SLI a GTX 970 or...?

Hmm, I don't think my motherboard is that old. I had this PC custom built a year ago. The motherboard is:

Asus H81M Series Intel H81/ DDR3/ SATA3&USB3.0/ A&GbE/ MicroATX

Will that work with a 1070 or 1080?
 
This board is 4 years old, and is made for PCI 2.0 and not 3.0.
So you might come across this problem, though chances are that it will just work.
 
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Hmmm, I wonder what's in my old pc I'm not using. I'm not sure what's in my new pc to be honest. I think it's a 1080 of some kind. There should be threads around here somewhere…I will be back with an edit.

Current: iBUYPOWER - Desktop - Intel Core i7/7700K - 16GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 - 240GB Solid State Drive + 1TB Hard Drive - Black/red

So my vid card is a 1080, right? I'm not sure about GTX or TI stuff but this is a nice card. It seems to run everything fine at Ultra, but I have a 1680X1050 monitor, so it's probably not power hungry.

1080 blah, blah: Backed by 8GB GDDR5 dedicated video memory for a fast, advanced GPU to fuel your games. NVIDIA Optimus technology optimizes the computer for both graphics performance and power conservation.

Pooey, my old card is a 770 GTX. Not good enough for this thread. It is collecting dust I think. I don't believe I gave it away yet to family.
 
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Hmmm, I wonder what's in my old pc I'm not using. I'm not sure what's in my new pc to be honest. I think it's a 1080 of some kind. There should be threads around here somewhere…I will be back with an edit.

Man, if you have a 1070 or 1080 or even a Vega I will love you forever. :biggrin: Feel free to message me if you want and just let me know how much you want for it. Thanks for looking bro! :thumbsup:
 
His current card is a 1080 and his old one is a 770. I would be amazed if someone had an 'old pc' collecting dust with a 1080. I suppose to some folks a few hours is old but I typically think of an 'old pc' as 5 years (at least) and typically 10+ :)

My current active non-gaming pc is already 8 years old. To be honest there hasn't been much improvement since Sandy Bridge if we ignore usb 3.0 and pci 3.0 :) (oops and usb-c and if you an apple pisser thunder - bolts).


Man, if you have a 1070 or 1080 or even a Vega I will love you forever. :biggrin: Feel free to message me if you want and just let me know how much you want for it. Thanks for looking bro! :thumbsup:
 
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His current card is a 1080 and his old one is a 770. I would be amazed if someone had an 'old pc' collecting dust with a 1080. I suppose to some folks a few hours is old but I typically think of an 'old pc' as 5 years (at least) and typically 10+ :)

My current active non-gaming pc is already 8 years old. To be honest there hasn't been much improvement since Sandy Bridge if we ignore usb 3.0 and pci 3.0 :) (oops and usb-c and if you an apple pisser thunder - bolts).

Ah, true, not sure what I was thinking. :) Even my older Alienware laptop that I sold a few years back, by the time I sold it the card was already a year or two out of its "prime".

I'm thinking if I can sell the 970 at least on Ebay, get a decent price for it, that should cover a large chunk of the money towards either the 1070 or 1080. Can't believe how expensive these cards are though. I mean, consoles as a whole are cheaper than these single cards (and less powerful, I get that, but still.) On the plus side, if you upgrade to something really nice you should be good for a year or two, and the GPUs seem to be holding their value well now with that whole mining thing going on. Just rambling here but I'm excited to get ELEX rolling in 4K. :biggrin:
 
So my vid card is a 1080, right? I'm not sure about GTX or TI stuff but this is a nice card. It seems to run everything fine at Ultra, but I have a 1680X1050 monitor, so it's probably not power hungry.

Higher resolutions become exponentially more power hungry. Kinda makes sense if you think about it, a 4k resolution (4096 x 2160 pixel) has about twice the with and height and squared this makes 4 times the amount of pixels compared to 1920x1080, ergo lots more stuff to calculate.
That's also why the question "What do I need to run XYZ?" is incomplete without telling the requested resolution.

A GTX 1080 is complete overkill for your resolution. Even a GTX 1070 is overkill for 1680x1050. Your next upgrade should probably be a monitor then. ^^
Wouldn't go for 4k just yet though but rather a nice 1440p IPS panel.

Regarding GTX and stuff: All Gaming Graphics cards are called GTX which will probably cover 95% of all nvidia cards used from users in this forum.
GT without the X is used for crippled cards used for office applications.
And Ti (for Titanium) is an upgraded version of the base model (not to be confused with the Titan cards, which are the most powerful cards, and extremely expensive).
 
