970 sli vs 1070

[Owen_30]

Hello I found a deal online for two 970s for $350. Im wondering if it would be better than a $400 1070. also wondering if the vram matters alot because the 970s only have 4gb but 1070 has 8gb

 

[WildCard999]

The GTX 1070 is much better performance over GTX 970's in SLI, not to mention some issues that can occur with SLI such as higher temps (thermal throttling), microstutter and driver issues. Plus having the extra VRAM is nice, especially when gaming at higher resolutions. For the extra $50 is well worth it to get the GTX 1070.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

As always ... a good answer will be easiest to obtain when resolution is known. The VRAM is meaningless in almost every instance... (poor console ports and rushed API implementations can be problematic) but the the 1070 GPU is significantly faster

SLI on the 970 has no issues.... been building SLI boxes over the last 5 generations and have yet to observe any of the oft alleged problems like microstutter. Never seen them mentioned in a modern card review except 3rd hand.

The 970 was the proverbial "no brainer" for SLI ....40% faster on average 9annd that's including games that don't scale well) then 980 for same price. Did several builds, no one has reported a single issue only thing we usually hear back is bragging about thrashing the buddy's 980.

There is sometimes a delay in getting SLI profiles and some obscure popular titles never get them. Some titles don't scale well but if you bother to check, you see that these games are already getting 90+ fps so it makes little sense to put the effort into develop one.... where it does matter is in demanding games with scaling is 95% or better and here the 980 just gets crushed.

That being said, scaling on the 10xx is not impressive. Many reasons have been put forth as to why ...a) CPU performance has been relatively static for 5 generations and GPUs are just outpacing them. Dricver teams are focusing on optomizing for the new SPIs and multi card performance tweaking has been put in the back seat and c) it's just not in nVidia's financial interests.... why would they work on improving SLI on the 1070 when all that would result from doing so is the cannibalizing of 1080 sales ? Until AMD presents some competition at this level, nVidia loses money with improved performance with 1070s.

So, yes... two 970s over a 980 ? ... no brainer; two 970s over a 1070, no way ...

 

[greens]

WHAT?!

970 SLI is SIGNIFICANTLY more powerful than a single 1070. Like by a lot.

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/941199/gtx-970-sli-vs-gtx-1080-no-benchmarks-/

Thermal Throttling is a slippery slope argument, it isn't a promise. It is entirely likely that the cards will run cool and quiet.

I agree that the 1070 is probably a better choice, but not because it is more powerful (because it isn't) or because of thermal issues (there aren't any)

 

[Berkin]

Greens what about all the games that can't utilize SLI? Then you have a single 970 which you wouldn't call "SIGNIFICANTLY more powerful" than a 1070, right?

 

[greens]

Greens what about all the games that can't utilize SLI? Then you have a single 970 which you wouldn't call "SIGNIFICANTLY more powerful" than a 1070, right?

Any games that do not natively take advantage of SLI can still utilize SLI to a great extent. There are very, very few games so broken in design that basic SLI features don't work. In fact, i can't think of any at all.

There are occasional hiccups and issues, but they are exceedingly rare, and SLI these days sees upwards of 90% utilization. Nothing to scoff at.

If your argument was for VR then sure, but even then - GPU per Eye advancements are almost here and will surely mean two 970s dominate a single 1070 in VR as well... but currently it would not work at all.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

WHAT?!

970 SLI is SIGNIFICANTLY more powerful than a single 1070. Like by a lot.

Thermal Throttling is a slippery slope argument, it isn't a promise. It is entirely likely that the cards will run cool and quiet.

I agree that the 1070 is probably a better choice, but not because it is more powerful (because it isn't) or because of thermal issues (there aren't any)

1. The Game Test Results say otherwise ... on average ...two 970s was certainly better than 980 by a lot... but not the 1070 ... tho it's close. Above graph was 1080p, here's 1440p

What we see far to often is "benchmark shopping" where two folks w/ different views, go out and search for tests that fit their predetermined PoV. Yes, there are games that don't support SLI, yes there are games that scale over 100% ... but the only fair approach is to look at a large sampling of games like TPU offers with games in their test suite ranging from 14 - 19 games.

The issue with Berkin brought up is that while some games don't support SLI, almost every AAA game does. Some don't have good scaling, but as i said above these fall into 3 categories:

a) poor console ports (also causes VRAM issues)
b) obscure games where player base doesn't support one being developed
c) games where they already getting high sps that developing ALI beings nothing to the table .... is 130 fps change the experience over 85 ?

Here's the choice.... get 90+% scaling in the demanding games soundly thrashing the 980 for the same price.

