2560x1440 with RoG Swift: single 970 or two?

[Jumpem]

Is one of the higher clocked 970s enough for this display?

 

[Freddy1765]

How is it someone with almost 10,000 posts still hasn't learned how to properly phrase a question on these forums?
If you were to provide some information on what your specs are and which games you'll be playing, people will be able to help you rather than try to guess what your usage patterns and expectations are.

 

[Jumpem]

How is it someone with almost 10,000 posts still hasn't learned how to properly phrase a question on these forums?
If you were to provide some information on what your specs are and which games you'll be playing, people will be able to help you rather than try to guess what your usage patterns and expectations are.

Calm down junior. Specs outside of the GPU and monitor are essentially irrelevant.

As for which games, I am not sure. Most don't interest me these days. Diablo 3, Wasteland 2, maybe the occasional FPS (but I generally don't like them), Star Citizen in the future.

 

[Continuity28]

As a person that owns the monitor, I can tell you that my single 780 Ti is plenty. I would assume the 970 would fare the same.

G-Sync is more forgiving than double buffered V-Sync, because there's no breakpoints you need to hit in order to have consistent FPS. All you need is the power and settings to reach the FPS you are comfortable with, and it will remain as smooth as it can for that FPS.

 

[hawtdawg]

definitely 2. 2 OC'd 780's just barely does the trick on my Tempest X270OC

 

[Jumpem]

definitely 2. 2 OC'd 780's just barely does the trick on my Tempest X270OC

That is one of the benefits of G-Sync though. 30 to 60 FPS is just as smooth with G-Sync as maintaining a minimum 60 FPS with a standard 60 Hz monitor.

 

[Kenmitch]

That is one of the benefits of G-Sync though. 30 to 60 FPS is just as smooth with G-Sync as maintaining a minimum 60 FPS with a standard 60 Hz monitor.

Just try it with one card and take it from there. Not like it's hard to drop the 2nd card in later if needed.

 

[Continuity28]

Just try it with one card and take it from there. Not like it's hard to drop the 2nd card in later if needed.

Yep, that's pretty solid advice.

I also want to ask the OP if he ever used a TN monitor before? The ROG Swift is definitely a great gaming monitor, but as it's a TN monitor, it does suffer from vertical viewing angles / color shifting. Basically, you need to be looking at the monitor from the perfect angle, or else the image will appear too bright/washed out, or too dark, depending on angle. You may also want to reduce the gamma by about 15%, as that seemed to be closer to 2.2 for mine. But again, angle really matters as it's a 27" TN.

 

[Jumpem]

Just try it with one card and take it from there. Not like it's hard to drop the 2nd card in later if needed.

That would change my motherboard, case, and PSU choices.

If I use a single 970, I would go mATX and reuse my existing 520W PSU. Dual 970s would mean going to a larger case, ATX motherboard, and a new larger PSU.

 

[Jumpem]

Yep, that's pretty solid advice.

I also want to ask the OP if he ever used a TN monitor before? The ROG Swift is definitely a great gaming monitor, but as it's a TN monitor, it does suffer from vertical viewing angles / color shifting. Basically, you need to be looking at the monitor from the perfect angle, or else the image will appear too bright/washed out, or too dark, depending on angle. You may also want to reduce the gamma by about 15%, as that seemed to be closer to 2.2 for mine. But again, angle really matters as it's a 27" TN.

I have been using IPS since at least 2006. I really want to take advantage of G-Sync though.

 

[Kenmitch]

That would change my motherboard, case, and PSU choices.

If I use a single 970, I would go mATX and reuse my existing 520W PSU. Dual 970s would mean going to a larger case, ATX motherboard, and a new larger PSU.

Well then maybe it's why the 1st response to your question was about the build.

If building new there isn't much difference in price between mATX and ATX motherboards and cases. If your trying to keep the rig size down then just look for a ATX case like the Arc MIdi as it'll house what you'd need but isn't a huge case at all.

You could still do the try it and see approach with your current power supply. Swapping to a larger power supply and dropping in the second card later wouldn't be too much hassle at all.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

The games you named aren't that heavy on the gpu anyway, I'd just go with a single one. And if a game does murder gpu's just turn a few settings down, some settings really murder a system for a marginal gain in image quality.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

If you're going for G-Sync one will be fine, if you're thinking of messing with ULMB, then you'd probably want to go for two (otherwise be prepared to turn settings down, heck you might have to turn settings down anyway for a flawless ULMB experience, as often the CPU is the limitation and we're kind of SOL in that department - its easy to just throw more GPU power at a problem that is GPU limited, whereas we've kind of been stuck in a rut with high end CPU power)

if you end up going mATX, there's always the possiblity of selling off the 970 and going with the potential big Maxwell GM200 or dual GPU GM204 if you find a single 970 lacking.