About to buy a 3440x1440p monitor (thanks to you forum people) what gpu or gpu combination would be able to average 60fps with max settings in most current games?
using an i5 3570k @ 4.2
no real budget, but I dont want to waste money unnecessarily either
295x2
or 2x 980s
That's probably your only option(s).
Yeah i figured as much. I will probably get a pair of 980 Hall of Fame cards
If you want to max out newer games at that resolution you will need 2 high end GPUs. The 900 series from Nvidia actually struggles at higher resolutions (especially the 970) and at 4k the 980 and the R9 290x are usually pretty close as well (which is ridiculous if you think about the price). It's a tough call and I think it will come down to a few factors for you:
What games do you play? (meaning how well do they support SLI or CF and do they favor Nvidia over AMD, etc.)
What features are important to you? (G-sync, Shadowplay, Shield streaming, PhysX, etc. for Nvidia cards or Mantle and TrueAudio for AMD cards)
How important are heat and power efficiency to you? (currently the R9 290x and R9 290 consume quite a bit more power than the 900 series cards, they will also run hotter if you have 2 of them since there's no decent blower-type cooler for those cards)
At that resolution you will get way better performance per dollar with an AMD crossfire setup, but you have to think about all the other factors that come with it as well.
If the rumors about the R9 300 series are true then that's probably your best bet, but we just don't know yet and there isn't even a proper release window for them AFAIK.
Can you wait a little while? AMD seems to better at higher resolution and their 300 series is rumored to be spring-ish next year. The only problem is there is not for sure date.
For now Crossfire 290.