690,780 or Titan on R3E?

[peterleo]

Hey Guys.
I used to have two AMD 6990's in Xfire, but they both died. Now I'm looking to replace them.
Having had a bad experience with the 6990's (driver issues, noise levels, overall quality), I'm now looking only at Nvidia.
My system is a couple of years old and I can't afford to just replace Mobo, CPU and Ram for the sake of PCI-E 3.0. However, I do want as good a performance as I can get from it with the help of the GPU's.
So my question is:
Which of the following solutions would you recommend for me?
-2 GTX 690's
-3 Titans
-3 780's
My mobo only supports 2 slots at x16. If I were to go 3way SLI, then I would have one card running x16 and the other two running both at x8.
Do you think that any of the three configurations would be bottlenecked by my CPU or by my mobo's PCI-E 2.0 limitation?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

 

[looz]

I'd wait a moment for 780 Ti and 780 GHz edition.

 

[peterleo]

Thanks for the reply!
Will my system bottleneck such high-end GPU's?

 

[notcool]

Thanks for the reply!
Will my system bottleneck such high-end GPU's?

For gaming an E8400 is still good enough for probably 90% of games. For gaming alone, upgrading your cpu would be a waste. I'd probably just buy a 780 now, you can keep on waiting for something to come out but at some point you have to take the biscuit. They're well priced now (the 780) and even at 2560x1600 will play pretty much everything with maybe a few notches down on AA, game depending, to keep smooth fps.

 

[Remmy]

I can't afford to just replace Mobo, CPU and Ram for the sake of PCI-E 3.0.
-3 Titans

I can't believe I've just read that you can't afford to upgrade BoBo, CPU, and RAM, and yet you're actually considering buying 3 Titans

Like others have said, wait a week or two for the 780Ti to come out, and see how that fits into the picture.

If you were completely unwilling to wait, I'd probably go for 2 GTX780s.

 

[Damien c]

What resolution are you planning on playing at?

My cpu is better than yours but the 990X isn't really going to bottleneck the 780's, and to be honest I have only see around a max of around 5% increase in performance from PCI-E 2 to PCI-E 3.

I think you would be best as said waiting to see what the 780ti's are like, before buying anything.

Even if you wanting to play at the likes of 2560x1600 or even on a 4K monitor you would still only need 2 780's.

 

[peterleo]

Thanks all for the valuable input! I really appreciate it!
I'll be using three monitors at 5760x1200 (actually 6000x1200 with bezel compensation).
I really like having all the visual candy set as high as it will go.
Based on my system specs, maxing out games at 5760x1200, will (for example) three titans be slowed down considerably by my cpu/mobo-pcie2.0/ram?

 

[NeverBackDown]

Nope you will be fine. Better off with two 780's(less hassle and better scaling); then again wait until the 780ti and 780Ghz come out so prices will drop and can upgrade other parts of the system. Not that it should be difficult anyway since you were considering 3 titans in the first place lol

 

[peterleo]

I agree. I'll wait to see what nvidia launches next.
I guess my main concern is that three titans in sli wouldn't perform better than three 780's in sli or two 690's because of, mainly my mobo specs (PCIE 2.0 and also running at x8 if i go for 3way sli)
I don't want to pay so much for three titans without being able to properly benefit from them because of the rest of my hardware.

 

[NeverBackDown]

I agree. I'll wait to see what nvidia launches next.
I guess my main concern is that three titans in sli wouldn't perform better than three 780's in sli or two 690's because of, mainly my mobo specs (PCIE 2.0 and also running at x8 if i go for 3way sli)
I don't want to pay so much for three titans without being able to properly benefit from them because of the rest of my hardware.

As said earlier instead of paying for 3 titans or 780s... just get 2 and only 2, then use that left over cash to upgrade your mobo and cpu.

 

[Kaapstad]

OP I think you should consider upgrading to a RIVE and 3930k or 4930k, this setup can run PCI-E 3.0 with the Titans and at very high resolutions can make a difference. The CPUs I mentioned also overclock a lot better than your current one and in some games this can make a difference.

I would also wait a week to see what the 780ti has to offer but the thing to remember with three cards at your resolution is the more vram they have the better, for some things 3gb is not enough with the settings turned up.

 

[peterleo]

Ok, that's great advice!
Based on my system specs, do you think it would be worth it to upgrade now? They were all top of the line 2 years ago. Shouldn't I wait a couple of more years before doing fundamental upgrades (mobo/cpu/ram)?
My mobo/cpu/ram were very expensive then and they're not worth much now...especially second hand.
I guess it breaks my heart to just dump them after 2 years for just a few bucks
I'm looking into new GPU's because my old ones are dead and I got a complete refund on them.
I wasn't planning to upgrade my system now.
So? Is now the time to do this upgrade?

 

[Kaapstad]

Ok, that's great advice!
Based on my system specs, do you think it would be worth it to upgrade now? They were all top of the line 2 years ago. Shouldn't I wait a couple of more years before doing fundamental upgrades (mobo/cpu/ram)?
My mobo/cpu/ram were very expensive then and they're not worth much now...especially second hand.
I guess it breaks my heart to just dump them after 2 years for just a few bucks
I'm looking into new GPU's because my old ones are dead and I got a complete refund on them.
I wasn't planning to upgrade my system now.
So? Is now the time to do this upgrade?

Whatever cards you decide to get, you can try on your old mobo/CPU first and if you get a problem then go the upgrade route.