What would you do?

[KrebD98]

Hello everyone I’m a new member to the TPU forum. I just purchased an LG Ultrawide 21:9 1440p 144hz FreeSync 2 display (34GK950F), I’m a little unsure what I should do as far as my GPU(s). I currently have 2 MSI 980s on EK blocks in SLI, and a i7-5820k OC’d to 4.4ghz also watercooled. 16GB DDR4 2400 ram, all that good stuff.

I'm debating between a few options, 1) Just go for a 2080S and get the best performance available from a single GPU, outside of a Ti (I refuse to pay that much). 2) Take a shot with one of the Radeon X 5700 XT GPUs or 3) Just wait it out until 7nm Nvidia GPUs launch.

I'm really not interested in option #3 considering all of the recent games and upcoming games (next 6 months) there are to dive into. I would only strongly consider this if I knew Ampere were launching Q1 2020, although within the past couple of days it has been rumored Ampere will launch 1H 2020.

I've looked at loads of benchmarks and am really enticed by option #2, although there are a couple of reasons I'm a little reluctant. First the percentage lows the 5700 XT reaches aren't that thrilling, and secondly would be investing in a card without RTX when a few of my favorite games support it and my most anticipated game support it (Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Metro Exodus and Cyberpunk 2077).

Option #1 I'm also unsure of, IMO it would suck to drop nearly $800 on a GPU that has the potential to be blown away by 7nm Ampere within the next 4-6 months. What does everyone think? Is the 2070S the real card I should be considering at this class of monitor? It's a tough choice, I know the 2080S will be a decent step up for only another ~$200 at the 3440 x 1440 resolution.

Just some background I've been with team green for the past decade and I really have had no issues with any of their GPUs or Drivers since I started my PC gaming journey. They always manage to be a step ahead of AMD it seems, whether it's efficiency, performance, features, reliability/longevity. This is the first time I really considered going with an AMD GPU, I guess the 5700 XT or 2070S would be more of a stopgap until Ampere eventually launches, whereas investing into a 2080S I would like it to last at least a generation or two.

Anyway I figured I'd throw this up here to get some feedback from the TPU users, any advice or input is appreciated whether it's from first hand experience or just food for thought. Thanks

 

[potato580+]

5700xt definitly worth in current gpu chart, is cheap rather expensive nvidia, but if you still wait for 7nm nvidia then dont buy it right now, tho i doubt 7nm would be cheaper than 2080, nvidia know well as expensive brand

 

[Hyderz]

2x 980s is like a gtx1080 performance isnt it? well except for the 4gb limited vram. Well when it came out thats what i remembered.
Theres always going to be new stuff releasing around the corner, so its up you whether you think ur gpus cant give the performance you wanted then upgrade.
2080s, 2070s and 5700xt are all fantastic choices. As for the prices it depends what amd brings to the top tier gpu. Hopefully a $599 or $629 card at 2080s performance.
You can always sell the gpu you buy now and then upgrade to ampere when it comes out

 

[moproblems99]

I am in the same boat with the same monitor. I have been going back and forth for the last 3 and a half months. Looking back, I should have bought the 2080s 3 months ago. Now, I hate over paying by 200$ when the next class of gpus are going to be out in 3 to 6 months though likely closer to (or exceeding) the 6 month mark.

At this point, I am just sucking it up and playing on medium.

 

[KrebD98]

Thanks, although I'm still undecided, it's going to come down to me either becoming impatient and buying a 2080S or holding off for Ampere. I can only imagine what Nvidia will accomplish with the 7nm architecture. I'm hoping Ampere launches sooner than later, and we get some solid information from Nvidia soon, that would make it a lot easier to hold off.

It's going to be really hard with games like Red Dead 2 coming to PC in November, The Outer Worlds, and Cyberpunk 2077, along with the plethora of games that are available from the past year or so.

Maybe I'll just replay games that scale well with SLI (Witcher 3, GTA V, Battlefield, Skyrim etc.) until Ampere releases.

Anyway I'm about to unbox and set-up this beast of a monitor, hopefully I won the panel lottery! Thanks guys!

 

[Voluman]

Fastest single gpu for your budget or if you can a good price any of 2 you mentioned, if you want to continue with dual card setup.

 

[KrebD98]

Yeah I'm going to stick with the single fastest GPU I can afford, personally I would only use NVLink if I was able to watercool both GPUs again and sadly multi-GPU support has been slowly fazing out. At this point I'm just not sure if I want to spend ~$750 on Turing when Ampere is within 6 months from launch most likely. I just got the 34GK950F up and running and so far it's amazing, very little IPS glow on some corners but that's almost unavoidable with these panels, hopefully it holds up.

