780ti Sli vs a single GTX1070

[Viking2121]

Alright, I have some money scraped up and I've read around the web and it's quite conflicting, Anyway, does anyone know if a GTX1070 is faster than 780ti's in SLI. I do know a lot of games don't support or scale right with SLI.

I do have problems with a few games where 3GB of vram just isn't enough, so 8Gb would be ideal and less headaches with SLI. Though I do plan to SLI again later on. Even the 1080 non ti's are just too much for my budget.

Like I said Vram alone is almost enough for me to get the 1070, I'm just looking for opinions.

Thanks!

 

[Supahos]

Any game the 780s would win it would be by very little. Especially at higher resolutions. From a don't melt your computer standpoint I'd go the 1070 route

 

[Rogue Leader]

1070 by far. More VRAM and no SLI headaches. Its a no brainer.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

1. SLI is a non-issues until 10xx series when nVidia put the nerf on because the only thing it was competing with is 1080 / 1080 Ti

2. VRAM a non issue assuming is 1080p. If you want to look at the data, compare the 3 GB and 6GB 1060's. The 6 GB will always be faster cause it has 10% or so more shaders. At 1080p, the 6 GB is about 7% faster overall. If VRAM was an issue, then we could expect to see that the performance difference at 1440p and 2160p would be much greater as the 6GB would begin to show its advantage. But it doesn't have an advantage. Compare the 6GB and 3 GB performance data for the MSI 3GB and 6GB versions and you see that the performance advantage at 1400p and 2160p hardy varies from 1080p... usually 1% and sometimes 2% as resolution rises from 1080p to 2160p.

The misconception arises cause folks don't understand the tools they are using. GPU_z, Afterburner and everything else is simply not capable of measuring VRAM usage. It measures VRAM allocation. Install a game on a 1060 3Gb and it may allocate 2 GB; install it on a 6Gb 1060 and it may allocate 4 GB... simply because "it's there". It's kinda like having a credit card with a $5,000 limit and $500 in charges on it ... when you apply for a loan, $5,000 gets reported to the credit agency, not $500... GPU-Z and all the others are simply doing the same thing.

https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/213069-is-4gb-of-vram-enough-amds-fury-x-faces-off-with-nvidias-gtx-980-ti-titan-x

3. That being said, the 1080 scores a 96% in the chart below, the 780 Ti scores a 60%. I don't recall 700 series scaling but with 9xx, average was around 70%. The 1080 is about 60% faster so scaling would have to be 60% for the 780 Ti SLI to make sense. I don't think that it is.... I have a faint recollection that it was in the mid 50s.

4. Unless AMD brings some competition to the market, nVidia would be out of their minds to improve SLI performance at lower resolutions. Two 970s was the same price and a 980 and it was, on average, 40% faster. So SLI was a no brainer. Now, with the 1080p - 1440-p nerf, we only recommend SLI at 4K where scaling is > 50%. At 1080p, it's just 18% and at 1440p it's just in the low 30s.

5. I am assuming you have a 780 Ti already .... right now a decent 1080 is going to cost you $580, an MSI 780 Ti on ebay is going for < $100. So it's not a matter of what you get performance wise, it's how much you get for the cost.

6. The big thing here is what you have for a current system MoBo, RAM, CPU and monitor (1080p). if it's an older X87, Z97 system, I think I'd go cheap and go the SLI option (assuming ya spend no more than $175 and your monitor is 1080p) ... if it's a Z270 system, I'd plop down more money for the 1080. And, of course, if I had a 1440 144 hz monitor, Id o for the 1080.

 

[bignastyid]

I'd get the 1070.

 

[Viking2121]

1. SLI is a non-issues until 10xx series when nVidia put the nerf on because the only thing it was competing with is 1080 / 1080 Ti

2. VRAM a non issue assuming is 1080p. If you want to look at the data, compare the 3 GB and 6GB 1060's. The 6 GB will always be faster cause it has 10% or so more shaders. At 1080p, the 6 GB is about 7% faster overall. If VRAM was an issue, then we could expect to see that the performance difference at 1440p and 2160p would be much greater as the 6GB would begin to show its advantage. But it doesn't have an advantage. Compare the 6GB and 3 GB performance data for the MSI 3GB and 6GB versions and you see that the performance advantage at 1400p and 2160p hardy varies from 1080p... usually 1% and sometimes 2% as resolution rises from 1080p to 2160p.

