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980 TI SLI now or wait for Pascal?

PhysicsMan94

PhysicsMan94

PhysicsMan94

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Hi, I currently have 2 EVGA SC 780s (other system specs in sig) and a Dell UltraSharp U2713HM monitor (1440p).

At the moment my 780s are still eating their way through all new releases at near max settings (including GTA V and Witcher 3) and at 2560x1440. However, at some point I would like to upgrade my monitor to either a 4K/IPS/G-Sync or 1440p/IPS/144Hz/G-Sync panel and in both cases I'm going to need some extra GPU firepower to get the most out of either of these monitor types.

So, is it worth upgrading to 2 980 TI SLI now or is it worth waiting it out a bit and buying into Pascal (I think that's the next Nvidia line-up)?

Cheers :)
 
Hi Physicsman

I am also thinking of getting either 2 Fury X's or 2 980Ti's. I did ask questions in the Fiji thread but I think they got lost in all the fanboy talk lol

I want to go 4K as well but not sure what to do. Freesync looks nice and with 2 Fury X's, it should be able to maintain 60 fps with max settings from what I have seen but I worry about the 4GB of VRAM and have seen lots of posts saying it isn't enough. I could pay the extra for Gsync and the 980Ti's would have the extra 33% of VRAM to cope but tough choice.. Sorry to derail your thread but it is roughly what I am looking to do and I don't want to part with my money and get stung. I currently have a MSI 290X which is great but won't be for bigger resolutions.
 
I've just gone from 1 Titan X to 2 x 980Ti SLI. I'll let you know how I get on.

4k, Gsync and 1 x Titan X could run everything at max setting without AA (which I don't really care for).
 
I'm in a similar boat: 2 x 780Ti but currently on 1440p 144hz Gsync (Rog Swift).

I'm doing a new specific gaming build in a few months so I have a separate work and play comp. At the moment I'm in a right quandry as to what to do and keep flitting from sticking what I've got (2x 780Ti) in the new gaming build, or selling and going one 980Ti, then probably two. I would consider the Fury X but Gsync is kind of locking me in. If Fury X was some kind of revelation I would have considered starting again and going freesync too, but it's not going to be better enough, if at all from the leaks I've seen.
 
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I always think selling soon is the wise strategy, as you get good resale value and don't ever spend huge amount of money.
I would go for a single 980ti, which should give you marginally better performance, but keep more value in the future (the Vram @1440p won't hurt coming from 3gb).
 
razorpakk said:
I always think selling soon is the wise strategy, as you get good resale value and don't ever spend huge amount of money.
I would go for a single 980ti, which should give you marginally better performance, but keep more value in the future (the Vram @1440p won't hurt coming from 3gb).
Click to expand...

Yeah. 780Ti resale value has already tanked for the relatively short time they've been out though.

Also, 2x 780Ti's are more powerful than one 980Ti. I actually had and used a Titan X for a week and it was marginally behind in all my games and benchies comapred to SLI 780Ti's, but the lack of any SLI and stutter problems kind of made up for it.

The 780Ti is still a very good card (and 2 even more so), and I'm still not Vram limited in ANY games I play, including several of the latest releases.
It's funny how the 'need more Vram powah' crowd have piped down a bit since the 4GB Fury X annouced aint it. ;)
 
Nobody Dies said:
Hi Physicsman

I am also thinking of getting either 2 Fury X's or 2 980Ti's. I did ask questions in the Fiji thread but I think they got lost in all the fanboy talk lol

I want to go 4K as well but not sure what to do. Freesync looks nice and with 2 Fury X's, it should be able to maintain 60 fps with max settings from what I have seen but I worry about the 4GB of VRAM and have seen lots of posts saying it isn't enough. I could pay the extra for Gsync and the 980Ti's would have the extra 33% of VRAM to cope but tough choice.. Sorry to derail your thread but it is roughly what I am looking to do and I don't want to part with my money and get stung. I currently have a MSI 290X which is great but won't be for bigger resolutions.
Click to expand...

Freesync doesn't work with Crossfire still. It's been promised repeatedly but at this point I wouldn't buy until it's out.
 
