Dual GTX 970 ftw or Single GTX 980 SC

[kidbiru]

Which is better for hardcore gaming and some multitasking

more info: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/H2Yczy

 

[elso13]

For your build I would get at least a 250GB SSD (like a samsung 850 evo) because all the AAA titles are like 50-60gb now.

Instead of the wifi adapter (which might be a pain cuz of drivers) I would get a mobo with built in wifi.

Lastly I just don't think it makes sense going balls to the wall with 1080p rig when it's decidedly last gen at this point. You are spending 1k on a 1080p SLI rig. If you wait till next year you'll be able to get a next gen titan and a 4k ips monitor for 1500.

IMO 120hz/144hz is a stop-gap. It's basically the industry's way of saying that we don't have the power for 4k but we have way more power than necessary for 1080p 60fps.

To recap issues with 970 SLI is they have the brute force for 4k but the 3.5/4gb ram is a limitation and SLI means you need games that are really optimized for it to get all your moneys worth.

I would get a single gtx 980 (and overclock it) with a 1440p monitor (like a qnix qx2710 dvi-only). The qnix overclocks to 96hz so when you got the extra fps, you can increase the refresh rate. Most importantly 1440p has 50% more pixels than 1080p so the image is a lot sharper. it's a good hold-over till 4k becomes more mainstream next year.

 

[IntelTurtleFan]

If you plan to upgrade in the future get the 980 and sli it later. It has the full 4gb of ram as the 970 does not. Entirely up to you if you are going to upgrade later or not.
The 970 sli alone is really good.

 

[gerr]

970 SLI is a lot faster than a single 980 and isn't much more money either. 980 SLI will be faster than 970 SLI, but not by much and not for the huge jump in price IMO.

 

[kidbiru]

i heard that some games just dont work wit dual gpu or at least have a difficult time doing so? is this true? i don't want to have any restrictions with my gaming

 

[IntelTurtleFan]

Old games sometimes have issues however these old games just use one GPU. They really do not have trouble just only use one GPU.

 

[elso13]

i edited my original comment

 

[kidbiru]

oh so i wouldn't have any problems with games like witcher 3, bf4, etc.? btw thank you all for the quick responses, i really appreciate it!

 

[gerr]

Build for the future, not the past. In other words, don't worry about older games as you can always shut down one GPU and that would be more than powerful enough for an older game.

 

[elso13]

My single 980 OC'd in BF4 gets 90 FPS on 1080p and 60 FPS on 1440p. From what I hear with the witcher 3 you will get at least 60 FPS on Ultra if you just disable hairworks. On the flip-side, the Witcher 1 is so old (and thus poorly coded) that with mods I only average 96 FPS (70 low, 125 high) on 1440p.

 

[kidbiru]

awesome thank you all for the help!

 

[elso13]

Lastly for OC you can go manually with MSI afterburner or install a modded BIOS.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1517316/extract-and-flash-gtx-970-and-980-firmware-zosons-h2o-and-air-custom-bios

I personally use the modded air bios because it's gamestable at 1480mhz so i don't need to worry about tuning or crashes.