gtx 970 in sli?

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Tibi__

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Jan 2, 2016
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so i want to upgrade my 970. but prizes are still not good for 1080ti.

i found a cheap, used 970. does it worth to use them in sli? for 1080p 144hz on low?
 
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970 SLI is about equal to a 980 TI or 1070 GTX both of which run $180-$240 on the used market. SLI in general is problematic and support has been slowly fading so it might end up being more of a headache that it's worth. You better off just buying the best Single GPU you can afford.



 
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Hey Tibi. I upgraded in Dec. to the new i5-8600 non k and MSI Z370 sli+ and 750 W psu and I found another exact EVGA gtx 970 (Kjiji for $125) so now I play all games in 1080 and 970 sli. Outstanding. I even found this from "Game Debate" and they compare the new RTX 2060 (great gpu) against 970 sli with a lot of games. Here's the site

https://www.game-debate.com/gpu/index.php?gid=4051&gid2=2868&compare=geforce-gtx-2060-5gb-vs-geforce-gtx-970-msi-gaming-4gb-edition-sli

GTX 970 sli beat rtx 2060 in almost every game that they tested. There's also a comparison of the 2060 vs 970 sli with the numbers/specs. They recommend staying with 970 sli over 2060. Other sites have the 970 sli beating or keeping up to the gtx 1070 where the difference isn't worth buying the 1070. They also stay pretty close to the 1080. At least close enough where it's not worth me buying it, as long as I stay at 1080p it's great. I'm playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider and did a couple of screen shots where my cpu runs pretty constant at 50c , I have 100 fps, and each 970 is showing 3864 mb. with each card not running over 70 c. With numbers and performance like these, why upgrade? I have no need for an i7 and I don't overclock, so I love the low cpu temps. No problems. I only play solo campaign games, not multi-player and every game so far is outstanding. Assassin's Creed games, Tomb Raider games, Battlefield V, Battlefield 1, Hitman 2, Resident Evil, Star Wars Battlefront 11, both Watch Dogs. I have no issues with any game. It's a dream. I don't know how others can say that sli is dead, or gone or bad, or a lot of trouble, whatever. For me? It's simply THE BEST.
I hope this helps with your queries and anybody else who has sli or thinks of going sli. Paca
 
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The problem with SLI is dying support, also all 900 series gpus with the exception of the 980 ti will be in full legacy driver mode next year. Full legacy means you get update last if at all. You may find games where a SLI works fine but that list is considerable smaller than titles where SLI is a mess.
 
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(70 in sli still only has 3.5gb of vram. 2060 has 6gb. The RTX 2060 will outlast the 970's in sli. Not to mention sli is dying when it comes to game support. Play a game like Forza 3 Horizon and you'll see that it doesn't even support dual card setups. Get the fastest single card you can afford and don't look back.
 
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The problem with sli is its limited to few games. You get decent fps up, but still capped by a 4Gb (3.5Gb) vram. The rest of the games have mediocre support some quite dismal and some where optimizations are so bad you get better results from a single card. With DX12 out for a while, support on games that do both DX12 and/or DX11 isn't that great, and there's no support for any sli in DX12 as that's a mgpu platform design that's not quite implemented yet.

So if you only play those few games with decent sli support, go for it, but otherwise you'd be better off saving your cash until you can get the card you want/need like a 1080ti/2070
 
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I have no problem with games that support sli. As I said, in SOTTR, MSI afterburner is showing both cards giving me at least 3.5 mb each, for a total of 7mb. That's more than the 2060. And in the games that don't support sli, my single 970 still has the balls for me to enjoy them. Well, let's say that they're balls enough to save me $500.00 for a 2060 here where I live in Canada. I understand how good the new 2060 is, and I still might buy one, but from my limited knowledge of talking to a couple of people and seeing the numbers on youtube who do these comparisons, it's good for me. For those who play different games, like Forza, you have a point. I guess that it all comes down to what we have right now, what we play, how much money we have, and is it worth it to spend the money to play these games and if that difference is a risk reward or not. To each his/her own. But I thank you for the information, I appreciate it. I take it all in and put it to good use, eventually. See yas.
 
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Vram is not stackable in SLI. You still only have 3.5gb usable. That's the way it is with dual card setups regardless if it's Nvidia or AMD cards.

In SLI: 3.5gb x 2 cards = 3.5gb
 
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The 970 actually is a 4Gb card but only the first 3.5Gb is high speed ram, the remaining 500Mb is low speed and not used unless totally necessary.

You could have 4x 970's in sli, still only have 3.5Gb really usable ram on the primary card. The 2/3/4 cards are only support for the primary, they render off frames using the primary cards ram and outputs. DX12 is meant to fix that with a true multi-gpu (mgpu) platform but it's so involved code-wise that game devs trying to sell downloadable games can't afford the extra filesize, or couldn't be bothered with implementing it, since single cards are so massively powered now.
 
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i have 2 gtx 980's in sli. although i cannot change my decision now, i can scarcely recommend it to anybody. 4gb of vram just isnt enough in 2019 for high end gaming. doing 970's in sli might be worth it now. but the price of the cards is going to drop quickly and you will likely lose you money alot more than you might have with a rtx 2060. also cooling is a problem. although both my cards are windorce 3 fan cards they will still hit 75-80c under full load and i have fans blowing onto both cards. generally it draws way more power requiring a better psu needed more money for the psu, higher electricity bill and is a pain to troubleshoot as it adds far more complexity. my recommendation is to save up for something that will serve you longer. take it from somone like me who bought a gtx 980 for 250$ when they sold for 350$. it is just not worth it.
 
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