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GTX 970 - SLI or upgrade?

S1dology
By S1dology
in Graphics Cards
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Go to solution Solved by jjohnthedon1,

I only tiers sli for the first time a few months ago and it had no issues, none of the sli issues everyone seems to bang on about all of the time, litterly no issues

So a second card for u would be just as good as a 980ti but for half the money

Posted

So, I'm currently rocking a GTX 970 SC from EVGA, with a decent OC (boosting to about ~1500mhz on the core).

I'm planning to upgrade my rig quite extensively in the coming months, first by getting a new monitor (probably 1440p with g-sync, looking at the Acer XB270HU), and then mb/ram/cpu to Skylake.

 

The question is what to do about my graphics card. I'm struggling a bit with deciding between getting another 970 and running in SLI (which is the cheaper alternative) or getting a more powerful card (preferably a 980 Ti). As far as I've seen, most benchmarks put the 970 with SLI pretty close to a single 980 Ti. But SLI has its own problems, of course.

 

What do you guys think would be best? Saving some money (actually a LOT of money, as the 980 Ti is around twice the price of a 970 here) and going with SLI, or spending more and getting a single, very powerful card?

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Two questions, what things do you do and do they support SLI?

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980 Ti

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SLI 970, getting a 980Ti for you isn't worth it.

Don't listen to 980Ti recommendations, SLI works just fine and it save you alot.

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Always get the strongest card

 

If you're buying a new system then yeah, that's obvious when the performance is close. But in this case I'd buy a second 970 since 970 SLI and 980 Ti are very close in performance while the SLI route is a lot cheaper since he already has one card. Especially if the op already has a good 750W psu.

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So, I'm currently rocking a GTX 970 SC from EVGA, with a decent OC (boosting to about ~1500mhz on the core).

I'm planning to upgrade my rig quite extensively in the coming months, first by getting a new monitor (probably 1440p with g-sync, looking at the Acer XB270HU), and then mb/ram/cpu to Skylake.

 

The question is what to do about my graphics card. I'm struggling a bit with deciding between getting another 970 and running in SLI (which is the cheaper alternative) or getting a more powerful card (preferably a 980 Ti). As far as I've seen, most benchmarks put the 970 with SLI pretty close to a single 980 Ti. But SLI has its own problems, of course.

 

What do you guys think would be best? Saving some money (actually a LOT of money, as the 980 Ti is around twice the price of a 970 here) and going with SLI, or spending more and getting a single, very powerful card?

 

What's your setup right now? Do you have a high quality 750W psu to run two 970s? Or do you have a high quality 600W psu to run one 980 Ti? You're going to take a big hit selling your 970 if you go the 980 Ti route and all you'll get out of it is a bit lower power consumption and 2GB extra vram that probably won't make much difference at 1440p.

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Two questions, what things do you do and do they support SLI?

 

Well, at the moment I'm playing The Witcher 3, some Dragon Age Inquisition, and I will be getting AC Syndicate as soon as the PC version comes out. So, those types of AAA titles, mostly.

 

What's your setup right now? Do you have a high quality 750W psu to run two 970s? Or do you have a high quality 600W psu to run one 980 Ti? You're going to take a big hit selling your 970 if you go the 980 Ti route and all you'll get out of it is a bit lower power consumption and 2GB extra vram that probably won't make much difference at 1440p.

 

i5-3470, 8GB DDR3, an MSI B75-based mATX motherboard (which is the main reason for wanting to upgrade to skylake), 128GB SSD for OS, 1TB HDD + 3TB external for file storage. Currently running a 650w PSU, but I will replace it no matter what I do with regards to the graphics card, as it has become very old (7 years next april).

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What kind of resolutions are you gaming in?  1080?  1440?  What kinds of games do you play?  Newer AAA titles?  Older games that may not support SLI?  

Really, the answer to your question is pretty relative to the answer of the above questions.  With newer games, SLI doesn't have as many issues as people would make it sound like.  I haven't run into any problems, other than waiting for a driver on new release games to optimize gaming performance, but EVERYONE waits for that.

I have 2 x 970s in my rig, and couldn't be happier with their performance gaming in 1080 on 2 panels.  Start getting into higher resolutions though, and the 980ti would be the better option, or for playing games that you KNOW don't support SLI.

CPU: Ryzen 1600X @ 4.15ghz  MB: ASUS Crosshair VI Mem: 32GB GSkill TridenZ 3200
GPU: 1080 FTW PSU: EVGA SuperNova 1000P2 / EVGA SuperNova 750P2  SSD: 512GB Samsung 950 PRO
HD: 2 x 1TB WD Black in RAID 0  Cooling: Custom cooling loop on CPU and GPU  OS: Windows 10

 

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  • Solution

I only tiers sli for the first time a few months ago and it had no issues, none of the sli issues everyone seems to bang on about all of the time, litterly no issues

So a second card for u would be just as good as a 980ti but for half the money

AMD (and proud) r7 1700 4ghz- 

also (1600) 

asus rog crosshairs vi hero x370-

MSI 980ti G6 1506mhz slix2 -

h110 pull - acer xb270hu 1440p -

 corsair 750D - corsair 16gb 2933

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What kind of resolutions are you gaming in?  1080?  1440?  What kinds of games do you play?  Newer AAA titles?  Older games that may not support SLI?  

Really, the answer to your question is pretty relative to the answer of the above questions.  With newer games, SLI doesn't have as many issues as people would make it sound like.  I haven't run into any problems, other than waiting for a driver on new release games to optimize gaming performance, but EVERYONE waits for that.

I have 2 x 970s in my rig, and couldn't be happier with their performance gaming in 1080 on 2 panels.  Start getting into higher resolutions though, and the 980ti would be the better option, or for playing games that you KNOW don't support SLI.

 

Currently gaming in 1080, but (as I said in my first post) I will be getting a 1440p monitor soon. And I mostly play newer AAA titles.

 

Based on the answers so far I'll probably go for a second 970 - thank you for all your responses, it's been really helpful!

On a side note, does anybody know anything about the supposed vRAM stacking in SLI with DX12?

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Currently gaming in 1080, but (as I said in my first post) I will be getting a 1440p monitor soon. And I mostly play newer AAA titles.

 

Based on the answers so far I'll probably go for a second 970 - thank you for all your responses, it's been really helpful!

On a side note, does anybody know anything about the supposed vRAM stacking in SLI with DX12?

So far, all I've heard is that it's still a possibility....who knows.  Still a lot of speculation as to what exactly DX12 will bring to the table.

CPU: Ryzen 1600X @ 4.15ghz  MB: ASUS Crosshair VI Mem: 32GB GSkill TridenZ 3200
GPU: 1080 FTW PSU: EVGA SuperNova 1000P2 / EVGA SuperNova 750P2  SSD: 512GB Samsung 950 PRO
HD: 2 x 1TB WD Black in RAID 0  Cooling: Custom cooling loop on CPU and GPU  OS: Windows 10

 

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