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GTX 970 SLI vs GTX 980 @ 1440p

Mayh3M

Mayh3M

Mayh3M

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I have a GTX 970 right now and am playing at 1080p. I plan to buy a gsync 1440p monitor later this year and wanted to know what your thoughts are on SLI in general and more specifically GTX 970 SLI performance at 1440p.

I've kind of been put off by many people's comments about SLI having issues in games, and in light of the recent findings on the limitations of the GTX 970 VRAM, I'm considering returning my GTX 970 and buying a GTX 980 instead.

Is 3.5/4GB VRAM enough for 1440p in the next one or two years? and is one 980 capable of 60fps at near max settings at this resolution? I've obviously looked at benchmarks but wanted to know people's personal experiences with these setups.
 
Mayh3M said:
I have a GTX 970 right now and am playing at 1080p. I plan to buy a gsync 1440p monitor later this year and wanted to know what your thoughts are on SLI in general and more specifically GTX 970 SLI performance at 1440p.

I've kind of been put off by many people's comments about SLI having issues in games, and in light of the recent findings on the limitations of the GTX 970 VRAM, I'm considering returning my GTX 970 and buying a GTX 980 instead.

Is 3.5/4GB VRAM enough for 1440p in the next one or two years? and is one 980 capable of 60fps at near max settings at this resolution? I've obviously looked at benchmarks but wanted to know people's personal experiences with these setups.
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Single 970@1440p if you want max settings@60 FPS no. Single 980@1440p if you want max settings @ 60FPS no. SLI 970 1440p Max settings (4 x aa +) YES. SLI 980 1440p Max settings (4 x aa+) YES.

Up to you what you want to spend.

I run everything max, on my Asus PB278Q with SLi 970's without issue, though I generally don't go over 4xAA(no need at 1440p) whatever the AA mode or game, though I have Youtube vids of maxed out games that all run 60+ FPS (100+ vsync off) without a hitch. Please try and ignore this whole 970 memory issue, its really not!!

R4cHRq6.jpg

Just buy another 970 for SLI and you will be golden!!

To add, the whole 3.5GB mem issue on the 970, I personally @ 1440p have never had a problem with anything I play or do. at 4K I can see there may be an issue. I will let you decide whether, purchasing another £260 card to SLI with your current monitor that will be amazing at max everythig is worth spending over £500 for 2 x 290x's or over £600 for 2 x 980's. You decide.
 
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Thanks. What you say is what my initial feelings were. 1440p @ constant 60 FPS simply requires SLI.

Some people report stuttering and other odd behaviour with SLI setups though. Are these simply because of poor SLI support in some games? or inherent limitations in SLI itself? Keep in mind I play almost exclusively AAA titles. As for the 970 memory issue, I also don't see it as a thing of too much concern, especially since we're not talking 4k here. But I've seen many comments about how future titles will require high VRAM.

Edit: Pic of my rig

dDfBBHv.jpg
 
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Mayh3M said:
Thanks. What you say is what my initial feelings were. 1440p @ constant 60 FPS simply requires SLI.

Some people report stuttering and other odd behaviour with SLI setups though. Are these simply because of poor SLI support in some games? or inherent limitations in SLI itself? Keep in mind I play almost exclusively AAA titles. As for the 970 memory issue, I also don't see it as a thing of too much concern, especially since we're not talking 4k here. But I've seen many comments about how future titles will require high VRAM.

Edit: Pic of my rig

dDfBBHv.jpg
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Very pretty :)

I cant comment on future titles, I play DA:I, SOM, H1Z1, DayZ, Arma3, Bioshock Infinite, Skyrim, Dirt 3, and working my way through old Batman Arkam Asylum. All I can say is I can max all those out and never drop below 60FPS, on an Asus PB278Q.

All I can say is SLI 970's are great for 1440p, I would never recommend one, I tried and it sucked compared to 770SLI, I want max settings and frames.

At the end of the day, Its a relatively cheap upgrade compared to other options, if you don't like it after a few days send it back. But I'm sure you will love it!!

Also, I don't have any SLI issues, a few indie titles don't support it but they aren't demanding anyway. Triple A games generally have SLI support out of the box. and if not it comes soon, you learn to live with it :)

PM me is you need further info
 
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Thanks. I will probably end up buying a second 970 when I do get a 1440p monitor. I always felt the 980 was not worth the money since, specs aside, you're paying a premium just for the fact that its the 'top of the line' model. And benchmarks show the 970 SLI comfortably handling 1440p.

Hopefully can get some more people's opinion.
 
