[MusicallyInspired]

So I've had a GTX 460 Fermi 1GB card since I built my machine back in 2010. It's worked great for years and even with some new games that have come out recently. I have everything set to maximum on Alien Isolation and it's the smoothest framerate I've ever seen. However, for newer games I'm starting to see where my card is aging (Doom Beta, for instance). My original plan when I bought the system was to buy a second Fermi card and run it in SLI. Can I get away with doing that 5 years later and run for a little longer? There are some fairly cheap Fermi cards on Ebay right now. Or is the performance gain not worth the extra dollar, let alone the power draw my system will need, and will I be better off going with a newer single card? I'm not necessarily going to buy anything anytime soon, but I'm thinking a year down the road.

[Forge]

from what i've read - dual gtx 460 sli is near equal to a single gtx580 or single Radeon HD 7870

i'm not tech savy enough to know if dual 460's still suffer from micro-stutter, or if current drivers have nullified the issue

probably want at minimum a 750w power supply to run 460s in sli

[MusicallyInspired]

750w is exactly what I have. I'm just wondering if the longevity would last into the next few years of new releases or if I'm better off buying something closer to the 800 or 900 series. Considering the new Doom is slated to require at least a 670, I doubt it would measure up.

[Forge]

A 670 is near double a dual 460 in sli - i don't know the benchmarks of a triple 460, but at the cost of buying two more 460s and having to upgrade your psu - you might as well get a gtx 960
I wouldn't bother with any 700 series (and there is no 800 series)

video cards are way over-priced right now, so you should probably wait for some holiday sales or until the end of the year if you can
then see if you can get a gtx 670 or 970 for a decent price - if you come across one in the lower $200's usd range and can afford it, grab it.

[MusicallyInspired]

Another problem is my mobo doesn't support PCI Express 3.0. So I'm stuck with 2.0. And from what I'm seeing on Newegg, that only consists of GT cards and not GTX. So that's out the window. I'd need a whole new system and I'm not doing that right now.

[Forge]

i'm starting to think you're april fool pranking

Fermi cards on Ebay
800 ... series
mobo doesn't support PCI Express 3.0

for simplicity's sake of an explanation- 3.0 cards are "backwards compatible" with 2.0 slots.
if you only have a 2.0 slot, then don't get a card with more than a 5Ghz clock speed, or it's a waste
You can look up the differences between the slots for a more detailed breakdown

example article:
http://www.trentonsy...ress-interface/

[MusicallyInspired]

Oh! No, not pranking. I was literally on Newegg yesterday looking up cards between $100-$200 that supported PCI Express 2.0 specifically. Didn't realize the backwards compatibility. also, maybe the price had something to do with it. I didn't know there were no 800 series cards. I figured there was a series for every hundred level. Haven't been doing a lot of tech research lately. I was looking on eBay before that for a possible second 460 card (Fermi) and there are plenty for under $100 (CAD, at that).

[Forge]

I'm just a bit leery of ebay like sites; especially with electronics.
If you're going for the 'used' route, check amazon.

The best card you're going to get new in that price range is a gtx 960. But like I said, video cards are over-priced right now. Wait for the market to fluctuate back down and get a 670 / 970 when they fall into the $200-230 range. Sell your 460 for around $45 to help offset the cost.

[Malgon]

AMD and Nvidia are both set to launch a new range of cards sometime this year, so waiting is definitely a good idea as Forge mentioned.

[Person of Color]

I hear Trident is on the up and up too.

[HulkNukem]

Nvidia just announced their new cards
The GTX 1080 is twice as powerful as their Titan card, releases May 27 and is only 600 USD
They also announced a 1070, still more powerful than a Titan, releasing in June for 379 USD

[MusicallyInspired]

All that is still more than I'm willing to pay for a video card. If one of the 900s drops under $200 I'll consider that.

[HulkNukem]

I'll sell you my 970 for cheap if I decide to upgrade, I've had it for only 2 months

[Person of Color]

Are you in search of an actual 4GB card? I don't know why people buy that thing. R9 290 master race.

Speaking of the R9 290 the Micro Center near me has some refurb ones for $220 right now, and they don't have the cancerous vacuum cleaner stock cooler.

So you may wanna check that out, that would probably be your best value. 90 day warranty though, so grab an extended one.

[MusicallyInspired]

So....what do we think of this? Too good to be true? This may be a deal I can't pass up. I'm not going to spring right away or anything. I need reviews so I'm still in for a long wait. But....man. $200 for a 980 equivalent brand new. And two 480x's are almost equivalent to the new 1080 and still cheaper.

http://www.pcworld.c...the-masses.html

[Mblackwell]

No matter what's coming to market right now wait a few months for different vendors to iterate on cooler styles and prices to go down to a normal level. Then you can make some better decisions. By the end of the year you'll have a better idea of what you should get.

[MusicallyInspired]

Yeah, I'm waiting either way as I said. Interesting to see the developments, though.

[MusicallyInspired]

So I went with an EVGA GTX 970 4GB. It was either that or a refurbished Gigabyte Windforce which was quite a bit cheaper. However, I missed the sale by like 2 days. The next up EVGA model was only $10 more so I grabbed that instead. Now hopefully it doesn't take too long to get here with the strike Canada Post is on...

[MusicallyInspired]

My 970 arrived. Finally I don't have to worry about performance for a good long while. 120 fps in Doom max settings 1080p (100 fps in intense areas). So satisfied.

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[Person of Color]

MusicallyInspired, on 01 July 2016 - 09:30 PM, said:

So I went with an EVGA GTX 970 4GB.

*3.5GB + 512MB

[MusicallyInspired]

Yeah yeah I know. I'm not complaining though. I'm coming from a 1GB 460. Everything is 10 times better.

[Person of Color]

[MusicallyInspired]

While I will say I should have waited for the 1060 (cheaper and 6GB, if slightly lower bus interface), I'm still happy I upgraded. Also all the good 1060's are out of stock anyway.

[Person of Color]

They're going to be out of stock constantly. Those killer mainstream cards always sell out.

[MusicallyInspired]

I'd rather not have waited another year to play Doom properly. I am sad that I couldn't buy the 970 when it $40 cheaper on Newegg. But that was a Gigabyte Windforce and when the price went up again it was only $10 more for the EVGA model, so I opted for that.

[Person of Color]

The Windforce cards are excellent, but I prefer EVGA's warranty and that seals the deal for me. To be honest the speed bump from a 970 to a 980 means jack shit to me. I bought my R9 290 in October for $225, I still can't find a game that it chokes on, and that model is now almost three years old. The increase between that card and a 480 is marginal as fuck in the real world. I recently built a system with a 390X and I wasn't blown away by it. Pretty similar to what I have. I could turn a couple settings higher but that's about it.

So far I feel like this is the first video card I can't hit the ceiling on. The settings I do have to turn down for a constant 60FPS are barely noticeable.