Upgrade for 4K Gaming

[Chris G.]

I was out of PC gaming for years but I few months ago got back into it and then I built this machine to what I thought was the "high end" at the time.

I currently have a couple of EVGA 980GTX FTW cards in SLI and I am finding that after I got a new 4K TV (that I use for gaming), some of the games I try to play now at the native res for this TV aren't able to be maxed out anymore, of course, but what I want to know is everyone's opinion of what I should do now to easily game at 4K (with all the settings at max) and have a bit of head room for the future.

Current System:

Samsung 55" S-UHD 4K TV UN55JS9000 (native resolution is 3840x2160@60hz)
i7-4930K
EVGA Dark Motherboard
32GB RAM
SoundBlaster Z
Disks: All Samsung SSDs except for a HyperDuo 6TB set with 2x500GB SSDs as cache drives.

Should I go with 2x980Ti cards now or 2xTitan X's....I really don't want to have to go over about $2,500 either ...unless I sell these other cards. I play all kinds of games (mainly FPS shooters so high FPS is a must) but I want a gaming machine that can handle everything at that 4K resolution without having to worry about any of the "Settings". I would like to set it up and leave it alone and just play games at least for a good year or two.

Also, I have been reading up lately about SLI and in some games (like the Wolfenstein games from ID) do not even use it and in some cases the performance is worse for having it enabled...is this really true?

I was thinking that I should just go 4xSLI and get 2 more 980s but now that doesnt seem that good of an idea...it may be that I need more vram so the 6GB on the 980Ti's or 12GB on the Titan X's would be the smarter route??

Any recommendations?

 

[GhostRyder]

In your situation, I would get two GTX 980ti's, even with ram requirements going up 4gb is enough for most 4k scenarios. Also after the second card you start to get very different results on a game to game basis where 3 cards is about the limits now of actual real game performance being stable. I would sell your two GTX 980's and then get a pair of GTX 980ti's and if needed add some extra clocks onto them.

 

[tabascosauz]

Quad SLI that is only good for "a year or two" is a bit of a waste of money, to say the least. Why not wait it out?

 

[Chris G.]

Awesome! Thanks GhostRyder....thats the kind of answer I was looking for.

What about the Titan X cards though? Do you think those would be even better, for future games, or no it wouldn't matter that much at that res?

Because from all that I have been reading it seems as if that 2GB jump from 4GB to 6GB is what that 980 needed for good 4K performance.

 

[Chris G.]

Quad SLI that is only good for "a year or two" is a bit of a waste of money, to say the least. Why not wait it out?

Thats totally true and thats what I really dont want to get into...but I think for now like GhostRyder said the Ti's are probably the way to go for this resolution...I think I need to do some research into the Titan X numbers too though because it might be better to just go with the 1 Titan X for the largest single card perf and then if I really want get a second one down the road a bit.

I would love to wait and see what happens next but I have to do this soon since the cards I have now were awesome for 1080P but now they seem like they are struggling a little each time a new game comes out...and I dont want to end up waiting for a couple months (I really dont know how long I just made that up..haha) when I could be playing games at that res the whole time at good speeds the whole time with the Ti's...ugh..know what I mean...its a tough spot.

 

[tabascosauz]

Eh, these days games are pretty well optimized and look more or less the same when you get into higher texture territory. It's more of an epeen thing nowadays. I've had to deal with no AA (or only FXAA) in so many games because MSAA only works properly on Nvidia cards...that when I turn on AA again just to get a sense of what it's like, I see no significant difference. For example, I personally don't think that maxing out GTA V, Watch Dogs and Far Cry 4 settings has any real benefit over High/Very High settings. Granted, things probably look more beautiful and differences more pronounced at 4K. Your call; your wallet, not mine.

 

[Chris G.]

Eh, these days games are pretty well optimized and look more or less the same when you get into higher texture territory. It's more of an epeen thing nowadays. I've had to deal with no AA (or only FXAA) in so many games because MSAA only works properly on Nvidia cards...that when I turn on AA again just to get a sense of what it's like, I see no significant difference. For example, I personally don't think that maxing out GTA V, Watch Dogs and Far Cry 4 settings has any real benefit over High/Very High settings. Granted, things probably look more beautiful and differences more pronounced at 4K. Your call; your wallet, not mine.

Hmmm..you know what you do have a good point. I was checking out Wolfenstein: TOB (what started all this for me) and I noticed that the higher the res the less and less I needed FSAA and it actually started to have some negative visual impact. Like normally where I would see the need for AA it just looked almost fine without it, i mean I could still see the jaggies on the edges but I had to look for them, and when I tried switching on FSAA to like x8 it made the image tooo....soft?? like it was just making things a little too blurry where at lower resolutions it wouldnt.

Its hard to explain but that was what it looked like to me...Im thinking the Ti's would be good though. Do you know whats on the horizon for whats next for Nvidia...I havent heard anything that is in the works for me to wait for anyway....

 

[JayCan73]

I'd personally wait it out with the pair of 980's, just to see how much performance they are gonna try and cram onto a 14nm chip next gen. A die size shrink to half the size is bound to deliver a gpu that can hit 4K@60hz or close enough to, to be worth waiting for. Not to mention what improvements could be had from a native DX12 architecture(is the 980ti older architecture than the 980?)

 

[JayCan73]

Don't see your system specks, have you got a decent OC on the 980's or the I7? You could maybe spend a little on better cooling now to get better performance and defer the gpu upgrade.

 

[arbiter]

go with 980TI's

 

[15th Warlock]

Like everyone suggested, go with the 980Ti, quite frankly, the performance spread between that card and the Titan X does not justify the price difference. Also, the max you'll be able to game at on that TV is 60FPS, so you don't need the extra performance anyway, not enough to justify the extra $700 IMO.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

980 Ti SLI, or balance game settings while waiting for Pascal. Your 980s will hold their resale value for a while longer because it's still an uncontended model in the fairly big gap between 970/290x, and 980 Ti/Fury X.

I'm hoping a flagship Pascal (1080 Ti?) will be enough to run pretty much all games at 4k by itself. I don't want to buy into the more expensive X99 or upcoming 200 series chipset platform just to get more lanes. With the M.2 Ultra x4 SSD I plan to use for an OS drive on my next upgrade, that means no SLI will be possible.

Chris, you really should fill out the spec chart under your avatar so we can get to know not just you, but your system as well.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

If you want 4k MAXED EVERYTHING, the Titan X is the only option. The 980Ti does a fantastic job, but if you are maxing everything in SLI, until the "magical ram stacking" people promise happens, you will often breach the 6gb vram barrier and find stuttering. My roommate has a 980Ti, I have a Titan @ 4k and my second is arriving soon.

Give games a year or so and I bet you'll pass that 6gb mark without even trying.

If you plan on upgrading as soon as the 980Ti/Titan is replaced, then go with 2x or 3x 980 Ti.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

If you want 4k MAXED EVERYTHING, the Titan X is the only option. The 980Ti does a fantastic job, but if you are maxing everything in SLI, until the "magical ram stacking" people promise happens, you will often breach the 6gb vram barrier and find stuttering. My roommate has a 980Ti, I have a Titan @ 4k and my second is arriving soon.

Give games a year or so and I bet you'll pass that 6gb mark without even trying.

This is why I recommend holding onto the 980s til Pascal, which will have HMB2. He can play most games in 4k with the 980s, and the ones that struggle he can drop res a bit. Ideal would be HMB2 6-8GB cards. Might only need one for 4k. Two Titans though is an investment that will soon look too spendy to be worth it I think.