From another thread. Just wanna share my take on this dilemma in persona. I tried going from 970 to 980 and it's not the answer!!!
"I had the very same discussion with myself and I was actually able to do something about it.
Having one PC with 970 SLi and another 970 3 way SLi, I was thinking of going 1x GTX 980 in one PC and 2x GTX 980 in the other PC. I knew very well that selling 5 GTX 970 would not cover the costs of 3 new GTX 980's...but I was kinda accepting it albeit unwillingly.
Luckily my buddy came to the rescue ! We talked about it and he said, "hey why don't I come by with my 2x GTX 980 and my 4K screen and we can check if it really is an issue".
So last evening we ended up swapping testing 1x GTX 980 vs 2x GTX 970 and 2x GTX 980's vs 3x GTX 970 and 2x GTX 980 vs 2x GTX 970 all in 4K.
Aaaaand halleluja I was happy with did that.... it saved me hundreds of quids.
Fact was that we played every new AAA title in 4K at max details and minimum 8xAA in all titles. We were excited to see if the Vram "issue" on the 970 would cripple it.
We did all the first testing with 1-2-3 GTX 970. With 1x 970 card FPS were low and at these quality settings games weren't really playable.
2x GTX 970 improved things a lot - we loaded the games with 8xAA and we experienced stutter every now and then and the VRam usage was 3.5GB+ and texture popping was random. We backed down to 4xAA and things lightened up. Still not stutter free and occasional hickups but we didn't see texture popping. Then we backed down to 2xAA (still looking sweet in 4K) and now things rang smooth as silk and we didn't experience stuttering at all.
Now to 3x GTX 970 - fired up the same games and Dying Light the "problem child" for the 970 Vram problem we tried first. Set it to 8xAA and we still had massive stutter all over and texture popping like with 2x 970. We downed AA to 4x and now things got weird. Absolutely smooth gameplay eventhough the Vram was hitting 3.8GB !!!. Maybe that extra GPU really made a difference now backing up the Vram ! We didn't see that coming.
The same story we repeated in the other games BF4, BioShock Infinite, COD Ghost/Advanced Warfare etc. Gaming in 4K with 3x 970 was a breeze with max 4xAA.
All in all we were sure we had seen the "3.5GB+ 0.5GB" problem in the games.
Now we moved to the GTX 980. 4K same setting Vram usage 3.9~4.1GB with 8xAA. But heavy stutter stutter and low FPS. One card just can handle it. Backed down all the way to 2xAA before with got FPS though would touch the likes of 30FPS and Vram usage between 3.4~3.5GBVram
Moving to 2x GTX 980 we expected the 980's to show their REAL 4GB Vram available. Fired up Dying Light set to max and 8xAA. First minute was smooth and we were so confident that this was how real 4GB vram would run the game... but them BAAAAM... suddenly the memory usage showing 3.8 went to 4.1GB and we were back to texture popping and choppy gameplay just like the 2/3x GTX 970's.
We could not believe it so we restarted the PC and game - with that that 3 times in a row, but every time the choppiness and texturepopping returned. Even 4Gigs wasn't going to cut it to run 4K at 8xAA. We backed down to 4xAA and here we started get get smooth gameplay again, only once in a while when a lot on the screen happened the FPS would back down in the low 30FPS - not surprisingly the 3x 970 delivered much better gameplay experience and FPS smoothness at these same settings.
After that we continued to tests in all the other games. We were surprised to see that all the games behaved in the same manner 8xAA at 4K was too much for even two 2x GTX 980's to handle. Vram usage was oversaturated causing stuttering etc. Backing down to 4xAA things got a lot better and games played smoothly albeit with a lower average FPS than 3x 970's.
So all in all. We played through all the games and I must admit that the 3.5GB+ 0.5GB vram issue was only "evident" when the 980 REAL 4GB card had the same problems !.
I'm really not that sure that the 970 is a crippled card at all, because when the 970 had problems so had the 980's.
Right now I am actually very happy I didn't sell my 5x 970's but decided to keep them. I'm thankfull for the fact that I for myself could test things out before throwing hundres of £ out of the window for nothing - so a hughe thank you to my buddy Jess
I've seen it with my own eyes that "upgrading" from 970 "3.5GB+0.5GB" to 980 4GB is useless.
When 8GB versions of 970's get here I'll purchase those also eventhoug they may be "7GB+ 1GB" or so.
