Two 960's or a 970?

MrAnthony · 22 Jan 2015 at 17:00

Just upgraded from a single 460 to a single 970, one of the best decisions I've made in years.

opethdisciple · 22 Jan 2015 at 17:05

JustCallMeVlad said:
Hear a lot of people saying this but the results dont paint that picture at all.

960 SLI easily beating a 980 at 1600P

Thats becuase this is not breaking 2Gb of Vram. :rolleyes:

Try a game that DOES use more than 2Gb of Vram for textures. Shadow of Mordor etc... the point is this - 2x960 = more raw horsepower than a 970. However, in game when you enable those ultra textures such as in AC Unity or another game that requires more than 2gb of vram for textures, the 960's would stutter and choke as textures are moved in and out of memory. The 970 on the other hand would not.

setter · 22 Jan 2015 at 17:08

Yep, bf4 only uses about 1900mb of ram on max settings at 1080.

RavenXXX2 · 22 Jan 2015 at 17:42

Games are getting more and more memory intensive, I would not be investing in 960 SLI even at 1080p.

Goody_GTI · 22 Jan 2015 at 17:45

Single 970 all day long

JustCallMeVlad · 22 Jan 2015 at 17:51

opethdisciple said:
Thats becuase this is not breaking 2Gb of Vram.

Try a game that DOES use more than 2Gb of Vram for textures. Shadow of Mordor etc... the point is this - 2x960 = more raw horsepower than a 970. However, in game when you enable those ultra textures such as in AC Unity or another game that requires more than 2gb of vram for textures, the 960's would stutter and choke as textures are moved in and out of memory. The 970 on the other hand would not.

So BF4 Ultra doesn't use more than 2GB of VRAM at 1600P?

savagesam117 · 22 Jan 2015 at 18:16

Bloody hell, the 980 is a hell of a jump up from the 970. you can almost sli 2 970's for the price of one 980.

I'd be upgrading the power supply that's no issue at all, something like an 850W EVGA one or something. I also want to go water cooling because it looks awesome.

I'm slowly building a 4K system so the 970's would have no problem running 4K later on down the line. And i would like to future proof myself as much as possible.

Thanks guys, i appreciate it

Spuddy · 22 Jan 2015 at 18:20

Echo'ing most other people here, get the 970. Always better to get the single best card you can afford, then sli later if needed.

JustCallMeVlad · 22 Jan 2015 at 19:02

If only you could TRI 960's

RanxZy · 22 Jan 2015 at 19:19

Have a feeling 960Ti will have people pausing for thought when they get released.

Huntyz · 22 Jan 2015 at 19:29

savagesam117 said:
Bloody hell, the 980 is a hell of a jump up from the 970. you can almost sli 2 970's for the price of one 980.

I'd be upgrading the power supply that's no issue at all, something like an 850W EVGA one or something. I also want to go water cooling because it looks awesome.

I'm slowly building a 4K system so the 970's would have no problem running 4K later on down the line. And i would like to future proof myself as much as possible.

Thanks guys, i appreciate it

I'm Running 2 970s with 4k and its a dream

Works really well.

JeffyB · 22 Jan 2015 at 19:31

This comes up every generation and is generally answered with buy the biggest single gpu you can afford. 970 every time.

MoonBoots · 22 Jan 2015 at 20:17

savagesam117 said:
I'm slowly building a 4K system so the 970's would have no problem running 4K later on down the line. And i would like to future proof myself as much as possible.

Whilst two 970's are capable of 4K, they certainly don't breeze it and typically average about 45-50 FPS on demanding games at high settings. If you are definitely thinking of 4K then you might be better off going for 980s or waiting for AMDs next release.

Personally I'd recommend forgetting about 4K for now and then think about it in 3-4 years time when it's slightly more mainstream. Or go for 1440p which still looks great but is much more affordable.

Huntyz · 22 Jan 2015 at 20:22

MoonBoots said:
Whilst two 970's are capable of 4K, they certainly don't breeze it and typically average about 45FPS on demanding games at high settings. If you are definitely thinking of 4K then you might be better off going for 980s or holding off for AMDs next release.

Personally I'd recommend forgetting about 4K for now and then think about it in 3-4 years times when it's slightly more mainstream. Or go for 1440p which still looks great but is much more affordable.

Using G-Sync helps.

varkanoid · 22 Jan 2015 at 20:26

Huntyz said:
Using G-Sync helps.

plus on a 60hz monitor with G-Sync you are not going to get over 60fps anyway.

45-50fps is quite acceptable for me. G-Sync makes 4k viable now.

MoonBoots · 22 Jan 2015 at 20:27

Huntyz said:
Using G-Sync helps.

Definitely. But from what I've heard, going below about 45FPS is still pretty jarring and unfortunately I think that would be quite a common occurrence with two 970s at 4K as games become more demanding. Would probably be passable outside of fast paced games though.

james.miller · 22 Jan 2015 at 20:28

single 970 :cool:

varkanoid · 22 Jan 2015 at 20:47

MoonBoots said:
Definitely. But from what I've heard, going below about 45FPS is still pretty jarring

From experience its not as it rarely drops below 45fps.

MoonBoots · 22 Jan 2015 at 20:54

varkanoid said:
From experience its not as it rarely drops below 45fps.

That's good to hear but I'd still argue that adding an extra 970 for 4K down the line is a bad idea if today's games are getting 45-50fps because in say a years time you'd probably only be getting about 40-45fps in the recent releases.

Great that's its at least an option though!

savagesam117 · 22 Jan 2015 at 22:03

Hmm.. That gives me something to think about! Maybe I won't go 4K just yet then. To be totally honest, I don't need 4K I'm happy with 1080P, but I'm one of these kind of people that wants to have the best, and at the moment, 4K is the best, i know it may not seem like that from my current PC specs anyway!!

I highly doubt i will ever go AMD no matter what they release.. I just don't like the look of them and their drivers look hideous!