2 x 970's vs 1 x Pascal GPU

[SeanTwig]

I have 2 x Asus GTX 970's in SLI atm on my current rig. I have a 2560x1440 monitor running at 60hz. 800w PSU. i5 6600k (overclocked to 4.1Ghz).

 

My question is where do I get the best value for my money but at the same time a better performance on my GPU end. I am finding that Witcher 3 at ultra is having frame issues and I have to turn down settings. I am a massive whore for graphics which is why this is a topic. 

 

Do I rather stick with medium settings for Witcher 3 or do I upgrade to like a 1070/1080?. I heard that you can't SLI the 1060 so that sucks.

 

I would appreciate any help

[Cereal5]

970s arent worth SLI-ing, i would know, i used two have two MSI 970s, and if you could SLI 1060s it wouldnt be much better than a 1070 and you would have to deal with all the issues that come with SLI, like in witcher, you don't really get great performance scaling with SLI. better to ahve a single more powerful card. a 1070 will get probably high settings 60 fps, i dont actually have witcher 3 though. Im sure a quick youtube search would bring a plethora of 1070 benchmark videos

[Morgan MLGman]

2 970's are a bad idea. They're very limited by VRAM (3,5GHz at full speed, last 512MB at the speed of a Haswell integrated GPU...) especially for 1440p. Just get a 1070. It's more than capable of 1440p and it's gonna be the best idea. Or if you really want a dual-GPU setup get two RX 480's.

[SeanTwig]

Well I had bought the 970 solo at first and I realised it wasn't running at low settings even. That's why i bought the extra 970 as I got a good deal on it. Like I mean I can run at 30fps at ultra, but because of the UHD res it's hammering me lol

[Master Disaster]

SLi is a great idea in concept, its just a shame its implementation in many games is very poor. Just buy the best single card you can afford.

[SeanTwig]

Is the RX 480 worth it? I kinda steer clear of them because I have been burned before by Radeon stuff. I heard a rumour that they had power issues and over-heating

[Master Disaster]

7 minutes ago, SeanTwig said:

Is the RX 480 worth it? I kinda steer clear of them because I have been burned before by Radeon stuff. I heard a rumour that they had power issues and over-heating

Sure, the 400 series are great cards. They do run hotter than Nvidia cards but as long as your system has decent cooling and you get a card with a good cooling solution it's really not a problem. 

 

AMD GPUs are starting to gain ground over Nvidia right now and with DX12 and the whole async compute thing that's only going to increase in the future.

 

AMD really got their shit together with this generation of GPUs and irs starting to pay off. 

[SeanTwig]

2 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Sure, the 400 series are great cards. They do run hotter than Nvidia cards but as long as your system has decent cooling and you get a card with a good cooling solution it's really not a problem. 

 

AMD GPUs are starting to gain ground over Nvidia right now and with DX12 and the whole async compute thing that's only going to increase in the future.

 

AMD really got their shit together with this generation of GPUs and irs starting to pay off. 

That's interesting to know. I am not sure what you mean by decent cooling though lmao. I live in 'Straya and my room doesn't have aircon so summer gets hot. I mean my 2 970's don't get hotter than 80 ( i haven't overclocked them for fear of too high temp). I also have blower style cards because of the heating problem. 

 

I guess I am just really worried that things will get too hot if I get AMD especially if it isn't a blower style and it just puts that air straight back into the case. Like I have jimmied some extra fans around my case to try and help with airflow but I really don't want to lose a card to heat again

[Jumper118]

20 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

2 970's are a bad idea. They're very limited by VRAM (3,5GHz at full speed, last 512MB at the speed of a Haswell integrated GPU...) especially for 1440p. Just get a 1070. It's more than capable of 1440p and it's gonna be the best idea. Or if you really want a dual-GPU setup get two RX 480's.

When they came out they were the best option by far and considering the op already has them idk how you can say it's a bad idea. . . . . . 

