Am I crazy (980 ti upgrade)?

shanomacadaemia · 25 Jun 2015 at 10:52

I'm thinking about selling my pair of MSi 970 4G cards and buying a 980 ti OC instead. The extra cost will be about €120 after I sell my current GPUs. Is this insane? I'm getting kind of sick of SLI issues and stuttering (Arkham Knight being the most recent example), and I'm thinking of doing a big form factor crunch in the near future to a mini-ITX machine that's easier to move around and doesn't look so ghastly (currently running a HAF-X).

Suggestions?

Five.Stars · 25 Jun 2015 at 11:06

I wouldn't base it solely on Arkham Knight tbh since that game is just flat out broken. However, the performance on the Ti should be fairly similar, far smoother, use less power, and crucially have none of the issues with certain games either not supporting SLI or having inconsistent performance as a result.

Aberfala · 25 Jun 2015 at 11:07

I've just pushed the button on a 980 ti to replace my pair of SLI'd 780's as I too have had enough of the problems running dual cards.

I'm not gonna get anywhere near as much for my old cards as you will for yours and I think it's worth it. For €120 I'd say it's a no brainer.

Perfect_Chaos · 25 Jun 2015 at 11:10

Yeah the single card would give more consistent performance for sure as Five.Stars said.

In future my plan is to get the best (or near to) single card and just sell it 1-2 years later and upgrade to the next best. Less issues overall i feel.

razorpakk · 25 Jun 2015 at 11:10

I've just sold my 970s Gaming to do the same (they still hold great value on Ebay). Besides your points I didn't want to go trough the summer with the SLI heat.

Go for it, it's a smart move, but be quick before the cards lose value.

Perfect_Chaos said:
In future my plan is to get the best (or near to) single card and just sell it 1-2 years later and upgrade to the next best. Less issues overall i feel.

Swapping the best single card every year is great, high end cards always sell well and you never have to spend much to be on top.

NZXT30 · 25 Jun 2015 at 11:12

Bad bad idea and how often do you move your pc around?

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 25 Jun 2015 at 11:13

The sales of the game have been suspended by the dev.

Jono8 · 25 Jun 2015 at 11:14

I personally wouldn't bother. Im on a single 980 and waiting for pascal. I reckon the proper next gen die shrunk cards with HBM 2 will be monsters.

If Nvidia can make a card that outperforms and uses less power than AMD's new offering which is using HBM imagine what they can do when they put HBM2 on their cards and shrink the process to 14/16nm!

shamus21 · 25 Jun 2015 at 11:19

Jono8 said:
I personally wouldn't bother. Im on a single 980 and waiting for pascal. I reckon the proper next gen die shrunk cards with HBM 2 will be monsters.

If Nvidia can make a card that outperforms and uses less power than AMD's new offering which is using HBM imagine what they can do when they put HBM2 on their cards and shrink the process to 14/16nm!

That is a very good point Jono8

Jeps · 25 Jun 2015 at 11:53

I'm in a similar boat. Have a pair of 780Ti and want to hold out until pascal but the 980Ti is mighty tempting!

sys4096 · 25 Jun 2015 at 14:38

Jeps said:
I'm in a similar boat. Have a pair of 780Ti and want to hold out until pascal but the 980Ti is mighty tempting!

Same here - I have 2 x 780TIs in SLI, I have NO problem with stutter etc, and I know my 780Tis outperform a single 980TI at the 4K res I use, I keep swinging between flogging them now and getting a single TI and adding a second TI later, or just keeping what I have.

I dont trust myself, if I went to a single TI I would somehow justify buying another one a few days later at the most...

shamus21 · 26 Jun 2015 at 07:10

sys4096 said:
Same here - I have 2 x 780TIs in SLI, I have NO problem with stutter etc, and I know my 780Tis outperform a single 980TI at the 4K res I use, I keep swinging between flogging them now and getting a single TI and adding a second TI later, or just keeping what I have.

I dont trust myself, if I went to a single TI I would somehow justify buying another one a few days later at the most...

Self Control sys4096.

Cooper · 26 Jun 2015 at 09:49

I have a simple rule for replacing my 970's, when I can buy a single card that at least matches them in performance in the same £300 price bracket then it's time to upgrade.

Right now the 980Ti meets the first part of that requirement (with an overclock), but not the second.

I'm pretty sure the Pascal cards next year will meet the second part, and I will have had about 18mths use out of my 970's, which will make me feel like I've actually had my moneys worth out of them.

There is very little on the horizon in terms of games to be released that will stress my 970's to breaking point up to 1440p resolution before Pascal appears next year so there is no rush to replace them.

Having said that, the prospect of 980Ti SLI is mighty tempting...

Gibbo · 26 Jun 2015 at 09:51

Hi there

An overclocked 980Ti can beat SLI 970's performance wise and then you also have no more SLI worries.

You could probably get £300-£350 for used 970's, which means you only need to find £150 to grab a new 980Ti as OcUK has cards from £509.99 inc. vat.

Jonahun · 26 Jun 2015 at 09:52

Good idea, go for Ti SLI

Cooper · 26 Jun 2015 at 09:56

Gibbo said:
An overclocked 980Ti can beat SLI 970's performance wise and then you also have no more SLI worries.

I have to say that i'm 6mths in to running SLI and the 'worries' are somewhat overstated.

There are only 2 games that I've have had issues with, which because they were older games could be run at highest settings on a single card with SLI disabled in the NV control panel.

The vast majority of new releases are built with SLI taken into account now days.

wunkley · 26 Jun 2015 at 09:57

Same boat. 780ti SLI here currently.

I was all for switching to one card, a TX or 980Ti but now the dust has settled I'm not so sure.
When SLI works properly, my cards smash everything at 1440p, with gsync for added measure. Although I do get annoyed with SLI issues, especially stutter, there are only a handful of games in actual fact that have real issues.

The 2 basic factors That are influencing me now are...

1. Pascal (but it's going to be a year away from what I've read), and
2. What games are coming out in the next 6-12 months that 780Ti's can't cope with?

Cooper · 26 Jun 2015 at 10:01

wunkley said:
2. What games are coming out in the next 6-12 months that 780Ti's can't cope with?

And that's the real point as far as I'm concerned..the likely two biggest PC releases of this year are out and work perfectly with SLI (GTA V & Witcher 3).

Having 'uber' amounts of GPU power sitting in your PC gives a nice warm feeling, but if it's going to be mostly sitting idle because the software doesn't need it, it's a waste of money.

psychas · 26 Jun 2015 at 11:48

i went from 970 to 980 to 980 ti so no your not crazy ,980ti gave me quite big perf boost

Dirk Diggler · 26 Jun 2015 at 12:13

Cooper said:
And that's the real point as far as I'm concerned..the likely two biggest PC releases of this year are out and work perfectly with SLI (GTA V & Witcher 3).

Having 'uber' amounts of GPU power sitting in your PC gives a nice warm feeling, but if it's going to be mostly sitting idle because the software doesn't need it, it's a waste of money.

Those 2 titles convinced me to ditch SLI and go with a single 980.

GTA V had both cards sitting at 60% usage, and the fps boost in Witcher 3 is moderate.