The misconception arises cause folks don't understand the tools they are using. GPU_z, Afterburner and everything else is simply not capable of measuring VRAM usage. It measures VRAM allocation. Install a game on a 1060 3Gb and it may allocate 2 GB; install it on a 6Gb 1060 and it may allocate 4 GB... simply because "it's there". It's kinda like having a credit card with a $5,000 limit and $500 in charges on it ... when you apply for a loan, $5,000 gets reported to the credit agency, not $500... GPU-Z and all the others are simply doing the same thing.

https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/213069-is-4gb-of-vram-enough-amds-fury-x-faces-off-with-nvidias-gtx-980-ti-titan-x

3. That being said, the 1080 scores a 96% in the chart below, the 780 Ti scores a 60%. I don't recall 700 series scaling but with 9xx, average was around 70%. The 1080 is about 60% faster so scaling would have to be 60% for the 780 Ti SLI to make sense. I don't think that it is.... I have a faint recollection that it was in the mid 50s.

4. Unless AMD brings some competition to the market, nVidia would be out of their minds to improve SLI performance at lower resolutions. Two 970s was the same price and a 980 and it was, on average, 40% faster. So SLI was a no brainer. Now, with the 1080p - 1440-p nerf, we only recommend SLI at 4K where scaling is > 50%. At 1080p, it's just 18% and at 1440p it's just in the low 30s.

5. I am assuming you have a 780 Ti already .... right now a decent 1080 is going to cost you $580, an MSI 780 Ti on ebay is going for < $100. So it's not a matter of what you get performance wise, it's how much you get for the cost.

6. The big thing here is what you have for a current system MoBo, RAM, CPU and monitor (1080p). if it's an older X87, Z97 system, I think I'd go cheap and go the SLI option (assuming ya spend no more than $175 and your monitor is 1080p) ... if it's a Z270 system, I'd plop down more money for the 1080. And, of course, if I had a 1440 144 hz monitor, Id o for the 1080.

My system isn't a problem right now, i7 5820k at 4.6ghz, Asus x99 Deluxe, 32gb of ram, 1300watt Evga Supernova PSU.

Also even at 1080p gaming there are plenty of games I find my self-having issues running beyond high, sure high is fine, but the random jitters and major lag spikes really turn me away, Battleground is another game where anything above low at just 1080p makes for a laggy experience. As you say the memory reporting in not accurate, I find that when my 780ti's get to 2900mb things start to get laggy and if I do get a major lag spike, the vram drops back down to 2500mb and slowly goes back up to the same point and does it again. Lowering setting fixes this. 8GB would help is some cases.

I also have a 1440p 144hz monitor and play at 1080p and the 780ti's really do suck at 1440p on most games, GTA5 though 1080p and 1440p makes very little difference in performance, But again I assume I'm running out vram with how stuttery it gets.

So maybe I should fork out for the gtx1080 or wait until prices drop to be a real upgrade. Or I might get the 1070 and get another 1 later for cheap.

 

[Rogue Leader]

At 1440p I would get a 1080 hands down.

 

[17seconds]

Fallout 4 hi-res textures... enough to justify the 8GB cards, for me at least.

 

[Viking2121]

I got my hands on a Gigabyte G1 gaming 1070 8GB, I got it for $350 USD. It is slightly slower than my 780ti SLI is most games where SLI scaling is pretty good like Battlefield 1 and GTA5 at 1080p, but at 1440p the 1070 does miles better.

I plan to get another later on as prices go down or get a used 1070, I really don't mind playing around with SLI, in fact, SLI 6800gt's is what got me into learning about computers because they were such a headache at the time, I don't mind messing with.