Any recommendations for color profiles for this display, maybe I'll check out TFTCentral, these displays are pre-calibrated but I'm not sure to what standard/accuracy. Right now I'm running it in sRGB mode.

 

[64K]

2x 980s is like a gtx1080 performance isnt it? well except for the 4gb limited vram. Well when it came out thats what i remembered.
Theres always going to be new stuff releasing around the corner, so its up you whether you think ur gpus cant give the performance you wanted then upgrade.
2080s, 2070s and 5700xt are all fantastic choices. As for the prices it depends what amd brings to the top tier gpu. Hopefully a $599 or $629 card at 2080s performance.
You can always sell the gpu you buy now and then upgrade to ampere when it comes out

So many Developers have dropped SLI support until it's almost dead.

I'm debating between a few options, 1) Just go for a 2080S and get the best performance available from a single GPU, outside of a Ti (I refuse to pay that much). 2) Take a shot with one of the Radeon X 5700 XT GPUs or 3) Just wait it out until 7nm Nvidia GPUs launch.

An RTX 2080 Super is a good bit faster than a RX 5700 XT but it also costs a lot more.

 

[KrebD98]

So many Developers have dropped SLI support until it's almost dead.



An RTX 2080 Super is a good bit faster than a RX 5700 XT but it also costs a lot more.


View attachment 133850

Yeah Turing also overclocks better than Navi, and includes RTX technology which is supposed to be a game changer. Once it becomes more widely adopted. I heard the global illumination ray tracing in Metro Exodus completely changes the atmosphere/immersion of the game. With the PS5 including Ray Tracing hardware I think the technology is here to stay for a lot of future AAA games.

 

[64K]

Yeah Turing also overclocks better than Navi, and includes RTX technology which is supposed to be a game changer. Once it becomes more widely adopted. I heard the global illumination ray tracing in Metro Exodus completely changes the atmosphere/immersion of the game. With the PS5 including Ray Tracing hardware I think the technology is here to stay for a lot of future AAA games.

Good points and that adds value to the 2080 Super.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

I would wait at least till Black Friday there will probably be some decent deals on all 3 cards you're considering. As other have said best to go with the fastest card you can afford or buy on Amazon and send it back if performance isn't adequate.

Waiting is always a gamble the next line of Nvidia GPU may not be out till summer or fall of next year especially if AMD is still not competing past a 2070s. Even if AMD comes out with a 2080s tier card or faster they will price it accordingly.

There was a ton of Touring and Navi rumors saying they'd be out much earlier than expected only for them to release months after the rumors predicted.

 

[racer243l]

34GK950F up and running and so far it's amazing, very little IPS glow on some corners but that's almost unavoidable with these panels, hopefully it holds up

I hope it won´t die on you after six months like mine did.
But I seem to have terrible luck with LG things. LG Nexus 5 died after six months, 34GK950F at just six and a half months and a Blu Ray player after four months.

Anyway don´ t play the waiting game. Upgrade to what you can offord now.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

Depending on how interested you are in keeping consistent 144Hz and what games you are trying to get that in I would honestly consider tossing out the CPU/mobo/RAM for some Zen2 stuff (3600 is fine baseline)... In my experience the xLake chips and Zen2 are way better at maintaining high framerates than the xWells...

As for GPUs I don't think the market is that great ATM, the 5700(XT) is pretty decent but there's really nothing that makes me go wow, especially if you are considering trying to reach for 1440p144. I think it's better to wait out a few months on that side of things.

 

[moproblems99]

I heard the global illumination ray tracing in Metro Exodus completely changes the atmosphere/immersion of the game.

Exodus was brilliant without it.

 

[robot zombie]

I wouldn't make RT a consideration just yet. I've personally played through two RTX games with it on... Control and Metro. Both have pretty impressive implimentations but the performance on it isn't quite there. Not to mention both games are still wayy up there on looks without it. With RTX on, I'd wager that you would need a 2080 minimum to play through those games @ 60 fps start to finish... at 1080p. Dlss is pretty good with Metro, but again the tech still isn't quite there. Best I can say right now is that it all has huge potential and major implications. I think it'll probably be a couple more generations before we can call this a full-fledged feature. Right now it's more like a preview. If it really interests you grab a Nvidia card and check it out. It's pretty cool. Just not something you should buy into expecting to get much more than a chance to see what it's about. It's not what I think anyone would call a practical feature.