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What does the monitor bring to the table? I can't really tell a difference when I go to Best Buy. My cheapy monitor is still there and the games look the same to me on them as it does on these $400 monitors...Mine is just smaller in most cases. I sit 18 inches away.
 
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Bigger, and more pixels, which just looks better. ^^
An IPS Panel also has better colors and also better viewing angles.
TN Panels change colors drastically if you look at them from the sides or from above/below.
TFT-vs-TFT-IPS.jpg

Source

And also if you got a 144Hz monitor you see less of screen tearing (as the frames from your graphics card are not sent at the exact time of the monitors refresh, the monitor often displays 2 pictures at once).
screen-tearing-example.jpg

Source
You could also use freesync or g-synch (g-sync adds quite a premium to monitors), but imho the 144Hz to 60Hz difference is already quite small and I had a hart time telling them apart. Don't think there is much of a recognizable difference from 144Hz to Gsync or Freecync
 
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I play at 2560x1440 on a 144 Mhz large screen ASUS monitor with G-Sync and its real sweet. Higher resolutions do cost a lot in FPS though. I have a GTX 1080ti currently but my PC spare (the one in the closet if mine dies or has to go to the shop) has a GTX Titan X in it. I found the 1080ti to be much better than the Titan X but it seems that was the older Titan and there is a newer Titan version. It gets confusing, to me at least.
 
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You guys are lucky man! I built this PC with a GTX 970 a year or two ago. It served me well but obviously the 970 is getting long in the tooth. I did get a big 4K TV as a gift and that has been my main "monitor" for gaming for awhile. Nothing fancy, just a basic, large 4K TV. It looks cool @ 4K but the only games I've really ever been able to max out on it have been older games, or things like Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim with mods. It serves its purpose though. But getting a different monitor or screen is pretty much out of the question right now. I'm really only able to get a new GPU at best.

I was going to sell the 4K TV and maybe get a 1440p monitor, but I wouldn't be saving much money that way. So I figure, might as well get a decent card at least capable of playing somewhat at 4K. Might as well use the TV if I can, eh? :)
 
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Lol, we're not lucky. We're old. We can afford most things, but not youth!
 
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Yep, you're right. :thumbsup: I know it's not luck.

It's all good. Gotta be thankful for what we do have.
 
SLI and Crossfire are a waste of money and performance. Just a get a good Nvidia card, preferably Titanium as those models usually wrap up the previous generation. Gigabyte is a solid manufacturer (good cooling).
 
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Thanks. Got to list my 970 on eBay first. Tomorrow sometime probably. If anyone wants to make an offer just message me. The card runs great, no issues.
 
A second hand 1070 is called a 980ti

The only people looking to sell their 1070 are people who bought it for 4K and found it wasn't good enough :p
 
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Hey, it will get me ELEX in 40ish+ FPS @ 4K, so that is good enough for me. :D
 
I was going to sell the 4K TV and maybe get a 1440p monitor, but I wouldn't be saving much money that way. So I figure, might as well get a decent card at least capable of playing somewhat at 4K. Might as well use the TV if I can, eh? :)

That makes no sense. YOur 4K TV can run lower resolutions too, and probably rather well.

Have a look at the 3DCenter.de 4K Performance Index if you want to get a realistic idea about the possible performance gain, on average over all games used in hardware reviews around the world. 100 index points is the point where the fun starts. Less means compromises or simply not enough speed for practical use with newish games. This index is based upon hundreds of reviews and generated by hand, to filter out obvious nonsense like incorrect BIOS settings. The site considers it precise to 1 or 2 points.

TL;DR: It confirms the ca. +70% from 970 to 1070.
 
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That makes no sense. YOur 4K TV can run lower resolutions too, and probably rather well.

Have a look at the 3DCenter.de 4K Performance Index if you want to get a realistic idea about the possible performance gain, on average over all games used in hardware reviews around the world. 100 index points is the point where the fun starts. Less means compromises or simply not enough speed for practical use with newish games. This index is based upon hundreds of reviews and generated by hand, to filter out obvious nonsense like incorrect BIOS settings. The site considers it precise to 1 or 2 points.

TL;DR: It confirms the ca. +70% from 970 to 1070.

Thanks! A 70% boost should be enough for me in this case I think.

As for selling the TV, it made sense to me because I was going to do something like this:

Sell the 4K TV - $600ish
Buy a 1440p monitor - $300ish
Use the extra $300 towards a GPU

I am keeping my TV, though, for sure, and not doing that now. Hoping to just score a good deal if I'm patient. Thanks for the info.
 
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