3 Commando Brigade

I never liked having money anyway

So the time has come for me to drop some cash into my rig and my aim is for a decent 1440p setup. This means I'm definitely going to need a new monitor as my current one is only 1080p @ 60Hz, and likely to need at least some sort of GPU upgrade.

So my first question is does anyone have any recommendations for a budget 2560x1440 monitor, preferably 27" and it would be nice for a refresh rate over 60Hz? Ideally would like to keep the price sub £300.

Also to beef up my rig to handle 1440p I'm looking to get an additional 970 to SLI, but this would be completely new territory for me so there are a few things I'm not sure about.

- What sort of heat issues is this likely to cause, I always thought SLI in general looked a bit odd when cramping together 2 high heat components?
- Are there many issues with SLI compatibility in games or is it generally a win/win if you have the hardware?
- To those of you who do play in 1440, would you say the improvements are worth the c£600 I'd realistically have to lay out to achieve this?
- Specifically with ARMA, as it is more CPU intensive, I understand that the extra GPU probably wouldn't improve FPS for me, but would the higher res be detrimental? Or could I expect generally similar FPS just at a higher resolution?

Any and all advice is welcome.

Current spec:

MSI Gaming 6 z97 MOBO
i5 4670k OC @ 4.1 gHz
Asus Strix GTX 970
16gb DDR3 
Cooler Master Seidon 120v AIO CPU cooler
XFX Type 01 Bravo Case (Decent sized case will definitely fit an extra GPU, but not the best airflow, another reason for my heating worries)

Cheers

Consider water cooled fan for GPUs if case is not great with airflow or get a new case?

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I was looking at the corsair air 540, should be cheaper than water cooling 2 cards

That would work. Take a photo of the town inside if possible

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I'm a fan of the duel chambered cube type design, but full atx options seem to be limited

I'm all good for exhaust, but only the front 200mm fan and the psu are filtered. The main problem is that the drive cages are directly behind the front intake and can't be removed. The clearance behind the mobo also makes cable management a nightmare

Case, my rig is more like a rack mount. 

4690k clocked at 4.4ghz my HDDs sit on the top of my 'case' (open plan) because the GPU is too big I had to cut the bays out to get it in. I suffer no problems with regards to heat whatsoever.

1440p, your cpu is fine. AOC do a decent monitor at a low price for that resolution. I'm taking steps down exactly the same road but tempted to wait a bit until 1440 superwide drops in price a bit.

You can get 1440 on ebay for 170 quid but that is b-grade panel from higher priced models. (dead pixel, contrast and brightness issues)

It's a lightly populated segment of the market and little choice. Do not go dell or Apple thunderbolt, far too expensive.

£250 quid should see a monitor and  £300 for a card to drive it. offset the cost by selling what you have now. 

I don't think a second 970 will be necessary for 1440p gaming. Go into your favourite games without VSYNC and see what your frames are like. If you're already getting 90/100+ fps then 1440p will still easily be stable 60fps. If you're only barely getting 60fps out of a game with a 970 (which, to be fair, probably means the game is badly written) try dropping settings down a bit. If that makes it go 90+fps then you'll be fine with those settings on 1440p, too. If dropping the settings doesn't give you 90+ fps then the game is a badly optimized piece of **** (*cough* like Arma *cough*) and switching to 1440p probably won't make things much worse than they already are.

If you're willing to spend £600 I'd recommend you keep your CPU and GPU and instead get a 1440p 144Hz GSYNC monitor like the Acer Predator or the ASUS ROG Swift (they both have IPS versions now and the acer is exactly £599). Especially for Arma, GSYNC is amazing. I tend to get 45fps on the average public mission (with my GPU barely even warming up. Thanks BIS!). With my old screen (also 1440p but locked to 60Hz) that looked choppy and weird. With GSYNC enabled (Acer Predator) it feels pretty much the same as 60fps (not 100% but 95% as good). 
If you have games that your PC can drive to 100+ fps you'll also LOVE playing them. Fast shooters at 144Hz are super super fun but,and this really blew my mind: Normal desktop stuff (moving windows, scrolling text, etc) is AMAZING at 1440Hz.

In conclusion: Keep your 970 and 4.1Ghz i5 and instead go and take a dive into the wonderful world of 1440p 144Hz GSYNC gaming. It's a much more noticeable change to your gameplay experience and you'll wonder how you ever put up with 60Hz non-gsync peasant screens  

so i notice that TN monitors are vastly cheaper, is IPS worth the extra?

I'd say so personal preference

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