I hope you can use my answer to something.
"
"I had the very same discussion with myself and I was actually able to do something about it.
Having one PC with 970 SLi and another 970 3 way SLi, I was thinking of going 1x GTX 980 in one PC and 2x GTX 980 in the other PC. I knew very well that selling 5 GTX 970 would not cover the costs of 3 new GTX 980's...but I was kinda accepting it albeit unwillingly.
Luckily my buddy came to the rescue ! We talked about it and he said, "hey why don't I come by with my 2x GTX 980 and my 4K screen and we can check if it really is an issue".
So last evening we ended up swapping testing 1x GTX 980 vs 2x GTX 970 and 2x GTX 980's vs 3x GTX 970 and 2x GTX 980 vs 2x GTX 970 all in 4K.
Aaaaand halleluja I was happy with did that.... it saved me hundreds of quids.
Fact was that we played every new AAA title in 4K at max details and minimum 8xAA in all titles. We were excited to see if the Vram "issue" on the 970 would cripple it.
We did all the first testing with 1-2-3 GTX 970. With 1x 970 card FPS were low and at these quality settings games weren't really playable.
2x GTX 970 improved things a lot - we loaded the games with 8xAA and we experienced stutter every now and then and the VRam usage was 3.5GB+ and texture popping was random. We backed down to 4xAA and things lightened up. Still not stutter free and occasional hickups but we didn't see texture popping. Then we backed down to 2xAA (still looking sweet in 4K) and now things rang smooth as silk and we didn't experience stuttering at all.
Now to 3x GTX 970 - fired up the same games and Dying Light the "problem child" for the 970 Vram problem we tried first. Set it to 8xAA and we still had massive stutter all over and texture popping like with 2x 970. We downed AA to 4x and now things got weird. Absolutely smooth gameplay eventhough the Vram was hitting 3.8GB !!!. Maybe that extra GPU really made a difference now backing up the Vram ! We didn't see that coming.
The same story we repeated in the other games BF4, BioShock Infinite, COD Ghost/Advanced Warfare etc. Gaming in 4K with 3x 970 was a breeze with max 4xAA.
All in all we were sure we had seen the "3.5GB+ 0.5GB" problem in the games.
Now we moved to the GTX 980. 4K same setting Vram usage 3.9~4.1GB with 8xAA. But heavy stutter stutter and low FPS. One card just can handle it. Backed down all the way to 2xAA before with got FPS though would touch the likes of 30FPS and Vram usage between 3.4~3.5GBVram
Moving to 2x GTX 980 we expected the 980's to show their REAL 4GB Vram available. Fired up Dying Light set to max and 8xAA. First minute was smooth and we were so confident that this was how real 4GB vram would run the game... but them BAAAAM... suddenly the memory usage showing 3.8 went to 4.1GB and we were back to texture popping and choppy gameplay just like the 2/3x GTX 970's.
We could not believe it so we restarted the PC and game - with that that 3 times in a row, but every time the choppiness and texturepopping returned. Even 4Gigs wasn't going to cut it to run 4K at 8xAA. We backed down to 4xAA and here we started get get smooth gameplay again, only once in a while when a lot on the screen happened the FPS would back down in the low 30FPS - not surprisingly the 3x 970 delivered much better gameplay experience and FPS smoothness at these same settings.
After that we continued to tests in all the other games. We were surprised to see that all the games behaved in the same manner 8xAA at 4K was too much for even two 2x GTX 980's to handle. Vram usage was oversaturated causing stuttering etc. Backing down to 4xAA things got a lot better and games played smoothly albeit with a lower average FPS than 3x 970's.
So all in all. We played through all the games and I must admit that the 3.5GB+ 0.5GB vram issue was only "evident" when the 980 REAL 4GB card had the same problems !.
I'm really not that sure that the 970 is a crippled card at all, because when the 970 had problems so had the 980's.
Right now I am actually very happy I didn't sell my 5x 970's but decided to keep them. I'm thankfull for the fact that I for myself could test things out before throwing hundres of £ out of the window for nothing - so a hughe thank you to my buddy Jess
I've seen it with my own eyes that "upgrading" from 970 "3.5GB+0.5GB" to 980 4GB is useless.When 8GB versions of 970's get here I'll purchase those also eventhoug they may be "7GB+ 1GB" or so.
I hope you can use my answer to something.
"
