Buying GTX 1070 vs 1080 vs 2x1070 in SLI for 1440p

[darthdeus]

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: About a month from now (say mid January). budget being $500 to $800 maximum.

USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Gaming and gamedev. As for specific games, Arma 3 is probably the most demanding one I play at the moment. I'd like to play AAA games at high/ultra at 1440p. The card is mostly for gaming.

CURRENT GPU AND POWER SUPPLY: Intel i7 5820k with 700W power supply

OTHER RELEVANT SYSTEM SPECS: 16G RAM with the following case as for cooling setup http://www.coolermaster.com/case/full-tower/haf-932-advanced/

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: I'll be most likely buying from a local retailer, given I live in a small country in EU (Czech Republic) and I don't want to send parts internationally when they break.

PARTS PREFERENCES: NVIDIA only, specifically 1070 and 1080 are most likely the only options worth considering.

OVERCLOCKING: No

SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Depends, I'm not sure how well SLI works in modern games, and if maybe 2x1070 would work a lot better than a single 1080.

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 2560x1440

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Having looked at PassMark benchmarks, it looks like 1070 and 1080 is really close http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp%5B%5D=3521&cmp%5B%5D=3502, but having looked at some other benchmarks, there seem to be quite a bit of difference in FPS.

 

[jpatrick2]

get 1080 and dont look back.

 

[xapoc]

Wait for 1080ti

 

[darthdeus]

Wait for 1080ti

Any thoughts on how much that will cost?

 

[xapoc]

Rough guess 800s

 

[swazitron]

There is no one correct answer and it honestly depends on some other factors.

How much are you willing to spend?

What is the refresh rate on your 1440p monitor?

My 1440p monitor is 60 Hz because I wanted a 1440p IPS panel at 27" and did not want to spend more than $350, so I gave up the 144hz feature in favor of getting everything else I wanted at the right price. Because of that decision, almost anything more than a GTX 1070 would have been basically wasted. ALTHOUGH, some highly demanding settings like nVidia soft shadows and TXAA in poorly-optimized games (I'm looking at you Assassin's Creed) will not give me the full 60 FPS and instead hover between 40-55. Grand Theft Auto V, COMPLETELY maxed out, also does not maintain 60 FPS at 1440p with my GTX 1070, but keeps it around 45 on average. For the latter, I turn down a couple of the more extreme settings and still get a great experience while keeping my 60 FPS. I am more than willing to live with that, as everything else I play is limited by the monitor, not the GPU.

If you have a 144hz 1440p monitor, a single GTX 1070 will not cut it if you want to run the latest and greatest games on ultra settings while maintaining over 100 fps. If $800 is your absolute maximum, I would suggest a single GTX 1080 if your monitor supports a 144hz refresh rate. If you have a 60hz 1440p monitor, get a single GTX 1070. It will run every game on the market at high settings at 60 FPS and many of them at ultra 60 FPS. If you extend your budget to about $900, you can maybe start considering SLI 1070s (again, only if your monitor can support such high refresh rates).

However, it is very difficult to find reliable and usable benchmarks as there are so many different factors when comparing the 1070 SLI configuration to a single 1080. Almost universally, 2 1070s will be faster than a single 1080, that's a no-brainer, but the EXTENT to which they are faster is going to vary drastically for a number of reasons - and they all have to do with support.

1. Some games don't support SLI or multiple GPUs.
2. Some games support SLI, but the performance does not scale well.
3. Some games scale EXTREMELY well, so it really depends on what you're playing.

Basically, do some research on what games you want to play and how they handle not only SLI, but if they support DX12 and explicit multi-adapters.

Again, I am speaking from my own experience with a 1440p 60 Hz monitor and a single EVGA GTX 1070 FTW card. Your experience and the experience of others may vary.

 

[Isokolon]

From what I've seen so far, SLI isn't really what it once use to be.
While it shows some slight gains with SLIing 1080s the 1070s scale really bad.