Regarding 780 Ti (Should I SLI it or just go with SLI 980s)

[TheDudeWhoTriesHard]

Well, at first I kinda really want to go with a pair of 980s for my future build. But after reading this thread http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/255134-780ti-is-still-a-beast/ (in terms of performance, the 980 pretty much spanks the 780 Ti's behind) and since I do personally own a 780 Ti, plus Digital Storm's benchmarks, as well as a fair ton of benchmark videos from the LinusTechTips YouTube channel... I'm really confused on what to go with.

The 780 Ti has more Cuda Cores (840 more or less Cuda Cores) than the 980, but the 980 is said to have faster Cuda Cores (concerns me alot since I do alot of photo and video editing for event coverages such as birthdays, weddings, debuts, and so on...)
The 780 Ti has a 384 bit memory bus, but the 980 performs pretty much as good (Well, I plan to go with a 21:9 monitor and still make use of a 16:9 monitor for color grading purposes and because its kind of sentimental to me)
I have a rather sentimental relationship with my 780 Ti since I really, really, REALLY, wanted to own a Titan GPU... until Nvidia shot themselves at the foot and there... the 780 Ti was born. But my next concern would be games chewing through GPUs (I wanna experience those games as what the developers intended... unless it has conso-litis) in terms of VRAM and potentially other stuff, thus making the 980 a bit more future proof.

Another thing is that as of now, its only Zotac (reference and non reference, as well as having unfavourable experiences with their cards), MSI (weird... sort of unsure if its reference as well as non-reference), Gigabyte (non-reference), Palit (I have sh*t experiences with their cards), Inno3d (no experience with them so far), and Galax (no experience with them either) that offer gtx 980s here in my country. I would order online from Amazon, FrozenCPU, e(vil)Bay, and so on, but looking at how my country taxes things to milk the f*ck out of us... I wouldn't dare order anything that costs $100 that isn't available locally. Our government be cray in a bad way.

Well, since from how I see it, 780 Tis are still available... as well as 680s. Should I go SLI my 780 Tis? or pull the trigger on getting two 980s for some future proofing?

[Altecice]

go for 980 sli

[TheDudeWhoTriesHard]

go for 980 sli

May I ask why?

[Mr.Reggin]

if you can afford it go with 980 sli, but personnaly i would just add a 2nd 780 ti

[Altecice]

May I ask why?

 

Well you said youself, the 980's beat the 780ti in benchmarks. You will also get access to Maxwell only things like MFAA.

[KirbyTech]

Go with the cheaper option you won't notice much difference. Some difference yes but ask yourself if the cost difference is worth 5% better performance. To me it would not be since the 780ti has dropped in price. 

[TheDudeWhoTriesHard]

Well you said youself, the 980's beat the 780ti in benchmarks. You will also get access to Maxwell only things like MFAA.

Well, the thing that confuses me is in terms of productivity. Are the Maxwell GPU Cuda Cores fast enough to make up for lacking around 800 Cuda Cores that the Kepler GK110 cards have? Will its memory bit bus affect having dual or triple monitor setups that have different aspect ratios and resolutions? I wanna know if a pair of 980s would be worth it, or I'll just save the money by getting another 780 Ti.

[ddeuel]

I would get another 780ti for SLI, I don't know about where you live but you might be able to find a deal around Black Friday.

[TheDudeWhoTriesHard]

Go with the cheaper option you won't notice much difference. Some difference yes but ask yourself if the cost difference is worth 5% better performance. To me it would not be since the 780ti has dropped in price. 

I kinda forgot to mention this... but the 780 Tis here in my country... the prices didn't even drop. They are worth more than the 980s here @.@

[TheDudeWhoTriesHard]

I would get another 780ti for SLI, I don't know about where you live but you might be able to find a deal around Black Friday.

I wonder if Black Friday accepts international shipping. I'd love to atleast gamble and find out how bad my country taxes me.

[Sharif]

980 SLI

[ShadowCaptain]

sell it and get sli 980s. they are more powerful!

 

Also the 3gb of VRAM on the 780ti really hold it back

[Glenwing]

The 980 is slightly more powerful but it's not much of a performance increase, its main advantage is in power efficiency. If you were buying all new 980s would be the obvious choice but I wouldn't recommend them as an upgrade to a 780 Ti. Since you've already got one, just get a second 780 rather than two 980s. It's not worth it to replace your current card with a 980.

[TheDudeWhoTriesHard]

980 SLI

 

 

sell it and get sli 980s. they are more powerful!

 

Also the 3gb of VRAM on the 780ti really hold it back

 

 

The 980 is slightly more powerful but it's not much of a performance increase, its main advantage is in power efficiency. If you were buying all new 980s would be the obvious choice but I wouldn't recommend them as an upgrade to a 780 Ti. Since you've already got one, just get a second 780 rather than two 980s. It's not worth it to replace your current card with a 980.

