Transitioning from CF R290 to a single card solution, suggestions?

[Powermoloch]

It's been close to 4+ years since I build my rig. But i'm thinking to transition to a single card solution w/o dealing CFX or SLI.

First my specs:

CPU: I7 4790K (stock settings)
Mobo: Biostar Hi-Fi Z97WE
RAM: Team Vulcan 1600 DDR3 ( 2 x 8 gb )
GPU: Sapphire Trixxx R290 x 2
PSU: Coolmax 1000w 80+ bronze
OS: Win 7 ultimate


I mostly play 1080p sadly with a big screen 40" in a living room setup at this time. Is it time to bite the bullet to grab the spiraling prices of the 1080 GTX or wait to see AMDs answer to 2080 series?. I'm planning to play future titles such as cyber punk 2077 right out of the box.

 

[beginner99]

It's impossible to make predictions what future games might need and also the chance of them getting delayed is also possible. Future proofing in that regard makes little to no sense.

Why do you even need 2x290 to game at 1080p 60hz? Or said otherwise fir 1080p gaming I would target GTX 1060 / RX 580 range of cards unless you plan to get a new display in the near future. Thing is a single one of these 2 cards isn't that much faster than even a single 290 and slower in games that support CF (well I doubt any new ones do?).

1070 might be also an option for some future-proofing but at this point I would wait another 1-2weeks and see where the ne RTX2000 series lands an dhow it impacts 1000-series prices. 1080 is honestly a waste of money on a 1080p screen.

 

[darkswordsman17]

AMD is not going to have an answer to the 2080 series for awhile (as in very possibly not even next year), so definitely do not wait around for that.

Are prices for them spiraling that much? (I haven't been paying attention). If they are then go for it. Frankly, for 1080p, I'm not sure that you have any great value options. The 1070 and 1080 will offer good performance improvement but they're not a stellar value just yet. If the RTX cards are good it should push them to being better value, and it should mean more people selling them to upgrade to the new cards. Maybe even some decent 1080Ti deals.

I don't think its a good idea to upgrade for games that are fairly far off still (does Cyberpunk 2077 have a release date yet even? Isn't it potentially years away still?).

 

[happy medium]

Since crossfire and sli now suck because few games support it, I would grab a gtx1070 on the used market for about $300. Even when crossfire works well it will still be 15% slower than a gtx1070, bur most of the time a gtx1070 should be at least 25 % faster or more.

A gtx1070 is more than enough to play the latest games at 1080p .

Sell your cards for about $100 each and a 300$ 1070 should be a good upgrade.

 

[crisium]

I agree with the GTX 1070 recommendation. Only in exceptionally crossfire-optimized games will the 290 x2 be faster (1070 is over 60% faster than 290 x1). And it has twice the VRAM and will, relatively speaking, sip power.

 

[alcoholbob]

If you are buying on Ebay wait for a ebay bucks coupon. I bought a used 1070 for $235 with their 15% off coupon last week, came out to under 200 for a 1070.

Sold my 1080ti during the mining craze for 1200 lol. Just getting back to pc gaming now that its died down.

 

[Headfoot]

I switched from 2x290 to a 1080 Ti and it was magnificent. So nice not having any CF issues

 

[n0x1ous]

I concur with the others; 1070 sounds like a great fit my friend

 

[alcoholbob]

If you are buying used, it actually looks like 1070 Ti has the best bang for the buck right now. It's only 5% slower than 1080, about 20% faster than 1070, but selling for halfway between 1070 and 1080 price, making it probably the best perf/$ card.

 

[Powermoloch]

Pretty much the consensus is a 1070 series. I'll keep an eye out for some sweet deals, and recoup the cost from my r290s.

 

[Ottonomous]

Pretty much the consensus is a 1070 series. I'll keep an eye out for some sweet deals, and recoup the cost from my r290s.

If you'd consider it, look out for evga b-stock flash sales. A few weeks ago there were 299 and 349 1080s but they were gone in minutes.

 

[guskline]

Just picked up a Gigabyte Gaming GTX1070TI and it's a fast card and I'm using 2560x1440 so it will fly at 1080P

 

[Shmee]

I would go with a Vega 56/64 or 1070Ti or 1080. They are all pretty close, so look for the best prices and deals where you can.

 

[guskline]

I agree with Shmee. To give you some perspective, I had 2 RX480 8g Polaris cards in CF in my 2700x rig below (at the time was a 1800x OC'd to 4Ghz). Benched great but decided to go to a single card. Vega was too much $$$ so I jumped to a GTX 1080 and have been VERY pleased. Sure some of the synthetic scores went down but gone was the CF/SLI problem with cards. In addition it was MUCH smoother in game play. I also had R290s in CF and they were stout but OH the heat and power.

I just checked prices on Newegg. Vega 56 is as low as $399 while GTX1070TI is @$419. Vega 64 is as low as $499 while a GTX1080 is as low as $469.

Since you are at 1080p I would opt for the GTX1070TI (I own one in my 2600x rig below and it is outstanding at 2560x1440)