Dual gtx 970 or Single GTX 980 TI for 4k?

Zink chaching

Reputable
Jul 15, 2015
36
0
4,530
Which would be the better option in regards to 4k gaming?

GTX 980 TI or Dual GTX 970's?

I am only going to be using ONE 4k monitor for now.
 
Solution
2x 970s are generally cheaper than 1x 980ti overall.
In games with good sli optimization 970sli outperforms 1x 980ti.

That's the good. Now the bad.

4x 970 sli is more expensive than 2x 980ti overall.
In every other game than what has good sli optimization the 980ti outperforms 970 sli.
It will take years before DX11 is finally obsolete, DX 12, 12.1 games are few and backwards optimization to bring DX11 games upto DX12.1 is extremely slow to almost non existence. Meaning it'll be BF5 or 6 before DX12.1 is fully integrated. So to play BF4, Witcher 3, GTA: 5 and any other current game, now, your best option is a 980ti.

Don't count on DX12.1 as a solution to current sli restrictions unless the only games you have any interest in...
I say get the gtx 980 ti, because later down the line you can sli it with another gtx 980 ti an that would be prefect for 4k gaming as long as you have a good cpu. also some games do not have good sli or crossfire support so a single strong gpu is the safer route
 
The 980 Ti is technically a little bit slower on average, but VRAM capacity certainly is less of an issue and with it you have the option of getting another card for SLI in the future whereas with the 970s, you start out pretty much maxed out.

Still, keep in mind that many modern games are so intensive that not even 970 SLI or a single 980 Ti can handle max settings in 4K, so you'll need to lower settings in some games to get decent performance.
 


Isn't directX 12 suppose to use ALL of the vram?
 
Supposed to and actually will are two different things. We don know how effective it will really be, so better safe than sorry. Besides, it's better to start off with a strong single GPU card so that you have the option of upgrading to SLI in the future if you want to.
 


Alrighty, so since we actually have windows 10 available now i'm going to stop speaking int he future tense, are there any test out there that show that the VRAM stacks?
 
2x 970s are generally cheaper than 1x 980ti overall.
In games with good sli optimization 970sli outperforms 1x 980ti.

That's the good. Now the bad.

4x 970 sli is more expensive than 2x 980ti overall.
In every other game than what has good sli optimization the 980ti outperforms 970 sli.
It will take years before DX11 is finally obsolete, DX 12, 12.1 games are few and backwards optimization to bring DX11 games upto DX12.1 is extremely slow to almost non existence. Meaning it'll be BF5 or 6 before DX12.1 is fully integrated. So to play BF4, Witcher 3, GTA: 5 and any other current game, now, your best option is a 980ti.

Don't count on DX12.1 as a solution to current sli restrictions unless the only games you have any interest in are the few titles already out.
 
Solution
None that I've heard of. Keep in mind that the games need to support it too and I'm not aware of any DirectX 12 games that use SLI properly. It took us about five years for DirectX 9 to start being overtaken by DirectX 11 since DirectX 10 didn't get traction and another two years for DirectX 11 to become the norm rather than just a few games here and there. DirectX 12 probably won't be very common for a few years yet.