Ok, I have one 970 G1 and it's awesome, but I want to upgrade. So do I add a second 970 G1 Gaming? Or do I sell my 970 G1 and just get a 980 G1? My rig specs are in my profile.
Thanks.
The performance would be better if you went sli; however, if you plan to go 980 and sli that, then of course that is better.
But if it is 970sli vs 980, then the 970sli wins.
Thanks.
I know there has been many discussions about the RAM on the 970, and I haven't had any issues, but I didn't know if this would effect the SLI performance on SLI'd 970's.
The truth is, even with all the crying, complaining, and general idiocy of the community, the issue with the 970 will barely affect a small percentage of everyone who bought it.
The issue is that you have 3.5gb of regular vram, and 0.5gb partitioned off at a slower speed (but still faster than partitioning your own ram). So people are complaining that when you hit more than 3.5gb memory usage of the card, there are some dropped frames. The vast majority of gamers, and games, don't go past that mark anyways, let alone even oc their gpu. This is quite minimal really, and the benchmarks haven't changed. The ram issue doesn't even really relate to the quality of the care as vram isn't the only thing that makes a gpu... It doesn't change that it is still a very good card for that price point.
Due to the new forum format, I can't seem to see your PC's specs.
It really depends on your budget. Two GTX 970s would definitely last a long time - even if they are slightly limited by their frame buffer.
What resolution are you playing at as well?
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Damn, don't know how to access the profile info. I'm running a workstation with 24GB 1333Mhz RAM, two Xeon X5650. I game at 1080p but will soon game on dual monitors, or 4k. Slightly overkill but I'm preparing for future gaming and I dont mind getting something now that will last a while.
If you plan on doing 4k, dual 980s are actually a must (if you want to do it immediately).
If you actually plan to 4k, it may actually be better to hold off and wait for the next line of cards to be released and revisit then. Your 970 should easily be able to do multiple monitors at 1080p, without having to sli.
Kudos to some_tech for remembering to ask...
You're either going to be gaming on 1, 3, or a single 4K monitor. I don't think dual-monitor gaming works since the bezels of both monitors ends up right in the middle and can be distracting/game-breaking during gameplay.
If you do have the budget, I'd grab one 980 now and another in the not-too-distant future since you seem to want to try playing games at higher resolutions. If the budget doesn't allow that, adding another GTX 970 would still get you pretty far(but probably have some difficulties pushing 4K at med-high settings)
Just make sure your power supply can handle another GPU along with your two Xeons.
//edit
@drewjn also brings up a good point - new AMD cards are on the horizon. If you do want to game at 4K, it may be worth it to wait for some more cards to come out and then decide.
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My bad, I have two 1080p monitors, and will get a third... I'm writing this while in my way to work.
And I have the 1250W PSU in the Z800, so should be enough for all the RAM, CPUs, and SLI (maybe).
1250w is plenty for two 980s. You should have no problems at all going with a SLI setup.
Yeah agreed. And if they hadn't done that, we would be stuck with only 3 GB of VRAM instead of 3.5 GB
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Right now the main issue I would ask about is your usage and setup.
Do you game at 2k, dual 1440 or tri 1080? Do you run really heavy games like crysis and metro 2033 at full spec?
If yes go 980 if no and you only game at 1080 on single screen and game like a regular person you will be good for 970 sli.
The memory thing is an issue but only at really high usage. Which was why I was asking about your set up.
Or..... sell it, and get a 390x? :P
I was dead set on getting the 970 for my build (running integrated atm, as i won't have GPU money till april). i think i am just going to see if the 390 is $350-ish, and then go with that.
I believe the x90s are usually the higher end, x80s, x70s are lower. Same goes for both companies, but the way numbering changes, I can't really tell much anymore...
Oh, and I wasn't counting the xxxti variants.
I can't wait for the 390/390x to come out at 600 bucks and have them skyrocket to 800-1000 just like the 290 series did when it came out. Getting a new card after release is wishful thinking unless you sit and watch newegg all day because the auto notify is too slow when new cards release. Its a new architecture (rumored but hopefully true) and they have to pay for it so them being the same price as the cards now would be completely insane.
Well having received a 2nd 970 G1 card I found out, the hard way, that the Z800 won't SLI GeForce cards... only Quadro cards.
So I'm returning it, selling my current 970 G1 Gaming, and getting the 980 G1 Gaming.
Which resolution are you planning to game on?
Because for 1080p a GTX970 Sli is pretty pointless, offcourse you will get a fps boost in most games, but the cpu will be the limited factor, no matter which cpu.
You will nowhere see near 100% scaling at 1080p, only in heavy GPU demending games.
on 1440p or 4K the scaling will be allot better.
I plan on getting a few 1440p monitors to replace my 1080p monitors. So i'm kinda preparing for the next month.
for 1440p you are good to go with 970 sli´s.
THe 3.5GB vram issue with the GTX970, might be show up in some gaming scenario´s though, keep that in mind.
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