GTX 970 or 980. Which One To Buy

[AdvancedGinger]

So i have been thinking about getting either 970 or 980 but dont know if i will use it. i use a resolution of 1080p and i play games on that at ultra. I may go to 4k but not now maybe down the line. i need to know if i were to get the 970 and i wanted to get for 4k gaming if i could get sli and have a nice framerate going for it ? so which one to buy. i stream games, i render videos and i play games on high settings. i dont know what to get. this is the rest of my build http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/dfGGdC

 

[MeteorsRaining]

The 980 is more powerful than 970, how much? 10-15%, and it costs 50-60% more, not worth the extra performance (10 frames at max) for the price premium. I'd SLI two 970s in that price which'd kill a single 980 performance wise. For 4k, you'll not have any benefit from a single 980 or 970, SLI of any of them would give fine FPS. 970 is my choice both for current resolution and SLI if you go the 4k way.

 

[AdvancedGinger]

The 980 is more powerful than 970, how much? 10-15%, and it costs 50-60% more, not worth the extra performance (10 frames at max) for the price premium. I'd SLI two 970s in that price which'd kill a single 980 performance wise. For 4k, you'll not have any benefit from a single 980 or 970, SLI of any of them would give fine FPS. 970 is my choice both for current resolution and SLI if you go the 4k way.

i think ill go with 970, as ill have to buy mice,keyboards and so on so the more money for that the better

 

[MeteorsRaining]

Wise decision there.

 

[sizzling]

If you are serious about 4K then look at the benchmarks for the 290X in crossfire, at 4k it comes out noticeably better than Sli 980's

 

[lothdk]

From the benchmarks I have seen, for 1080p resolution, you could pocket the money at go with the 970, but if you are serious about going 4K, then the 980 is the way to go, and to SLI.
The tests I have seen, SLI 890 is either equal to or surpasses crossfire 290X.

 

[sizzling]

From the benchmarks I have seen, for 1080p resolution, you could pocket the money at go with the 970, but if you are serious about going 4K, then the 980 is the way to go, and to SLI.
The tests I have seen, SLI 890 is either equal to or surpasses crossfire 290X.

I was looking at this last week, in the benchmarks I have seen at 1080p the 980 wins every time, at 2k it goes either way between the 290X or 980 but at 4k dual 290X (or in this link 295 same thing really) wins I think every time except some synthetic tests, for example http://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-gtx-980-tested-sli-4k-and-single-gpu-benchmarks-and-impressions/#page-2

Now this might change with new drivers but from a little reading I did this might be because of the lower memory bandwidth of the 970 & 980 which if correct is going to be a physical limitation that new drivers won't be able to help with

 

[lothdk]

Right, as I said, they are similar in some games, others clearly favours one architecture over the other, though generally the newer GTX 980 is the faster card.

Doing a google search and checking the benchmarks on the first page, where pcgamer is one of them, the other reviews shows an advantage to GTX 980 (when one of the cards is faster).

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