Gotta love complications! 970 vs 980

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dutch13

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Mar 17, 2010
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Romans, country men, I could really use some opinions here!

Really debating between a GTX970 $500 and a GTX980 $670. Yes these are the over inflated prices, but at the moment there is nothing I can do about that ha-ha. I am really debating going to 2160p or atleast 1440p (Rocking a syncmaster 2494hs 1080p 60hz). Which would be better? I am coming from dual 7870 1.1ghz models, non XT. One of them kinda destroyed itself booting Rome Total War 2 for some reason... So my pc is in a sorry state 🙁 Which would be better? I was pretty content with dual 7870's to be honest! But the vram was always a bane for me, for skyrim and so on. Which is the better option? 3.5gb vs 4gb and yes either card I will be buying a second once pascal comes out for either 1440 or 2160 :3 Efficiency is key here, so I knocked out the 390 and 290. My psu is a AX850, so I have plenty of power for pretty much anything at the moment. Also my budget really is limited to 670, normally I spend no more than $300 on a card, but it's to celebrate completing a degree so... A little splurge this time around!

Seriously though any help would be great, I am kinda stuck at the moment.

www.msy.com.au
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^^ Preferred :)
 
Solution
Darkbreeze
IF 10FPS matters to you at 4k, then go with the 980. Otherwise, the 970 is certainly the better investment. Some titles probably have a little more disparity between configurations and some actually are a lot closer.

http://www.digitalstorm.com/unlocked/gtx-970-sli-vs-gtx-980-sli-4k-benchmark-review-idnum345/


It's actually quite title related as well since the 290x crossfire has a 10fps advantage over the 980 SLI on some titles, but lags behind it on others. Some titles actually had better performance on the 780TI SLI actually had better performance than both cards on a lot of titles, but worse on others. Again, based on title. I'd personally think that the 970 SLI would be the better balanced option considering price vs performance...
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If you want 60fps at 1440p or higher, and plan to use Ultra or very high settings, I'd suggest you bite the bullet and get the 980. If you don't mind slightly lower settings or a 1080p resolution, then the 970 is the better option. Even overclocked the 970 can't reach the 980, because of course you can overclock that as well.

If you plan to add a second card later though, clearly you'll be fine with GTX 970 SLI aside from any particular titles issues that have problems with dual cards. I guess it's really just a question of how important it is and how much you really can afford to shell out. Personally, I don't see a 15%, at best, performance increase being worth an additional 200 bucks.



 
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A GTX 980 is not worth a 34% markup, in my opinon.

The 970 is a real 4GB card, its just that the last .5GB is slower than the rest of the memory. It's still faster than thrashing system memory over PCIe by a LOT and the card manages data very well so that you don't see the lower performance of that memory.
 
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The biggest issue isn't so much raw performance between the 970 and 980... More the vram and bus, is it alright for 2k and 4k? I don't want to blow money on a card and have it already be dated out of box. As far as I can tell, either are better than my dual Pitcairn XT's
 
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Like I said, the VRAM and bus shouldn't be a problem. That was blown out of proportion not because it is a performance issue, but really because it is a case of Nvidia lying ot us at first (be it by accident or by design). Some people jumped on the bandwagon and said that performance will suck because of it, but keep in mind that this is far from the first time Nvidia has implemented such a memory interface configuration and it has worked out alright so far. This is by far the least unbalanced of these unusual memory configurations and the technology is rather mature by now, so I anticipate no problems with it.

So yes, either will be better than Pitcairn, not that it wasn't a great chip when it came out.
 
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I am still thinking this over, gave myself a week to consider, a little after the AMD Fury Air Cooled comes out, I will grab whichever is better for my situation. Budget isn't nearly as important as regretting my purchase... I will be waiting awhile till I grab the second, so either way, I will be getting the second card far cheaper. If this was only 1080p I would be fine, but I am really iffy about 1440p and 2160p requirements. Even if I don't get a native 4k screen I will be using DSR and often. I will not be sticking to 1080p for that much longer as this screen is becoming my xbox ones XD
 
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I'd rather go for a GTX 970 and consider going SLI when I want a performance upgrade later rather than investing more now on a insignificant higher end SLI solution that would force you to ditch both cards to upgrade...

Good luck .....
 
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Actually since you have 850W of power, I recommend getting an R9 390 or X version.

You have CrossFiring down the line if you want to go that way. You will be pretty much set for 4K too.

The 8GB frame buffer on the 390s will help a lot with Skyrim, its crazy mods, and HD texture packs for it too.
 
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I will have to ditch both cards when I upgrade again, say like 2017-18... Ive been using these cards for years. And I will only be buying the second card before the series is discontinued, like I did with these two. Best move I ever made in my opinion. And it doesn't seem to be insignificant? There is a noticeable improvement between sli 970 and sli 980, especially at 1440p and 2160p? But as I said, all benchmarks, noting tangible... So far public opinion is the 970 so I am leaning towards that atm. Always good to ask other peoples opinions :3

Also not a bad idea with the 390... But again, I am trying to conserve power and hybird physx is a hassle I don't like having to go through again XD So I'd rather not go down that path. Granted I love the 8gb...This is why I put complications in the title D: Nothing is simple any more ha-ha.
 
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I just popped those in because of their frame buffer and since you play Skyrim.

The 970 really isn't that great for it's price now, it would have to drop a bit for me to buy something like that, since there is the 390 at the same price and I don't mind hopping over to team red for a bit.
 
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Mate I've been using AMD and Radeon cards since the 9000 series. Apart from the 9600gt and 8600gt. I prefer AMD, just the power consumption difference is too much for me. When I upgrade the card has to be better in every way to my current two. From power, vram and power consumption. Jumped from DX versions aswell, 9c, 10, 11... Etc
 
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Well the only thing on your list now that isn't being ticked is power consumption, so that means you will have to go with the 970 and SLI it later if you want. Right now some models are around 329.99 USD so right on par with the 390 so if I were you I would wait a bit to see if they drop more.
 
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IF 10FPS matters to you at 4k, then go with the 980. Otherwise, the 970 is certainly the better investment. Some titles probably have a little more disparity between configurations and some actually are a lot closer.

http://www.digitalstorm.com/unlocked/gtx-970-sli-vs-gtx-980-sli-4k-benchmark-review-idnum345/


It's actually quite title related as well since the 290x crossfire has a 10fps advantage over the 980 SLI on some titles, but lags behind it on others. Some titles actually had better performance on the 780TI SLI actually had better performance than both cards on a lot of titles, but worse on others. Again, based on title. I'd personally think that the 970 SLI would be the better balanced option considering price vs performance, when the times comes to move up in resolution.
 
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Solution
Thanks all you guys! I ended up getting a 980 G1 for the price of a generic 970, due a mate gifting the diff! Again thanks for the help, I was going to get a 970 as recommend, so much appreciated.
 
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