970 sli for 1080p 144hz gaming

[robslasher44]

would going with 970 sli be good for maxing out games at 1080p and playing at 144fps with my vg248qe monitor. or should I just upgrade to a 980 to further future proof my system and maybe go 980 sli later? I don't really think I'm going to go 1440p or 4k. 1080p is good enough for me

edit- i forgot i do have two 1080p monitors.

 

[graand]

Youre already capable of maxing out almost all of the new games that came out but getting another 970 for a sli doesnt sound bad, guaranteed 60fps the least at ultra on all games! 980 sli later? if money isnt a concern, its not a bad idea but it wont give you much diffrence in performance actually. I dont think its a good bet to go to 980 sli if youre staying at 1080p.

 

[Lag]

If you're going to play at 1080p, a couple of 970s in SLI should be fine. I don't recommend the 970 at higher resolutions, and the reason for that is because of the memory issues that the GTX 970 have. Its basically a 3,5GB VRAM card with 512MB cache video ram. the vram is split into two segments. When the 970 goes over the 3,5GB vram usage, you will probably notice lag or microstutter, because the memory in the second segment of the card is working at 1/8 of the initial speed(28GB/s instead of 228GB/s).

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8935/geforce-gtx-970-correcting-the-specs-exploring-memory-allocation This is an article explaining the issue. But at 1080p you should be fine. And if we're lucky, DX 12 will allow us to stack vram when doing SLI. But that probably won't happen because of how the vram of the current generation of card works.

 

[graand]

If you're going to play at 1080p, a couple of 970s in SLI should to fine. The reason I would not recommend the 970 at higher resolutions is because of the memory issues that the GTX 970 have. Its basically a 3,5GB VRAM card with 512MB cache video ram. When the 970 goes over the 3,5'GB vram usage, you will probably notice lag or microstutter, because the memory is working at 1/8 of the initial speed(28GB/s instead of 228GB/s).

If he's gonna use 3 monitors using one 970, definitely an issue but if he's going to use 2 970's for 3 monitors, thats 33.33% chance of getting the stutter. Yes definitely a thing to consider but if he's only gonna use 1 monitor, its a certain that there will be no stutter or anything like that.

 

[guanyu210379]

To all who are saying that DX12 will allow to stack VRAM on SLI/XFIre.
This info is kind of missleading.
At least, I understood so.
DX12 should allow VRAM stacking but only if the game is made to do so.
It can not run just like that via driver solution.
The games must be updated/programmed to enable such feature.
I do not think our available games can and will do VRAM stacking, since I do not think game developers/publisher will update their already released games specially just because of that.
In the future, perhaps there will be such games (I hope there will be such games), if the games are written in a way so that they can stack VRAM on multi GPU constellation.
For now, do not set your hope too high.

In my opinion,
In the next 2-3 years, 2560x1440p will be the main stream.
The 4k resolution on ultra setting while maintaining 60 fps or higher will stay luxury.
I would ignore 4k gaming for now and in the next 2-3 years.
It does not matter if you go single or multiple monitors. The total pixels driven by the GPU is the issue.
For 4k resolution or even higher, this will remain luxury at least in the next 2-3 years.

 

[holyrage]

now is not a good time to buy lol the R9 380X 390 and 390X are almost out

that means the Higher end nvidia card will sell for a reasonable amount of money

also the 980TI is almost out might as well hold on for that (will be released around the same time as the 3XX thats for sure give or take)

 

[robslasher44]

If you're going to play at 1080p, a couple of 970s in SLI should be fine. I don't recommend the 970 at higher resolutions, and the reason for that is because of the memory issues that the GTX 970 have. Its basically a 3,5GB VRAM card with 512MB cache video ram. the vram is split into two segments. When the 970 goes over the 3,5GB vram usage, you will probably notice lag or microstutter, because the memory in the second segment of the card is working at 1/8 of the initial speed(28GB/s instead of 228GB/s).

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8935/geforce-gtx-970-correcting-the-specs-exploring-memory-allocation This is an article explaining the issue. But at 1080p you should be fine. And if we're lucky, DX 12 will allow us to stack vram when doing SLI. But that probably won't happen because of how the vram of the current generation of card works.

thank you, i am aware of only being able to use 3.5gb of the memory, but i do have two 1080p monitors and i have never gone pass 3.5 gb on memory on the one 970 that i have right now. The only game that has gotten close is gta 5. It hovers around 3.4gb. And i do get around 60-70fps with the settings at a mix of high and very high. So I think sli 970's will be the way to go thanks.