295x2 vs. GTX 980 SLi

[tracert]

Does anyone have a link for benchmarks comparing these two, it seems every review I've come across either compares a single GTX 980 vs. a 295x2 or the review features 2 GTX 980's in SLi vs. a R9 290x.  WTF? 

 

A simple, head to head, apples for apples 4K review of the 980's in SLi vs the 295x2 would be fantasitic.

 

In before 2 x 290x = 295x2, because no.

[AlwaysFSX]

Assume 295X2 vs 780Ti SLI (plus ~5%).

[Mateyyy]

I would assume that the 295x2 would be better in terms of performance, but the dual 980 solution is going to consume a lot less power.

[Flyguygamer]

980 sli is much better

[Archangel1994]

Well the GTX 980 is approximately equal to a 780 Ti, give a take a few frames.

 

 

And the 295X2 destroys 780 Ti SLI except in Rome, Dirt and BF4. It's your choice though, the 295x2 consumes tons more power and produces tons more heat (Hence the AIO).

[Johannes_Lazor]

Go for whatever you want, You know what you need.

[askmax]

Pretty much what the others said, r9 295x2 is somewhat better however produces more heat, needs a lot more power but its also better than having SLI tbh. Keep in mind the 980 is 550$ atleast so the 295x2 would be cheaper.

[KamiKatze]

Found this:

http://m.pcgamer.com/2014/09/19/nvidia-gtx-980-tested-sli-4k-and-single-gpu-benchmarks-and-impressions/#next

295X2 gets crushed most of the time. Especially price/performance wise if you consider the OC potential if the 980 (~15% with stock volts) and the low tdp

[tracert]

Found this:

http://m.pcgamer.com/2014/09/19/nvidia-gtx-980-tested-sli-4k-and-single-gpu-benchmarks-and-impressions/#next

295X2 gets crushed most of the time. Especially price/performance wise if you consider the OC potential if the 980 (~15% with stock volts) and the low tdp

Outstanding!  Thanks to everyone who responded as well!

 

I have a 295x2 at home and just picked up a pair of the 980GTX's, I guess I will put them head to head and see if this article is somewhat accurate.

 

The only caveat with going to Nvidia would be the lack of dissimilar resolution support in NV Surround.  Does anyone know of a workaround to push 2x27"+1 34" 3440x1440 on Nvidia?

[davidst99]

It looks like the GTX 980 SLI beats the 295X2 at lower resolution but once you go up to 4k and above the 295X2 takes over in the majority of games.   This might be due it's larger memory bandwidth.

[tracert]

ISn't the new compression algorithm on the GTX 980 supposed to eliminate any memory bandwidth issues and is the reason Nvidia chose a 256 bit memory bus?  Judging from the benchmarks linked above some titles do indeed point to what you are saying as being accurate, though there are a few titles where the 980 pulls ahead, (titles that seem to favor Nvidia).  I wonder if more mature drivers will help alleviate the discrepency?

[bodlat25]

GTX 980 SLI can beat R9 295X2, also GTX 970 2-way SLI ($658) can beat (and can't) R9 295X2. GTX 970 3-way SLI can beat R9 295X2 on the same price ($987 vs $999).

[DeViLzzz]

Outstanding!  Thanks to everyone who responded as well!

 

I have a 295x2 at home and just picked up a pair of the 980GTX's, I guess I will put them head to head and see if this article is somewhat accurate.

 

The only caveat with going to Nvidia would be the lack of dissimilar resolution support in NV Surround.  Does anyone know of a workaround to push 2x27"+1 34" 3440x1440 on Nvidia?

Interested to see your personal review.  For me for 4K to me the cards are not at where I want them to be in terms of performance to think about investing money in 4K even if I could semi-afford it right now.  However if I was rich I'd blow my brains out and get them.

[tracert]

I'd like to get started on my personal review between the 295x2 and GTX 980's in two way SLi, but either the 295x2 or this mini-DP to DP cable, or perhaps the monitor itself is causing issues.  Seems that when the 34UM95 monitor comes out of sleep I get horizontal lines across the screen as well as black flashes every few seconds.  If I reboot the machine it goes away and all is normal. 

 

I didn't have this issue with a 780ti on the normal display port cable that came with the monitor.  Haven't unboxed the 980's yet as I wanted to run a few benches on the 295x2.

 

I'm running the Catalyst Beta drivers from AMD's site, 14.7 RC3 I beleive, are there any newer drivers available?  I'm also going to return this cable and get an Accell B143B-007J and see if that is the issue.

[tracert]

The issues with the DP cable have been sorted, apparently a driver issue with AMD.  Dropping the monitor to DP 1.1 mode resolves it as does changing the color depth to 8 bit from 10.

 

On that note, I've run both the 295x2 and GTX 980 (SLi) through some rudimentary benchmarks.  In my opinion and from what the benchmarks show me, (aside from Firestrike which was an outlier), the 980GTX's in SLi win hands down.

 

As for the attachments, the .txt files can have their extensions changed to .hml and can be viewed with the Riva Tuner package.  Essentially I found the GTX 980's to have a higher average framerate, lower frametimes, same temperatures.  Gameplay in general felt smoother with the 980's, though I was certainly impressed with the 295x2 it just wasn't quite up to the same level as the 980's. 

 

All benches were done at 3440x1440, keeping the same in-game graphics settings between games.  BF4 used the Ultra preset at 3440x1440 DX11.  Unigine was set to a custom res of 3440x1440, full screen, 8x AA.

 

Tomb Raider:

 

295x2

All settings maxed 2xSSAA, TressFX

40.9 MIN
75.9 MAX
58.4 AVG
=========================================
GTX980

All settings maxed 2xSSAA, TressFX

48 MIN
83.7 MAX
66.4 AVG

=========================================

Unigine_Heaven_Benchmark_4.0_20140923_1224.html

Unigine_Heaven_Benchmark_4.0_20140922_2055.html

295x2_BF4_Shanghai_Ultra.txt

GTX980_SLI_BF4_SHANGHAI.txt

295x2BF4_Wave_Breaker_Ultra.txt

GTX980_SLI_BF4_WAVEBREAKER.txt