Out of 27 games tested.... 970 SLI wins 25

Dragon Age Inquisition* goes from 38.8 fps with a 980 to 66.0 with twin 970s for performance increase of 70.10%
Thief goes from 81.1 fps with a 980 to 136.1 with twin 970s for performance increase of 67.82%
Far Cry 3 goes from 41.0 fps with a 980 to 68.8 with twin 970s for performance increase of 67.80%
Tomb Raider goes from 35.0 fps with a 980 to 58.7 with twin 970s for performance increase of 67.71%
Battlefield 3 goes from 73.1 fps with a 980 to 121.4 with twin 970s for performance increase of 66.07%
Bioshock Infinite goes from 88.0 fps with a 980 to 143.9 with twin 970s for performance increase of 63.52%
Crysis 3 goes from 26.8 fps with a 980 to 43.3 with twin 970s for performance increase of 61.57%
Splinter Cell: Blacklist goes from 57.1 fps with a 980 to 92.2 with twin 970s for performance increase of 61.47%
Battlefield 4 goes from 53.1 fps with a 980 to 83.2 with twin 970s for performance increase of 56.69%
Batman: Arkham Origins goes from 95.0 fps with a 980 to 148.3 with twin 970s for performance increase of 56.11%
Assassins Creed* Unity goes from 24.1 fps with a 980 to 37.0 with twin 970s for performance increase of 53.53%
Far Cry4* goes from 53.4 fps with a 980 to 81.7 with twin 970s for performance increase of 53.00%
Shadow of Mordor* goes from 70.8 fps with a 980 to 107.1 with twin 970s for performance increase of 51.27%
Ryse* goes from 62.4 fps with a 980 to 94.3 with twin 970s for performance increase of 51.12%
Watch Dogs goes from 57.1 fps with a 980 to 85.1 with twin 970s for performance increase of 49.04%
Grid 2 goes from 95.5 fps with a 980 to 141.8 with twin 970s for performance increase of 48.48%
Assassins Creed goes from 43.2 fps with a 980 to 61.8 with twin 970s for performance increase of 43.06%
Crysis goes from 52.0 fps with a 980 to 74.0 with twin 970s for performance increase of 42.31%
Civilization Beyond Earth* goes from 80.2 fps with a 980 to 113.7 with twin 970s for performance increase of 41.77%
Metro LL goes from 53.2 fps with a 980 to 74.6 with twin 970s for performance increase of 40.23%
WoW: Mists of Pandaria goes from 126.3 fps with a 980 to 174.8 with twin 970s for performance increase of 38.40%
COD Advanced Warfare* goes from 113.1 fps with a 980 to 154.5 with twin 970s for performance increase of 36.60%
Witcher 3 goes from 48.0 fps with a 980 to 63.8 with twin 970s for performance increase of 32.92%
Alien Isolation* goes from 99.0 fps with a 980 to 121.0 with twin 970s for performance increase of 22.22%
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls goes from 183.0 fps with a 980 to 220.8 with twin 970s for performance increase of 20.66%
Wolfenstein: New Order goes from 61.8 fps with a 980 to 56.2 with twin 970s for performance increase of -9.06%
Dead Rising* goes from 43.6 fps with a 980 to 38.6 with twin 970s for performance increase of -11.47%

Lets think about that:

Dragon Age goes from 38.8 fps with a 980 to 66.0 with twin 970s ... will you notice that almost 30 fps jump ? OK that was the best one, let's look in the middle

Shadow of Mordor goes from 70.8 fps with a 980 to 107.1 ... will you notice that almost 37 fps jump ? Playing at 144 Hz with ULMB, yes ? Let's ove down to lower third

Crysis goes from 52.0 fps with a 980 to 74.0 with twin 970s for performance increase of 42.31% At 22 fps increase again gets you above that magic 60 fps goal. Let's look at the worst ....

Dead Rising* goes from 43.6 fps with a 980 to 38.6 with single 970s for performance increase of -11.47%. What's changed here.... not only does it have no scaling, it has negative scaling.. In SLi it gets 1.5 less fps but since we can turn SLI off assuming we find the 1.5 fps troubling. But the 980 only gets us 5 fps more !!!!!

So yes, it doesn't get you an increase in every game .... but it did in 25 out of 27 games. The increases it brought were substantial, far outperforming the 980 and when it did lose, it didn't lose by much.

So we can't paint SLI with a broad brush. While twin 970s was great for the 970 / 980 / 980 Ti ... it has yet to show promise in the current 10xx generation except at 4k.