Itchy Upgrade Fingers

[M0rt]

I'd say sell em now because by the time 20nm Maxwell rolls around and prices settle, the best offer you'll get for your 2GB 680's after the massive pain in the ass of dealing with an illiquid market will be a bag of Cheetos. Especially if The Division and Arkham Knight prove to be VRAM intensive and 4K/1440p prices decrease, you'll be peddling paperweights.

Problem is, what else can you run in the interim with comparable horsepower and a slower rate of depreciation? Basically nada.

If you're prepared to take the FPS hit in favor of textures, a nicely overclocked 290 can bridge the gap and should leave you with more cash to rollover into Maxwell after you flip it.

The 780Ti's are coming down a bit and I suspect one will hold its value better than the 680's, but not by much. Regardless, forget SLI or you'll take a bigger beating come resale time.

Going with 4GB 770's seem preferable to the Ti depending on the prices and might be the smoothest move for you.

Sorry to say it, but the gods of optimal gaming and capital preservation are not feeling very charitable at the moment.

 

[newconroer]

Well when does he stop upgrading? It seems pointless to me. Wait till Maxwell or whatever is after. I doubt the extra 1gb of ram in a 780 is going to do anything for your experience. If you have problems don't run ultra textures but max everything else out.

That comes out as contradictory. You query the futility of constantly upgrading, yet then claim Maxwell is the time to do it as it holds some definitive end to the problem? Even if a new generation would solve the issue, I'd at least wait for a proper new architecture, such as Pascal.
And as later described, it's down to the VRAM he's concerned over (as am I). Furthemore, resell value, which Mort covered below.

I'd say sell em now because by the time 20nm Maxwell rolls around and prices settle, the best offer you'll get for your 2GB 680's after the massive pain in the ass of dealing with an illiquid market will be a bag of Cheetos. Especially if The Division and Arkham Knight prove to be VRAM intensive and 4K/1440p prices decrease, you'll be peddling paperweights.

Problem is, what else can you run in the interim with comparable horsepower and a slower rate of depreciation? Basically nada.

If you're prepared to take the FPS hit in favor of textures, a nicely overclocked 290 can bridge the gap and should leave you with more cash to rollover into Maxwell after you flip it.

The 780Ti's are coming down a bit and I suspect one will hold its value better than the 680's, but not by much. Regardless, forget SLI or you'll take a bigger beating come resale time.

Going with 4GB 770's seem preferable to the Ti depending on the prices and might be the smoothest move for you.

Sorry to say it, but the gods of optimal gaming and capital preservation are not feeling very charitable at the moment.

I wouldn't say their value goes down THAT much, they are still awesome products and there will still be more of them on the market than 770s of any variation. It's really whether or not Maxwell continue's Nvidia's new found love for power consumption and efficiency.


I realize that the poll options Freedom gave, pigeon hole's this discussion and I was speaking outside of that scope. If he has to only choose the Nvidia cards, I'd sell the 680s and buy a single 780TI. He'll get enough horsepower to run most games, and the particular VRAM headroom he's after.



My view is that most people over look the necessity for VRAM over 2GB because 1080p is still the common resolution. I've been on 1440p for over five years, and it's a whole different ball game. That increase in resolution can cut performance in half and even when it doesn't you're often hovering around 1900+ memory usage, with stuttering when you pan camera or try to engage in heavy action. Don't get me started on eyefinity/surround resolutions.

Skyrim, Fallout, Witcher, Battlefield 4, Rage, Wolfenstein, Watch Dogs, Far Cry 3, and plenty of others (due to mods, AA) are all guilty of this.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

well.... Ive left it to my friend to decide.

He needs a new GPU and he might take both my 680s or 1 of them, Even if he did take just 1, I already have a possible buyer for the second one. Just gotta wait to see how it pans out.

Ive lowered the texture quality to High in BF4 and the game runs a bit better, everything still looks crisp (but its still not ultra )

I realize that the poll options Freedom gave, pigeon hole's this discussion

yeah, I still plan to SLi be it with a 780Ti or a 880 & SLi has always worked better for me so AMD isnt really an option unless its a stop gap, but even then dialing down the texture settings is free!