Don't get me wrong... what's there is actually legit cool as hell. From what I've personally experienced, I'm a believer. It's just not a good reason to buy one card over another. You might be let down. Best to just look at price/performance and leave it at that.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

Yeah, pretty much with RTX you are a beta tester right now, I'm personally not enthused by the cost at all and I doubt any of the Turing cards will be at all useful in a few years time when ray/path tracing really takes off.

Interesting technology nonetheless, and I hope that people encourage devs to strive for better implementations in the future.

 

[KrebD98]

Thanks guys for all the really good advice and information, at this stage I’ll most likely save up and wait for potential sales on Black Friday/Cyber Monday and buy the best card I can afford at that time.

Like others have said I can always flip the card at a bit of a loss if Ampere happens to come sooner than expected. Btw I now have an Acer XB270HU sitting around (pre-predator line) 16:9 144hz 2560 x 1440p. It’s obviously used but in great condition, original owner, only some minimal IPS glow it hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down. I might keep it around just for a few weeks incase any issues crop up with my new display, otherwise I’ll be looking to sell it.

Thanks again!

 

[KrebD98]

Just an update.

After doing some further research ( https://technical.city/en/video/GeForce-GTX-980-SLI-mobile-vs-GeForce-RTX-2080-Ti ) and play testing with the hardware I have, I don’t really feel like there is a worthwhile GPU upgrade right now. The only noticeable upgrade would be a 2080 Ti and I simply won’t lay out ~$1100 for a gaming GPU.

I can play any game I have and it feels just fine (so far, with tuned settings around High), especially games that are well optimized for SLI there is even less of a benefit to upgrade to a current GPU. I’m confident RDR2 and CP2077 will both be optimized to run well with SLI and those are my most anticipated games right now overall, especially on PC.

As far as the 34GK950F, this panel is simply beautiful, the colors, responsiveness, clarity and picture quality are awesome. I highly recommend it to anyone thinking of jumping to an Ultrawide set-up.

So far I’ve tested Witcher 3, Battlefield 1 and Rise of the Tomb Raider. I still have a lot of games to experience on this beast, I’m wary of trying to boot up Metro Exodus or Control those are 2 games I know I’ll have to turn down settings significantly just to play. Anyone have any other games that they recommend I try playing on Ultrawide?

 

[potato580+]

well i would like to recommend some few good games but, becouse you do like to play with high tech rig, am speechless

 

[oxrufiioxo]

I think you've already listed all the games that take the most advantage of SLI... You may want to look into the Sniper elite series I know 3/4 have good support.

The link you posted isn't a very good indication of the difference between your system and a 2080/2080 ti in most games even with a decent overclock 980 ti get beaten by a stock 2080 ti. I would say a 2080S is 30-40% faster than your setup with a 2080 ti being 50-60% depending on game the biggest advantage though is you will always get that performance increase vs only being able to play a select few games that support sli well.


I went from a 1080 which should be similar to 980 sli to a Titan XP to a 2080 ti all 3 GPU upgrades felt more than worthwhile.... The 1080 couldn't hang in FFXV at 1440p without dropping quite a bit of settings.

 

[KrebD98]

I think you've already listed all the games that take the most advantage of SLI... You may want to look into the Sniper elite series I know 3/4 have good support.

The link you posted isn't a very good indication of the difference between your system and a 2080/2080 ti in most games even with a decent overclock 980 ti get beaten by a stock 2080 ti. I would say a 2080S is 30-40% faster than your setup with a 2080 ti being 50-60% depending on game the biggest advantage though is you will always get that performance increase vs only being able to play a select few games that support sli well.


I went from a 1080 which should be similar to 980 sli to a Titan XP to a 2080 ti all 3 GPU upgrades felt more than worthwhile.... The 1080 couldn't hang in FFXV at 1440p without dropping quite a bit of settings.

I guess you're right, that is a situation where 2 980s are scaling perfectly and have an 8GB VRAM buffer. Like you mentioned earlier I'll probably just save and keep an eye out for a really good deal, and we always have black friday / cyber monday coming up.

I actually have Sniper Elite 4 and have played only a little bit of it, it's fun from what I recall, I'll give it another go and probably start it over since it has been a while. I'm probably going to start a new Witcher 3 playthrough as well until we get Red Dead 2 on PC, although I already played it on PS4 Pro, the PC screenshots look amazing, I can't wait to experience that game on Ultrawide, hoping they optimize it for SLI otherwise it will require a better GPU.

Any other games anyone recommends? Regardless of SLI performance, I have been checking out Divinity Original Sin, I've never been much of a Turn-Based fan, but I've read great things about it and the sequel.