GTX 980 SLI Configuration

[isdouble]

Good morning LTT community,

 

Quick question, is it worth SLI-ing GTX 980 ACX 2.0 (1216 Mhz) with GTX 980 FTW ACX 2.0 (1380 Mhz)?

I know FTW will downclock itself to match the first one if I don't OC it.

Or should I save $20 and just get another non-FTW version to get a matching set?

Oh and I'm going to need another card regardless, I just ordered XB270HU!

 

Thanks.

[Najuno]

Good morning LTT community,

 

Quick question, is it worth SLI-ing GTX 980 ACX 2.0 (1216 Mhz) with GTX 980 FTW ACX 2.0 (1380 Mhz)?

I know FTW will downclock itself to match the first one if I don't OC it.

Or should I save $20 and just get another non-FTW version to get a matching set?

Oh and I'm going to need another card regardless, I just ordered XB270HU!

 

Thanks.

Depends on how you run them. You can either run them linked with the same speeds or you tweak each card in individually.

 

From my personal experience in games it is better to reduce stuttering to run same speeds. I would OC the ACX 2.0 to the FTW speeds. Usually GM204 are all good OCers so to to those FTW speeds shouldn't be much of a deal.

[ablangc]

I would just save yourself the 20 dollars.

[isdouble]

Depends on how you run them. You can either run them linked with the same speeds or you tweak each card in individually.

 

From my personal experience in games it is better to reduce stuttering to run same speeds. I would OC the ACX 2.0 to the FTW speeds. Usually GM204 are all good OCers so to to those FTW speeds shouldn't be much of a deal.

The problem is I did try OCing the one I currently have to about ~1400 Mhz and while it passed the Heaven benchmark, I crashed during game plays. So I lowered to about ~1350 Mhz and it runs pretty well. Is there a performance hit if the FTW downclocks itself to match the non-FTW version?

[Najuno]

The problem is I did try OCing the one I currently have to about ~1400 Mhz and while it passed the Heaven benchmark, I crashed during game plays. So I lowered to about ~1350 Mhz and it runs pretty well. Is there a performance hit if the FTW downclocks itself to match the non-FTW version?

No actually it shows less performance in synthetic benchmarks, but real world performance is a whole different story.

 

You won't even notice a difference in games. With my hard OCed GTX Titan X (1574MHz) to stock settings I can see about 17% percent. So when you go down by some MHz it's not even 2%.

[Blackie Sheen]

I would say it depends on more factors than only the ones you included. There should'nt be any problem if they are at the same clock speeds but personnaly, if they look different physically, I would not purchase the FTW and would just purchase a reg one