Gonna ask this again since I kinda wanna be extra sure:

Are the Maxwell GPU Cuda Cores fast enough to make up for lacking around 800 Cuda Cores that the Kepler GK110 cards have? Will its memory bit bus affect having dual or triple monitor setups that have different aspect ratios and resolutions? I wanna know if a pair of 980s would be worth it, or I'll just save the money by getting another 780 Ti.

Gaming isn't the only thing I use those GPUs for.

[ImBleu]

I wouldn't go SLI 980s, not yet. If you have a 780Ti and can't sell it for a decent price, just SLI them. They're not irrelevant cards. Keep with the 780Tis and when a 980Ti or the next generation of GPUs come out you can upgrade.

[Sharif]

I wouldn't go SLI 980s, not yet. If you have a 780Ti and can't sell it for a decent price, just SLI them. They're not irrelevant cards. Keep with the 780Tis and when a 980Ti or the next generation of GPUs come out you can upgrade.

Reasonable choice plus the 780 ti are cheap now 

[Glenwing]

Gonna ask this again since I kinda wanna be extra sure:

Gaming isn't the only thing I use those GPUs for.

 

Yes, the performance of the 980 with 2048 cores is slightly higher than the 780 Ti with 2880 cores.  I don't think the memory bus will affect multi-monitor setups like that.  3GB on the 780 Ti is plenty, and other than the extra 1GB of VRAM you just don't gain much from going with 980s.

 

In terms of FP64/compute performance, Maxwell GeForce cards are even more crippled than Kepler (1/32 FP32 on Maxwell, down from 1/24 FP32 on Kepler) but this only matters if you do workstation tasks that use the GPU as an accelerator for double-precision floating point calculations.

[Octavialicious]

780ti SLI would slay anything, 980 SLI is only rational for 4K

[TheDudeWhoTriesHard]

Yes, the performance of the 980 with 2048 cores is slightly higher than the 780 Ti with 2880 cores.  I don't think the memory bus will affect multi-monitor setups like that.  3GB on the 780 Ti is plenty, and other than the extra 1GB of VRAM you just don't gain much from going with 980s.

 

In terms of FP64/compute performance, Maxwell GeForce cards are even more crippled than Kepler (1/32 FP32 on Maxwell, down from 1/24 FP32 on Kepler) but this only matters if you do workstation tasks that use the GPU as an accelerator for double-precision floating point calculations.

So... the performance gain from Maxwell GM204 compared to GK110 is somehow negligible in terms of productivity and multimple screens of different aspect ratios and/or resolutions?

[Glenwing]

So... the performance gain from Maxwell GM204 compared to GK110 is somehow negligible in terms of productivity and multimple screens of different aspect ratios and/or resolutions?

 

According to NVIDIA, a Maxwell core is about 1.35x as powerful as a Kepler core, so 2048 Maxwell cores on the 980 is equivalent to ~2764.8 Kepler cores.  The 980 also operates at a bit higher frequency, so with those together, it does pull ahead of the 780 Ti slightly in performance.  Either card will handle multiple screens/resolutions just as well as the other.

[TheDudeWhoTriesHard]

Well, I guess Glenwing pretty much answered my questions and concerns. Since, IIRC, you can only mark one post as solved, I'll quote the posts that answered my questions/concerns.

The 980 is slightly more powerful but it's not much of a performance increase, its main advantage is in power efficiency. If you were buying all new 980s would be the obvious choice but I wouldn't recommend them as an upgrade to a 780 Ti. Since you've already got one, just get a second 780 rather than two 980s. It's not worth it to replace your current card with a 980.

 

 

Yes, the performance of the 980 with 2048 cores is slightly higher than the 780 Ti with 2880 cores.  I don't think the memory bus will affect multi-monitor setups like that.  3GB on the 780 Ti is plenty, and other than the extra 1GB of VRAM you just don't gain much from going with 980s.

 

In terms of FP64/compute performance, Maxwell GeForce cards are even more crippled than Kepler (1/32 FP32 on Maxwell, down from 1/24 FP32 on Kepler) but this only matters if you do workstation tasks that use the GPU as an accelerator for double-precision floating point calculations.

 

 

According to NVIDIA, a Maxwell core is about 1.35x as powerful as a Kepler core, so 2048 Maxwell cores on the 980 is equivalent to ~2764.8 Kepler cores.  The 980 also operates at a bit higher frequency, so with those together, it does pull ahead of the 780 Ti slightly in performance.  Either card will handle multiple screens/resolutions just as well as the other.