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The big 970 SLI dilemma

Dirk Diggler

Dirk Diggler

Dirk Diggler

Soldato
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Please keep this discussion for 970 SLI owners and what they plan to do. Any discussion on Nvidia or the 970 memory issue has a thread of it's own.

First of all, a massive thanks to OCUK for their unbelievable customer service in accepting returns on all 970's sold by them until the end of February. I have no plans to boycott Nvidia or Gigabyte for their stance. I simply want the best system I can afford. Rather than boycott, I'm going to focus on rewarding OCUK for their legendary CS with all future purchases, regardless of price (within reason, obviously :cool:) I'll be starting that with an order for a ROG Swift next week. :D

I'm thinking of returning my 970's in exchange for a single 980 and a credit note for the outstanding balance. I like the Windforce cooler, so it's looking like a Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 G1 Gaming.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 G1 Gaming 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £467.99
Total : £477.59 (includes shipping : £8.00).



The big dilemma for me, is should I do it!

I mean, the performance of the 970's in SLI is stunning. However, the 980 will certainly outstrip a single 970 when the SLI isn't playing ball. Also, the 980 should have much better resale value, and I really want to move to a card with more vRam whenever that becomes available.

Will the 980 perform adequately at 1440p with AAA titles?

I'm planning on buying a ROG Swift, so do I keep the 970's or get the 980?
What are you planning to do?
 
Last edited:
It's a debate I am currently having with myself.

I currently play on 2560x1440 in SLI and have been having issues with some titles when using more than the 3.5gb of fast vram (never knew it was a nvidia fault untill 2 days ago and was pretty sure it must have been my system)
and I get terrible stutter when it goes beyond that even though i was never reaching the 4gb as stated i was sure it was my fault somehow (I tested with friends r9 290x 8gb vram and was butter smooth all the time).

I am in two minds to wait for amds next round of cards or go for a single 980 and SLI latter on....:confused:
 
Refund the 970 and get a cheap 290, they're going for about £160 on the MM and wait for AMDs next cards.
 
If it were down to me I would get a refund on the pair, then buy a 295x2.

It's the 4k champion... It's also at a price that wouldn't bother me too badly if the 380x came along within a few months.

I know you may not want AMD but you did ask !

I also wouldn't bother with the Swift. If you're going to get two 980s then the Acer 4k2k is what it's all about. 4k and G-Sync, a true step into the future.
 
I can't go back to one card , not even as a stop gap , I'll cry . Seriously though for me any games I play that don't support SLi properly or natively don't need any more GPU grunt throwing at them anyway , dayZ standalone as such . And the games where I need everything maxed and high FPS basicly beg me for a dual card system with slot of cram. I'm waiting to hear back from AMD Roy Taylor , to see if he has got anything special they can offer otherwise I may just sit on the money till something new arrives
 
ALXAndy said:
If it were down to me I would get a refund on the pair, then buy a 295x2.

It's the 4k champion... It's also at a price that wouldn't bother me too badly if the 380x came along within a few months.

I know you may not want AMD but you did ask !

I also wouldn't bother with the Swift. If you're going to get two 980s then the Acer 4k2k is what it's all about. 4k and G-Sync, a true step into the future.
Click to expand...

I'm only getting one 980, and don't intend to go for 4k any time soon. 1440p is where I'm at right now. I just don't know if a 980 will push it enough.

If I go AMD, I lose the G-Sync functionality. Plus the heat... oh, the heat...
 
String said:
I'm only getting one 980, and don't intend to go for 4k any time soon. 1440p is where I'm at right now. I just don't know if a 980 will push it enough.

If I go AMD, I lose the G-Sync functionality. Plus the heat... oh, the heat...
Click to expand...

Well the 295x2 is water cooled and IIRC the cores run about the same as the 980 heat wise...

One 980 will be enough but certainly not enough for the top settings. So I guess you just need to work out if you can handle a compromise.
 
Nothing.

Sticking with my SLI 970..

No point getting one 908 or paying the extra for 2... don't fancy any of the AMD equivalents even though i would easily get 2 8gb 290x's

I have so far not been effected by this memory problem, most of the time its just the shoddy ports
 
I too am sticking with the 970's. So far I have not experienced any problems because I think gsync is my friend. Its my first SLI setup and I can not believe how good it has been so far.

I tried a single 980 with 4k and I was a bit disappointed having to turn down a couple of settings but with the 970's I can have them all at ultra/high. The only one I meddle with is AA but at 4k I've found it makes little difference.

Admittedly I do need to try more games but my 4k screen is in for repair for the 2nd time and I am longing for it back!
 
I'm in the same boat and have been tempted to keep the 970's but I just feel I'll regret it in a few months when more and more games use 3+vram easily at 1440p..

I've been looking a the 290X 8GB but the extra watts and heat worries me, especially as i'd like to go CF.
Anyone with experience comment on 290x 8gb CF?

A cheaper 290 actually is appealing and wait for either 980 8gb or 380x
 
In my opinion if you are worried about vram then buying another 4gb card now makes no sense to me. 512mb more VRAM usable in how you would normally expect it is that really worth buying a new card then in six months time you find out 4gb is not enough.

Ideally there is no 8gb card that is a massively available at the moment so would turning texture quality down from Ultra to High really cause people such distress ?