Mayh3M said:
Thanks. I will probably end up buying a second 970 when I do get a 1440p monitor. I always felt the 980 was not worth the money since, specs aside, you're paying a premium just for the fact that its the 'top of the line' model. And benchmarks show the 970 SLI comfortably handling 1440p.

Hopefully can get some more people's opinion.
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SLI 970's slay a single 980.

But yes, if others could pipe in it would give a broader opinion, though most are more concerned with the 970 memory drama at the moment :( Damn Sheeple!!
 
dyonisis007 said:
SLI 970's slay a single 980.

But yes, if others could pipe in it would give a broader opinion, though most are more concerned with the 970 memory drama at the moment :( Damn Sheeple!!
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You epitomise the words "I'm alright, Jack" and I've lost count of how many times you posted in the other thread about how great your sli 970s are and dismissing everyone's concerns, simply because you are ok at this point in time.

The OP has asked how sli 970s will function at 1440p in one to two years time and neither you nor I know the answer to that. They'll no doubt have the grunt but they probably won't have the memory, even if they didn't run the risk of choking above 3.5gb.

Unfortunately for the OP his choices are limited. He could go dual 290x with 8gb VRAM which would have both power and memory for future games but cost a lot to switch to (and he states he plans to buy gsync), or he could stick with one 970 until AMD release their next card in Q2 which will no doubt elicit a response fron nvidia.

Either way, the OP said he plans to buy the 1440p monitor later this year, so the best response would be to wait unless he's unconcerned about spending money now and getting new cards in 12 months, in which case another 970 will do the business till then.
 
After reading more comments and articles elsewhere, it seems like people are legitimately finding issues in games relating to frame stuttering when the 0.5 GB is accessed. And based on what an Nvidia representative said on their forums, in order to solve such problems, drivers need to be optimised specifically for the GTX 970 memory structure, which is problematic in itself for many reasons. I also like to use mods in certain games and that requires as much VRAM as possible so I don't think the 970 will cut it at 1440p, at least for me.

I really wish the new AMDs were here by now. I would go for the GTX 980 but people just don't sing the praises for it. And I know it's not good enough on its own to maintain 60FPS at max/near max settings in the next year or so.

I think my best bet is to hang on to my 970, enjoy 1080p gaming at max settings for now, see what AMD offers and nvidia's response, and sell my 970 on ebay.

What do you guys think of the r9 295x2, that's not that much more than a 980 and has 8GB VRAM. I ask because right now I should still be able to return my 970 for a refund.
 
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The 295x2 actually two GPUs in crossfire on one PCB board/card, so the 4GB vram is mirrored and you only really have 4GB of vram available for actualy use.

If I were you, I'd just stick with using the 970, then upgrade to 2560 res when the next gen cards come out and upgrade to that as well.
 
Marine-RX179 said:
The 295x2 actually two GPUs in crossfire on one PCB board/card, so the 4GB vram is mirrored and you only really have 4GB of vram available for actualy use.

If I were you, I'd just stick with using the 970, then upgrade to 2560 res when the next gen cards come out and upgrade to that as well.
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+1 hopefully the next gen cards will be a good bit faster and more vram
 
Can't give my 970 G1 SLI setup enough praise to be honest, gaming at 1600p @ 60fps is not a problem on new titles,, but I'd say you'd want to be looking to upgrade after a couple card gens if you want to continue playing at high res / framerates, and I would have said exactly the same thing before knowing about the recent memory issues.
 
phazari180 said:
Can't give my 970 G1 SLI setup enough praise to be honest, gaming at 1600p @ 60fps is not a problem on new titles,, but I'd say you'd want to be looking to upgrade after a couple card gens if you want to continue playing at high res / framerates, and I would have said exactly the same thing before knowing about the recent memory issues.
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Some GTX970 SLI users already reported the stuttering issue, despite the frame rate is totally fine (locked at 60fps). So until the issue is being properly clear up, it is difficult to recommend investing in another 970 at this point (particularly when the 970 has already been confirmed to have has less ROPs and memory caches that what it was initially advertised...).

Actually the stuttering issue has been ongoing for a while and been reported by 970 users from time to time, but at the time the cause was not identified, and people just assume it was just issue with driver (Nvidia drivers hasn't be great lately) or poorly written games (i.e. Ubisoft's broken games).
 
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phazari180 said:
Can't give my 970 G1 SLI setup enough praise to be honest, gaming at 1600p @ 60fps is not a problem on new titles,, but I'd say you'd want to be looking to upgrade after a couple card gens if you want to continue playing at high res / framerates, and I would have said exactly the same thing before knowing about the recent memory issues.
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Ditto

My two MSI 970's play fine and I don't seem to get any stuttering with them and they play all new titles perfectly fine even with high Vram usage
 
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