SLI by NVIDIA - Will it help me save money and improve performance?

[TeMoRa11]

As you could tell from the title of this topic, I have an important question and a thought on my mind. I want to purchase a new graphics card and want to have the most possible performance I could get with a certain amount of money. I wanted to buy a GeForce GTX 980, but it is kinda' expensive, compared to what I was thinking about making:
I could buy two GeForce GTX 960 with almost the same price of one GeForce GTX 980! Using the SLI Technology, I could be able to use less money in order to have a higher performance.
In fact, I am planning to order the two GeForce GTX 960's in a few days, but I am afraid I might be missing something. Shouldn't the method I am thinking about be a cash saver and a performance enhancer, leading to a better gameplay / video editing experience? 

Please be as clear as possible because, for me, spending about 400$ really is a big deal. I'd like to spend those ~400$ on something worthy of it...

Hope to have quick responses by you guys... Thanks!

[IP man]

Its better to have one strong card than two weak ones. 

 

Go with 980

[Maheshvara]

As you could tell from the title of this topic, I have an important question and a thought on my mind. I want to purchase a new graphics card and want to have the most possible performance I could get with a certain amount of money. I wanted to buy a GeForce GTX 980, but it is kinda' expensive, compared to what I was thinking about making:

I could buy two GeForce GTX 960 with almost the same price of one GeForce GTX 980! Using the SLI Technology, I could be able to use less money in order to have a higher performance.

In fact, I am planning to order the two GeForce GTX 960's in a few days, but I am afraid I might be missing something. Shouldn't the method I am thinking about be a cash saver and a performance enhancer, leading to a better gameplay / video editing experience? 

Please be as clear as possible because, for me, spending about 400$ really is a big deal. I'd like to spend those ~400$ on something worthy of it...

Hope to have quick responses by you guys... Thanks!

Remember to follow your threads

 

960's aren't worth it, go with single 970/290(x) (whichever is cheaper)

[Pugs501]

Go to ~8:28

[Gofspar]

Get a GTX 970 G1 Gaming then with the extra money buy some energy drinks to play Battlefield 4 for a week straight.

[D2ultima]

Buy the 980 and be done with it if you can.

Or buy a R9 290X and be done with it (sapphire Vapor-X is good).

 

SLI does not help in video editing.

[Imakuni]

The 960 is already a "bad" card, let alone 2 of them.

 

Get a SINGLE 970. It'll have all the performance you may ever hope for. If you feel like getting more, only then add a second 970. I find 980s to be stupid (unless you want 4k).

[LegacyStijncat]

As you could tell from the title of this topic, I have an important question and a thought on my mind. I want to purchase a new graphics card and want to have the most possible performance I could get with a certain amount of money. I wanted to buy a GeForce GTX 980, but it is kinda' expensive, compared to what I was thinking about making:

I could buy two GeForce GTX 960 with almost the same price of one GeForce GTX 980! Using the SLI Technology, I could be able to use less money in order to have a higher performance.

In fact, I am planning to order the two GeForce GTX 960's in a few days, but I am afraid I might be missing something. Shouldn't the method I am thinking about be a cash saver and a performance enhancer, leading to a better gameplay / video editing experience? 

Please be as clear as possible because, for me, spending about 400$ really is a big deal. I'd like to spend those ~400$ on something worthy of it...

Hope to have quick responses by you guys... Thanks!

Here's the thing:

Yes, SLI DOES improve performance, but you forgot that the 960 only has 2 gb vram, and this is not increased by SLI!

What you can do however, is get one 970 (which costs as much as two 960's), which has 3,5 gb vram (it says 4gb, but it's actually 3,5).

More VRAM = better performance, it's more important than clock speeds, cause clock speeds can be increased, VRAM not!

[MLGNOSCOPEHEADSHOTGETREKT]

No Not SLI Crossfire will.If you don't mind your power bills to be a bit high.But just a bit.

[Johannes_Lazor]

Always get the best single card you have money for.

The only time SLI is cost efficient is when you SLI high end cards, Or already have a lower end card but need more horsepower

[Toxicable]

What you can do however, is get one 970 (which costs as much as two 960's), which has 3,5 gb vram (it says 4gb, but it's actually 3,5).

More VRAM = better performance, it's more important than clock speeds, cause clock speeds can be increased, VRAM not!

Woah dude, More VRAM != Better performance

The 970 DOES have 4 GB of RAM, but the last 500 MB is just much slower than the first 3.5

As for how much VRAM you need, it depends on what you're playing. 2GB Will play pretty much any 1080 game on whatever setting, 4GB will for sure support any 1080 game on any settings, 1440p it will do most games and same as 4K, however at 4K with high settings is where the 970's 4GB of RAM is a problem. But who here really games at 4K?

