gtx 770 sli vs 970

[Stoic Muffins]

I was planning on getting two gtx 770's for sli (because of the price drop) but am wondering if I should instead get a single 970 and upgrade to a second one later? I have also heard that the new amd cards are going to be released but I have never owned an amd card because I always thought nvidia was better. I am now leaning towards getting an asus strix 970 and hoping to buy a second one in a few months. what do you think?

- stoic muffins

 

[turkey3_scratch]

I would, personally, rather get a single 970 and upgrade to SLI later considering they are about 25% better and more energy-efficient.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Go single 970.

 

[ccoo84]

After SLIing my gtx 770, I will never again go it alone with just 1 card. SLI is Off the Charts rad,.I bought my 2nd gtx 770 in August or September the same month before Nvidia announced the GTX 970's and 980's I was fridge pissed!! I am currently playing Shadows of Mordor and I can't Play it smoothly on ultra HD texture expansion, and I have GTX 770 Sli- I wish I would have bought the 970 and upgraded to 970 SLI when I have money, but since I bought that 2nd card I'll have to wait to buy the GTX 970. If your are anything like me you want to the best graphics and if it were last year it would be ok to buy the GTX 770 but not no more! good luck, I hope this is food for thought!

 

[Ro-Tang Clan]

After SLIing my gtx 770, I will never again go it alone with just 1 card. SLI is Off the Charts rad,.I bought my 2nd gtx 770 in August or September the same month before Nvidia announced the GTX 970's and 980's I was fridge pissed!! I am currently playing Shadows of Mordor and I can't Play it smoothly on ultra HD texture expansion, and I have GTX 770 Sli- I wish I would have bought the 970 and upgraded to 970 SLI when I have money, but since I bought that 2nd card I'll have to wait to buy the GTX 970. If your are anything like me you want to the best graphics and if it were last year it would be ok to buy the GTX 770 but not no more! good luck, I hope this is food for thought!

Sorry to bump an old thread but I am in the exact same position. Bought a single MSI GTX 770 Lightning edition in 2013 and SLI'd during the price drop when GTX 970's and 980's were announced. Yeah the performance is great and all (can max out Farcry 3) but with the majority of 770 cards being 2GB, you will find the VRAM becoming a bottleneck very quickly. You can see in the below screenshots that Shadow Of Mordor is taking up all 4GB of VRAM across both cards. Facry 3 isn't bad, but I can imagine Farcry 4 will be the same as Shadow Of Mordor.

http://imgur.com/a/FhTei
http://imgur.com/a/KSguf

To the OP, I would recommend going for SLI GTX 970 or a single GTX 980. Going for a single GTX 970 actually performs lower than SLI GTX 770. You can compare the Firestrike benchmarks below:

Mine (SLI GTX770 and AMD FX-8320) - http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3061366
Single GTX 970 and AMD FX-8320 - http://www.3dmark.com/fs/2841313
SLI GTX 970 and AMD FX-8320 - http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3662352
Single GTX 980 and AMD FX-8320 - http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3610654

Out of the four options the one with the most performance for price is a single GTX 980 as it offers performance closest to SLI GTX 770. The option with the most performance regardless of cost is SLI GTX 970. The option with the least performance is a single GTX 970. SLI GTX 770 is in the middle, although you will hit a VRAM bottleneck quite easily, especially for future games.

 

[pikunsia]

I would, personally, rather get a single 970 and upgrade to SLI later considering they are about 25% better and more energy-efficient.

The 970 GTX is cheaper than the 770 GTX 4GB. On the other hand the 770 has a major bandwidth than the 970, less Cuda Cores though. My Zotac 770GTX 4GB is overclocked to near 1200MHz nominal (i.e.no boost!), 79C full load, stable, and getting an impressive 250GB/sec bandwidth! Not yet I have installed my second Zotac 4GB for SLI, I doubt the 970 GTX SLI beats my array as I beat the Titan with ease.

 

[pikunsia]

The 970 GTX is cheaper than the 770 GTX 4GB. On the other hand the 770 has a major bandwidth than the 970, less Cuda Cores though. My Zotac 770GTX 4GB is overclocked to near 1200MHz nominal (i.e.no boost!), 79C full load, stable, and getting an impressive 250GB/sec bandwidth! Not yet I have installed my second Zotac 4GB for SLI, I doubt the 970 GTX SLI beats my array as I beat the Titan with ease.

 

[mrhippo900]

Really would agree, get a single 970, and later on get another if you want. 970 beats the 770 in performance and efficiency.

 

[thedouggle]

After SLIing my gtx 770, I will never again go it alone with just 1 card. SLI is Off the Charts rad,.I bought my 2nd gtx 770 in August or September the same month before Nvidia announced the GTX 970's and 980's I was fridge pissed!! I am currently playing Shadows of Mordor and I can't Play it smoothly on ultra HD texture expansion, and I have GTX 770 Sli- I wish I would have bought the 970 and upgraded to 970 SLI when I have money, but since I bought that 2nd card I'll have to wait to buy the GTX 970. If your are anything like me you want to the best graphics and if it were last year it would be ok to buy the GTX 770 but not no more! good luck, I hope this is food for thought!

I picked up a 770 4gb this last 2014 summer, downgrade from my 760 sli - but i wanted the 4gb for Skyrim texture mods, because the 2bg on 760 wasn't enough for all that I had. I picked up my second this last Christmas for $200 off craigslist from some guy that works at Intel, and for $600 the performance is outstanding. However, the new games that are coming out are more designed for the newest 900 Maxwell cards, which move data across the 4GB memory space much faster and cleaner than the Kepler. I'm currently looking to liquidate my 770s to pick up a single 970, mostly for MFAA and less energy consumption/heat production.

 

[Tommiiie]

I am contimplating SLI'ing my 770 because I will need some more power in the coming months and I have a Corsiar 760 that can handle the power. I can get a MSI 770 for around 170$ and make better frames compared to a 970, which is more power efficent yada yada, which cost 2x as much around 350$. Yeah the 970 is a better card and EVERYONE says you can SLI a 970 later, but when its time to SLI your 970 everyone will just again say get the new card instead of SLIing...