SLI or watercooling, bang for buck

[na]

System specifications:
3570k@4.5ghz
8GB 2400 ddr3 cl9
Gigabyte GTX 780 TI (non-refrence)

I am hoping to maintain as high frames per second as I can for a 144hz monitor. In some scenarios, there isn't a great frame rate. I play games such as planetside 2 and natural selection 2. I can understand that planetside 2 isn't well optimized, you won't get fantastic frames per second in massive battles, blah blah. I am merely speaking in terms of bang for your buck in this situation. The options are running something like a 780 TI SLI or setting up a custom water cooling loop for the CPU/GPU and overclocking each hard(er). They both are likely to have fairly similar cost, both have pros and cons so it's kind of hard to choose which would be superior and be certain it would yield greater performance gains.

Well written and thought out opinions are welcome.

Thanks

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

You have fairly decent overclock on CPU already and I really doubt you would gain much power for additional overclocking of your CPU and GPU.
What running games with high framerates needs is raw GPU power so another GTX 780 Ti would give much bigger effect.

[_I_]

if you want to go into a custom loop, get a starter kit kinda like this
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/22394/ex-wat-285/Alphacool_NexXxoS_Cool_Answer_240mm_D5UT_-_Complete_Kit.html?tl=g30c321s1793

then add a waterblock for the gpus

a good guide here
http://www.overclock.net/t/913181/water-cooling-guide-for-noobs-always-updated

[76561198001357399]

Overclocking your CPU and GPU even more would give you very little extra FPS. Throwing in another 780ti would give you the most performance. :)

I had a look at some benchmarks and coundn't find any on those games but the performance increase was considerable. Some games yielded an extra 86% more FPS, whilst others gained 40% more performance (with an extra card). Overclocking your CPU and GPU even more would probably give you 10% more FPS at best, so there is an obvious winner if both upgrades cost the same and you can't decide.

[na]

Originally posted by Tris125's Laptop:

Overclocking your CPU and GPU even more would give you very little extra FPS. Throwing in another 780ti would give you the most performance. :)

I had a look at some benchmarks and coundn't find any on those games but the performance increase was considerable. Some games yielded an extra 86% more FPS, whilst others gained 40% more performance (with an extra card). Overclocking your CPU and GPU even more would probably give you 10% more FPS at best, so there is an obvious winner if both upgrades cost the same and you can't decide.

Thanks.

The downside to SLI is it doesn't always work (at all) with some games, and some mention issues relating to 'microstutter'. The downside to watercooling are things such as complexity, danger (leaks), and maintanence. It does seem like the potential for gain seems more likely to be greater for SLI than it does for watercooling. I could just buy a second card and return it if I don't get the results I hope for.