[Badger906]

Woah dude, More VRAM != Better performance

The 970 DOES have 4 GB of RAM, but the last 500 MB is just much slower than the first 3.5

As for how much VRAM you need, it depends on what you're playing. 2GB Will play pretty much any 1080 game on whatever setting, 4GB will for sure support any 1080 game on any settings, 1440p it will do most games and same as 4K, however at 4K with high settings is where the 970's 4GB of RAM is a problem. But who here really games at 4K?

i do... every day!! I'm a 4k elitist

[Toxicable]

i do... every day!! I'm a 4k elitist

4K on a 770? what kind of FPS do you get?

[Badger906]

4K on a 770? what kind of FPS do you get?

most games on medium to high settings its between 40 and 60fps. less demanding games i can max out and still get 60+ fps such as red orchestra 2. just waiting till amd release the 390x or 395x2 and then ill buy one straight away. not wanting my money on a 980.. not enough of a performance increase.

[Toxicable]

most games on medium to high settings its between 40 and 60fps. less demanding games i can max out and still get 60+ fps such as red orchestra 2. just waiting till amd release the 390x or 395x2 and then ill buy one straight away. not wanting my money on a 980.. not enough of a performance increase.

Wow that's more powerful than I expected, I also can't remember seeing any 770 4K benchmarks. As for the 300 series, I have a bad feeling that they're gonna be really expensive.

[Badger906]

Wow that's more powerful than I expected, I also can't remember seeing any 770 4K benchmarks. As for the 300 series, I have a bad feeling that they're gonna be really expensive.

yeah i wasn't expecting anything of the sort. i do have a very good 770 thats overclocked very will and makes it near 780 levels. i don't care how much the 300 series will cost lol, i just want a gpu that can make my 4k monitor really shine.

[TeMoRa11]

Hold on, looking at the prices I have for the videocards we're talking about, the 960 is ~200$ while the 970 would be around 450$. That would make a huge difference in price, but -as far as i could tell- not a huge difference in performance. I mean, I can play games and edit videos with a reasonable video processing speed. That said, spending ~450$ on a SINGLE 970 is a bit worrying. I don't know if i am doing the right maths, but a single 970 provides 4GB for about 450$, while a single 960 could provide 2GB. Add another 960, and shouldn't that total up to 4 GB for an even lower price than the 970? Unless I know nothing about video cards and their usage...

[SteveGrabowski]

Hold on, looking at the prices I have for the videocards we're talking about, the 960 is ~200$ while the 970 would be around 450$. That would make a huge difference in price, but -as far as i could tell- not a huge difference in performance. I mean, I can play games and edit videos with a reasonable video processing speed. That said, spending ~450$ on a SINGLE 970 is a bit worrying. I don't know if i am doing the right maths, but a single 970 provides 4GB for about 450$, while a single 960 could provide 2GB. Add another 960, and shouldn't that total up to 4 GB for an even lower price than the 970? Unless I know nothing about video cards and their usage...

 

The video memory mirrors itself in SLI, so that each card has the same things in memory. Thus you're only getting effectively 2GB of VRAM with your 960 SLI setup. It's not a great idea and you'd be way better off with a single 970 or 980. When I play Dying Light on my GTX 970 at 1080p it can use up to 3.7GB of VRAM. With 2GB of VRAM you're not going to be able to run AA effectively in new games, and you'll have to turn texture details down too likely.

[SteveGrabowski]

Also, where are you getting GTX 960s for $200 (US prices) but GTX 970s for $450 ($100 over US prices)?

[TeMoRa11]

The video memory mirrors itself in SLI, so that each card has the same things in memory. Thus you're only getting effectively 2GB of VRAM with your 960 SLI setup. It's not a great idea and you'd be way better off with a single 970 or 980. When I play Dying Light on my GTX 970 at 1080p it can use up to 3.7GB of VRAM. With 2GB of VRAM you're not going to be able to run AA effectively in new games, and you'll have to turn texture details down too likely.

In conclusion, I've made up my mind, I'll buy the 970. But, just for future reference, I have a similar, simply put question: 970 dual video cards or 980 single video card? (In terms of performance, not price)

[TeMoRa11]

Also, where are you getting GTX 960s for $200 (US prices) but GTX 970s for $450 ($100 over US prices)?

These are just estimates based on the US prices taken directly from the official GeForce site. (Don't forget that the prices also depend on the manufacturer of the video card)

[SteveGrabowski]

These are just estimates based on the US prices taken directly from the official GeForce site. (Don't forget that the prices also depend on the manufacturer of the video card)

 

The best GTX 970 is the Gigabyte G1 Gaming, which sells for $354 shipped in the US.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125684