- May 13, 2015
- 50
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I am building a new gaming PC and before the whole GTX 970 #RamGate scandal the dual 970's was the undeniable best bang for the buck graphics solution. Then came the whole VRAM thing and the 980 Ti got released. So I am going to compare these two configs but I'll need some info from you guys. JayzTwoCents made a video on this( here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4RyNNlKbJw ), but it only featured the evga ssc edition on the 970 side. Those have been rumoured to have misaligned heatpipes, so not many people will buy them. Also the gtx 980 ti hybrid edition costs $50 more than two 970 ssc's so you'd be paying more for less FPS. The best manufacturer for the GTX 970 is the gigabyte windforce 3x IMO. So for the sake of not having to compare two different models from different manufacturers, I'm going to compare it to the gigabyte gtx 980 ti.
The main reason people prefer the 980 ti is the fact that it's a single card, so they don't have to deal with issues that usually come with SLI, such as:
-micro stuttering
-games not having SLI profiles
-higher temperatures
-diminishing returns, especially in triple and quad configurations... And the list goes on.
---------------------------------------------------------
BUT, one might argue that:
-SLI has advanced a lot over the years and micro stuttering is nearly eliminated
-Almost any game released in the recent years has SLI compatibility, and those that don't are probably old enough to be ran on max settings 60+ FPS with a single card
-Higher temperatures are not much of a problem now due to the power efficiency of the Maxwell achitecture
-Diminishing returns do come in and you surely won't get exactly twice the power of a single card, but gtx 970 SLI is still good enough to beat the single 980 ti, acoording to the info from Techpowerup reviews.
--------------------------------------------------------
But what about the GTX 970 3.5+0.5 GB issue?
Well, I could talk for days about how Nvidia most likely intendet this to happen to boost the sales of their fagship card (in that time, the GTX 980), but I won't because people are only interested in how that affects the gameplay. Well, to really hit the, *ahem*, ramgate you really need to push the settings so high to the point where you wouldn't get decent FPS anyway, so it's only a limitation if it prevents you from doing something you otherwise could. However, this only holds true for when using a single gtx 970. But when you have two of those, you might really get acceptable FPS at the settings at which you hit the ramgate. Well, I've got multiple responses to that:
-According to a Steam survey, 98% of gamers use 1080p monitors. That means that, if you are an average gamer who has a 970 SLI config, you would have to use DSR to have any chance of hitting the so-called ramgate.
BUT, some people even prefer using MSAA instead of DSR, since it doesn't have a weird dark effect and blurs the textures less. (You can see that for yourself here: http://techreport.com/review/27102/maxwell-dynamic-super-resolution-explored/4 ). So with that in mind, you can see that it would be a much more viable option to run 8x msaa with mfaa to get image quality equivalent to 4k DSR, but with much higher FPS and absolutely no chance to hit the ramgate. That also means the 980 ti doesn't have an advantage when it comes to extra VRAM. That is, of course, if you're willing to swap DSR for MSAA and if you play on a 1080p panel. I could also say: "Hey, DirectX 12 is coming so GTX 970 SLI is getting 7+1 GB of VRAM!" but that would be foolish because we don't yet know when are games that are going to be supporting that coming out, if they even are.
-----------------------------------------------------------
So if you're not overclocking, GTX 970 SLI is definitely more powerful.
-----------------------------------------------------------
BUT we still haven't seen the OC'ed vs OC'ed contest.
This is where my question comes in (thank you for reading all the way to here, you're very tolerant). Could the maximum stable overclock for the gtx 980 ti be higher than the 970 max oc? This is an overclocking review for the gtx 970 from Techgage:http://techgage.com/article/taking-it-to-the-limit-overclocking-nvidias-geforce-gtx-970-980/
And this is for the gtx 980 ti. Some guy on Youtube called Totally Silenced made a video on that but he overclocked the 980 ti much higher than the GTX 970 SLI, giving it an unfair advantage. Please be kind enough not to turn this into a flame war, I just need info on the max stable overclock of these cards.
Thanks in advance, sorry for my bad English and for making you read all of this.
The main reason people prefer the 980 ti is the fact that it's a single card, so they don't have to deal with issues that usually come with SLI, such as:
-micro stuttering
-games not having SLI profiles
-higher temperatures
-diminishing returns, especially in triple and quad configurations... And the list goes on.
---------------------------------------------------------
BUT, one might argue that:
-SLI has advanced a lot over the years and micro stuttering is nearly eliminated
-Almost any game released in the recent years has SLI compatibility, and those that don't are probably old enough to be ran on max settings 60+ FPS with a single card
-Higher temperatures are not much of a problem now due to the power efficiency of the Maxwell achitecture
-Diminishing returns do come in and you surely won't get exactly twice the power of a single card, but gtx 970 SLI is still good enough to beat the single 980 ti, acoording to the info from Techpowerup reviews.
--------------------------------------------------------
But what about the GTX 970 3.5+0.5 GB issue?
Well, I could talk for days about how Nvidia most likely intendet this to happen to boost the sales of their fagship card (in that time, the GTX 980), but I won't because people are only interested in how that affects the gameplay. Well, to really hit the, *ahem*, ramgate you really need to push the settings so high to the point where you wouldn't get decent FPS anyway, so it's only a limitation if it prevents you from doing something you otherwise could. However, this only holds true for when using a single gtx 970. But when you have two of those, you might really get acceptable FPS at the settings at which you hit the ramgate. Well, I've got multiple responses to that:
-According to a Steam survey, 98% of gamers use 1080p monitors. That means that, if you are an average gamer who has a 970 SLI config, you would have to use DSR to have any chance of hitting the so-called ramgate.
BUT, some people even prefer using MSAA instead of DSR, since it doesn't have a weird dark effect and blurs the textures less. (You can see that for yourself here: http://techreport.com/review/27102/maxwell-dynamic-super-resolution-explored/4 ). So with that in mind, you can see that it would be a much more viable option to run 8x msaa with mfaa to get image quality equivalent to 4k DSR, but with much higher FPS and absolutely no chance to hit the ramgate. That also means the 980 ti doesn't have an advantage when it comes to extra VRAM. That is, of course, if you're willing to swap DSR for MSAA and if you play on a 1080p panel. I could also say: "Hey, DirectX 12 is coming so GTX 970 SLI is getting 7+1 GB of VRAM!" but that would be foolish because we don't yet know when are games that are going to be supporting that coming out, if they even are.
-----------------------------------------------------------
So if you're not overclocking, GTX 970 SLI is definitely more powerful.
-----------------------------------------------------------
BUT we still haven't seen the OC'ed vs OC'ed contest.
This is where my question comes in (thank you for reading all the way to here, you're very tolerant). Could the maximum stable overclock for the gtx 980 ti be higher than the 970 max oc? This is an overclocking review for the gtx 970 from Techgage:http://techgage.com/article/taking-it-to-the-limit-overclocking-nvidias-geforce-gtx-970-980/
And this is for the gtx 980 ti. Some guy on Youtube called Totally Silenced made a video on that but he overclocked the 980 ti much higher than the GTX 970 SLI, giving it an unfair advantage. Please be kind enough not to turn this into a flame war, I just need info on the max stable overclock of these cards.
Thanks in advance, sorry for my bad English and for making you read all of this.
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