I'd love to see AMD's todo list...

1. Make new graphics card
2. Fix drivers

Not necessarily in that order, but that's all they need to do aint it.
 
rtho782 said:
Hadn't heard that, I guess the message got lost in with all the new card release news.

Look forward to seeing some testing :)
Click to expand...

Driver Update Brings New Use Cases & Value
Whenever a company like AMD launches a new series of graphics cards like the Radeon 300 series, they usually accompany it with a new graphics driver. However, AMD is not simply updating their drivers to support the R9 Fury X, they are completely overhauling their drivers across the board.

AMD is releasing a two-phase driver release with Catalyst 15.15 and 15.20
. The 15.15 drivers are available immediately,and the 15.20 drivers are coming a few weeks later.

The Catalyst 15.15 drivers bring new features like:
FPS Targeting - The ability to save power by setting a maximum FPS target
Virtual Super Resolution - The ability to down scale a game from a high
resolution to a lower resolution, giving a user higher-quality textures in game
(also known as supersampling)
Performance optimizations:
Adding game performance optimizations to AMD R9 Fury Xand other graphics cards.

Although Catalyst 15.15 drivers will not be available for Windows 10, Catalyst
15.20 will be.
The Catalyst 15.20 drivers will bring features like:
Catalyst Uninstaller:Allows users to uninstall their AMD catalyst drivers
cleanly, so new drivers can be installed without incident.
OpenCL 2.0 optional features.
Multiple performance and feature additions
FreeSync + CrossFire:The ability to run FreeSync dynamic screen refresh
technology with multiple GPUs in CrossFire mode.

Catalyst 15.20 divers will also have Windows 10 specific features like:
HEVC(High Efficiency Video Codec):Enables quality streaming and 4K
experiences
DirectX 12:Support for the low-level efficient graphics API for Windows 10
Windows 10 WHQL(Windows Hardware Quality Lab)

AMD’s latest driver release (15.20) will be WHQL and WHQL for Windows 10 as well

I've already got the them intalled but dont have a monitor to test them on though.
 
Kaapstad said:
Only upgrade when your games no longer run how you want them to.
Click to expand...


Yup I don't game anymore so still on a GTX 285 lol, although I still like to keep up to date. I want to upgrade my whole system but I don't do anything that requires an upgrade anymore, I would love to just buy it just to have it but after a month on tinkering I would just be doing the same as I am now.
 
I'd recommend going for the SLI 980 Ti for now. I'm also waiting for Pascal, and because of it I bought a GTX 970 yesterday instead of a GTX 980 (only on 1080p atm). I was even considering the 980 Ti myself. Think of it this way, you have one 980 Ti at ~£600 right now. In a years time or when Pascal is out, what card will you be able to buy for the price of a second 980 Ti and will it give double the performance? I highly doubt the earlier Pascal cards will do twice the performance of the 980 Ti at the current 980 Ti price point. Thus, it's better for the money to go SLI right now. Maybe I'm wrong and Nvidia/AMD will surprise us with <£600 die-shrink cards with close to double the performance of the 980 Ti, but I doubt it.

2nd 980ti vs £600 Pascal

Although thinking about the 780 Ti and comparing SLI 780 Ti to a single 980 Ti... it's roughly double so I might be wrong about my Pascal prediction. Especially if Pascal is as amazing as Nvidia says it is. But I doubt they'd sensibly price it, especially early on. The equivalent Titan X was and still is £800+. I bet the right card will probably be something like the Titan 4 priced at the usual ridiculous price-point at first, later getting the 1080 Ti or whatever at a more reasonable cost.
 
Well, I recently sold off 3 titans (original ones) and was going to get a single replacement ~£600 card and pocket the difference, however with the zotac amp 980ti being £500 on this weekend deal, I accidentally just bought a pair of them

I seem to end up upgrading every gen by getting a half decent deal on trading in my old stuff
 
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Are there any sensible projections on just how potent Pascal is going to be? If the reduction to 16nm along with all the other stuff really is a game-changer then I think I might be better off waiting. Hmmmm, choices choices...
 
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