Bide your time with what you have and see what comes out the rest of the year. I can just imagine people who got rid of 970 SLI/single 970's saying in six months time their 980 4gb doesnt have enough VRAM.

AMD or even Nvidia looking at whats been happening this week if they had any sense the new GPU race would be to get the first mainstream 8gb card as it would easily sell as well as a 970 if not even better.

Sorry if I am treading towards the vram thread. I just dont see the sense in getting rid of a "3.5gb" card and replacing it with a 4gb card because of a VRAM agruement. In that context it makes people look really stupid.

Now 970 SLI 4gb to 1xxx SLI 8gb would make sense.
 
varkanoid said:
In my opinion if you are worried about vram then buying another 4gb card now makes no sense to me. 512mb more VRAM usable in how you would normally expect it is that really worth buying a new card then in six months time you find out 4gb is not enough.

Ideally there is no 8gb card that is a massively available at the moment so would turning texture quality down from Ultra to High really cause people such distress ?

Bide your time with what you have and see what comes out the rest of the year. I can just imagine people who got rid of 970 SLI/single 970's saying in six months time their 980 4gb doesnt have enough VRAM.

AMD or even Nvidia looking at whats been happening this week if they had any sense the new GPU race would be to get the first mainstream 8gb card as it would easily sell as well as a 970 if not even better.

Sorry if I am treading towards the vram thread. I just dont see the sense in getting rid of a "3.5gb" card and replacing it with a 4gb card because of a VRAM agruement. In that context it makes people look really stupid.

Now 970 SLI 4gb to 1xxx SLI 8gb would make sense.
Click to expand...

I'm not so sure this is correct, the issue is not so much that's it's effectively a 3.5GB card. That would be fine, it's that when you reach that you get stuttering issues due to the much slower .5gb vram
 
varkanoid said:
In my opinion if you are worried about vram then buying another 4gb card now makes no sense to me. 512mb more VRAM usable in how you would normally expect it is that really worth buying a new card then in six months time you find out 4gb is not enough.

Ideally there is no 8gb card that is a massively available at the moment so would turning texture quality down from Ultra to High really cause people such distress ?

Bide your time with what you have and see what comes out the rest of the year. I can just imagine people who got rid of 970 SLI/single 970's saying in six months time their 980 4gb doesnt have enough VRAM.

AMD or even Nvidia looking at whats been happening this week if they had any sense the new GPU race would be to get the first mainstream 8gb card as it would easily sell as well as a 970 if not even better.

Sorry if I am treading towards the vram thread. I just dont see the sense in getting rid of a "3.5gb" card and replacing it with a 4gb card because of a VRAM agruement. In that context it makes people look really stupid.

Now 970 SLI 4gb to 1xxx SLI 8gb would make sense.
Click to expand...

Yea, I agree. I am like others, in that I haven't really experienced any issues that couldn't be remedied by dropping a setting here or there.

It's really the resale value that's niggling at me. The 980 is a premium card, so I'm not sure the resale value will be there either... especially when 8gb cards come out.

I'm edging towards keeping my 970's.
 
phate101101 said:
I'm not so sure this is correct, the issue is not so much that's it's effectively a 3.5GB card. That would be fine, it's that when you reach that you get stuttering issues due to the much slower .5gb vram
Click to expand...

Thats why I put it in " " ;) Is a 4gb card any better then in those terms ? I think no.

Yea, I agree. I am like others, in that I haven't really experienced any issues that couldn't be remedied by dropping a setting here or there.

It's really the resale value that's niggling at me. The 980 is a premium card, so I'm not sure the resale value will be there either... especially when 8gb cards come out.

I'm edging towards keeping my 970's.
Click to expand...

I have had a 290 and it was a good card surprised me but the heat, oh the heat, that did it for me. I've tried a 980 so I wouldnt go there so there is no where I want to go at the moment.

If there was plenty of 8gb choice then I would take advantage of the refund and not necessarily for the vram issue reason but there isnt. So stick not twist.
 
One 980 will be a massive step down on a pair of 970s fella. But with the fruitbrughhaha surrounding the 970 and possible future resale value, I totally understand you returning them getting a refund.

One 980 will play very nice with a gsync monitor, and as I mentioned in another thread, SLI can actually cause a few hiccups with gsync and a few games.
If you do get one 980, I'll put money on you getting another within a few months though as you'll want to be maxing out the swifts refresh rate when possible ;)
 
sativa1874 said:
I just requested an RMA for my 2 gigabyte g1's and bought 2 of these http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-003-GX
Click to expand...

Not having a dig.. but what exactly are you getting for the extra 200 quid?

Not 200 quids worth of extra performance and even these cards judging by some games will hit the VRAM limit sooner or later. + if something new comes out I cant see them holding their value..

This is why i decided not to do this same thing.
 
When I was deciding over 970 SLI or keeping 980/980SLI loads of people were telling me I was silly to have got the 980 in the first place and even more stupid going to 980 SLI due to the cost over performance.

I took the advice of getting rid of the 980 then putting the money to 970 SLI. Looking at the extra cost of a 980 I still dont think that was a bad choice. I still think the second hand value of two 970's will be more than a single 980.
 
I'm think of getting a refund and getting a cheap 290 from ocuk to tide me over until the new and cards come out

Heat concerns me though, as does DirectX 12 on the cards, will they support it?
 
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