the xbox is 99% confirm to also be GCN... I expect all engine to have highly optimized GNC pixel & compute sharers going forward.
So you get 2 AAA games, 50% more GDDR5 memory, bound to have longer longevity (more optimization over time) , already faster with some games engine, for $70 less ?!

You also get an inability to multi-GPU effectively and the constant worry that new titles will work properly on your shiny, >$400 GPU. If you want Crysis 3 and Bioshock Infinite (I sure don't), then the 7970GE is clearly a better value; otherwise ... ┐(‘～`；)┌

If I were buying one today, I don't know for sure which one I'd get. Frankly? Probably the "7870XT", because I'm poor. (┳Д┳)

Thankfully that choice has been made for me! I can't wait for my shiny new GTX! (≧∇≦)/

[Airmantharp]

The cheapest 3GB 7970 I see is $389 with a free copy of crysis3 and bioshock infinite.
The 2GB GTX 680 is still at $460 with some online credits for games I never heard of.

Knowing the PS4 is GNC (like the 7 serie), and the xbox is 99% confirm to also be GCN... I expect all engine to have highly optimized GNC pixel & compute sharers going forward.

So you get 2 AAA games, 50% more GDDR5 memory, bound to have longer longevity (more optimization over time) , already faster with some games engine, for $70 less ?!

Most would argue that you should be comparing the GTX670 to the base HD7970 (and the GTX680 to the HD7970GHz), so the price is probably less of a concern, along with the difference in VRAM when accounting for Nvidia's memory optimizations on Kepler- but your point still largely holds.

It really just comes down to the games and features that are deemed important. As you're alluding, PC users may be in for a rude awakening when this next round of consoles really takes hold.