 

17 minutes ago, SeanTwig said:

Is the RX 480 worth it? I kinda steer clear of them because I have been burned before by Radeon stuff. I heard a rumour that they had power issues and over-heating

No,  it's not much faster than  the 970 really. I think you will need a 1080 minimum to upgrade as a 1070 isn't any faster than a 980ti and a 980ti is slower than 970 sli in most cases. 

[SeanTwig]

3 minutes ago, Jumper118 said:

When they came out they were the best option by far and considering the op already has them idk how you can say it's a bad idea. . . . . . 

 

No,  it's not much faster than  the 970 really. I think you will need a 1080 minimum to upgrade as a 1070 isn't any faster than a 980ti and a 980ti is slower than 970 sli in most cases. 

Ok now this is something I can work with!

When I bought the second 970 I did some research and I too found that 2x970's were ever so slightly better than a single 980Ti (some things the 980Ti won). That's why i decided on going SLI (that and I got a good deal on the second one). 

 

So you reckon it's better going for the 1080 then? I mean the 1080 is expensive but from the research I have done it seems that it's a warranted price...

[Jumper118]

8 minutes ago, SeanTwig said:

Ok now this is something I can work with!

When I bought the second 970 I did some research and I too found that 2x970's were ever so slightly better than a single 980Ti (some things the 980Ti won). That's why i decided on going SLI (that and I got a good deal on the second one). 

 

So you reckon it's better going for the 1080 then? I mean the 1080 is expensive but from the research I have done it seems that it's a warranted price...

Well if the 1080ti comes out ever then the price of the 1080 should drop a lot but nvidia being poo will probably bring it in next gen as a refresh card for the 11 series :/.  I think you need to run an on screen display when you are playing to see if you are running out of gpu or if it's using too much vram. Tbh sli 970 should be fine at 1440P with everything maxed out apart from aa turned don't a little.  

 

If you can just lower the setting a bit and wait for best round of cards I think you will get a much better upgrade $/performance wise with a single card.

 

 

If you think about this gen same as the 900 series. If you buy a 1070 now you will need another later. 

 

If you buy a 1080 now that is like buying the 980 before the 980ti came out. 

 

If you wait you can buy the 1080ti for 1080 price and it will perform like 1070 sli (or titan xp)  but at a slightly lower price. 

[SeanTwig]

16 minutes ago, Jumper118 said:

Well if the 1080ti comes out ever then the price of the 1080 should drop a lot but nvidia being poo will probably bring it in next gen as a refresh card for the 11 series :/.  I think you need to run an on screen display when you are playing to see if you are running out of gpu or if it's using too much vram. Tbh sli 970 should be fine at 1440P with everything maxed out apart from aa turned don't a little.  

 

If you can just lower the setting a bit and wait for best round of cards I think you will get a much better upgrade $/performance wise with a single card.

 

 

If you think about this gen same as the 900 series. If you buy a 1070 now you will need another later. 

 

If you buy a 1080 now that is like buying the 980 before the 980ti came out. 

 

If you wait you can buy the 1080ti for 1080 price and it will perform like 1070 sli (or titan xp)  but at a slightly lower price. 

This is partly what I am concerned about lol. Coz my 970's are only about 6 months old lololol. So knowing me I would get the 1080 and the Ti would come out and drop price by $100

[Jumper118]

9 minutes ago, SeanTwig said:

This is partly what I am concerned about lol. Coz my 970's are only about 6 months old lololol. So knowing me I would get the 1080 and the Ti would come out and drop price by $100

Exactly. Try hang in there try overclocking the cards if you haven't already if the cards are good, they should hold 1500mhz core and 2000 memory and if the memory are hynix not Samsung then try 1850-1900mhz. Also check settings in nv control panel to make sure it set to maximum performance. Stuff like this will help a bit even if you only get 5-10% increase it can keep you going a little longer. 

[TheSuspect]

Avoid running multiple Gpus because of Sli-related problems. One Pascal Gpu may not be as good as two 970s (thinking of the 1060 here), but it's much more convenient and has pros that outweigh the 970's pros.