GTX 980 SLI or GTX 980Ti single? SLI with different cards?

[Tamatinz]

So I am guessing that it terms of outright grunt the 2 x 980 (around $820 each here in NZ) with trump a single 980Ti (cheapest around $1200) correct? Would SLI standard 980s be sufficient for 4K?

The thing I am not sure about is the VRAM, with the 980 packing 4GB and the Ti with 6GB. Am i right that in SLI you don't get an effective 4GB+4GB=8GB? (Just checked the SLI FAQ - doesn't look like it :-( )
Is there a potential for a 'textures' bottleneck running 980s in SLI at either 1440 or 4k?

Recommendations please 🙂

Also is it possible to SLI with different model cards? Do they have to be of the same generation / family? (I have two 680s in my existing rig - I could scavenge one to pair with either a 980 or 980Ti)

I also have a bunch of other 6XX generation cards around - could I pair one in SLI with a 980/980Ti and just get it to run the Physx?

And I thought this building a new pc was going to be easy!

Cheers!

 

[Guest]

If I were you I would get the GTX 980ti, 4GB won't cut it if your'e going for 4k, 1440p maybe if you cut back down on the texture settings. SLI also brings increased VRAM usage when playing games, more heat, increased power consumption and not all games are compatible with SLI and some have problems with it. Your VRAM won't stack if you'll SLI your card, 2x 4GB GTX 980 on SLI won't give you 8GB VRAM, it's still 4GB. For SLI to work you need to have identical models, 2x 980 or 2x 980 ti will work, It won't work if you pair a GTX 980 with a 980ti or a 6XX generation card. If you have enough slots on your motherboard, then yes, you can make your 6XX generation card dedicated to just running physx while having your 980/980Ti SLI setup run as your main graphics.

 

[Gamer1985]

As the above mentioned, get the 980TI. You wont have to deal with the headache of SLI supported software. The 980TI has 6GB memory which obviously would be better then 4gb. When you SLI, your memory is not stackable. A 980TI will be far much better all around as it is a single card solution with less power consumption then 2 cards running SLI. Plus youll always have the option in the future to SLI the 980Tis when the situation is necessary. 2x980s would handle 4K fine but I personally would not go 4K at the moment due to the price and no setup currently besides SLI tItans will achieve 4K at 60FPS+ on high quality.

 

[king3pj]

The OP already has SLI 680s in his current build so he knows that the downsides to SLI are exaggerated pretty heavily here. I run SLI 970s and in my experience almost every AAA game has SLI support from day one and the ones that don't get it quickly. Missing SLI support is more common when you are talking about smaller games but those will run fine on a single 980 anyways.

A single 980Ti is not enough to play modern AAA games at 4K if you care about maxed settings and 60 FPS. Look 4K at benchmarks for games you are interested in to confirm this.

A SLI 980 setup would be significantly more powerful than a single 980Ti. For reference SLI 970s are about equal to a 980Ti.

I'm not sure whether SLI 980s are enough for 4K but I know a single 980Ti is not from the benchmarks I have seen. If people are set on 4K I think SLI 980Tis are a good idea.

I run at 2560x1440p with SLI 970s and have had no trouble maxing out my games at 60 FPS. I would look into playing at this resolution instead of 4K. If you did that either a single 980Ti or SLI 980s would be great for that resolution.

 

[king3pj]

If I were you I would get the GTX 980ti, 4GB won't cut it if your'e going for 4k, 1440p maybe if you cut back down on the texture settings..

4GB of VRAM is plenty for 1440p without having to cut down on texture settings. I run 1440p on SLI 970s and I haven't tested a single game I can't max out at 60+ FPS. We all know about the GTX 970 only having 3.5GB of fast VRAM so the real, required VRAM amount for 1440p is probably 3.5GB or less for most games.

 

[jerdle]

Why are you looking at 980s? R9 Fury is available for very similar prices as the 980s and easily outperforms the 980 especially at 4 k. The real question you should be asking is crossfire Fury or 980Ti/Fury X.

The answer being xfire Fury.

 

[xxxlun4icexxx]

So I am guessing that it terms of outright grunt the 2 x 980 (around $820 each here in NZ) with trump a single 980Ti (cheapest around $1200) correct? Would SLI standard 980s be sufficient for 4K?

The thing I am not sure about is the VRAM, with the 980 packing 4GB and the Ti with 6GB. Am i right that in SLI you don't get an effective 4GB+4GB=8GB? (Just checked the SLI FAQ - doesn't look like it :-( )
Is there a potential for a 'textures' bottleneck running 980s in SLI at either 1440 or 4k?

Recommendations please 🙂

Also is it possible to SLI with different model cards? Do they have to be of the same generation / family? (I have two 680s in my existing rig - I could scavenge one to pair with either a 980 or 980Ti)

I also have a bunch of other 6XX generation cards around - could I pair one in SLI with a 980/980Ti and just get it to run the Physx?

And I thought this building a new pc was going to be easy!

Cheers!

If you are looking for pure grunt work no 2 980s won't cut it at 4k. They would not give you max settings 60 fps. 3 would be enough grunt work, but it doesn't matter as at max settings you would be using above 4GB vram on most games.

So if you purchase 2, you'll do ok but you will have to turn down quite a bit of settings.

980TI is the better option, you can always sli it down the road and not have to worry about the VRAM issue.

 

[king3pj]

So I am guessing that it terms of outright grunt the 2 x 980 (around $820 each here in NZ) with trump a single 980Ti (cheapest around $1200) correct? Would SLI standard 980s be sufficient for 4K?

The thing I am not sure about is the VRAM, with the 980 packing 4GB and the Ti with 6GB. Am i right that in SLI you don't get an effective 4GB+4GB=8GB? (Just checked the SLI FAQ - doesn't look like it :-( )
Is there a potential for a 'textures' bottleneck running 980s in SLI at either 1440 or 4k?

Recommendations please 🙂

Also is it possible to SLI with different model cards? Do they have to be of the same generation / family? (I have two 680s in my existing rig - I could scavenge one to pair with either a 980 or 980Ti)

I also have a bunch of other 6XX generation cards around - could I pair one in SLI with a 980/980Ti and just get it to run the Physx?

And I thought this building a new pc was going to be easy!

Cheers!

If you are looking for pure grunt work no 2 980s won't cut it at 4k. They would not give you max settings 60 fps. 3 would be enough grunt work, but it doesn't matter as at max settings you would be using above 4GB vram on most games.

So if you purchase 2, you'll do ok but you will have to turn down quite a bit of settings.

980TI is the better option, you can always sli it down the road and not have to worry about the VRAM issue.

I don't understand this reasoning. SLI 980s are significantly more powerful than a single 980Ti. If SLI 980s doesn't have enough "grunt work" as you put it, then a 980Ti certainly doesn't either.

The extra VRAM is nice on a 980Ti and I would recommend SLI 980Ti for 4K if possible. Look at benchmarks in modern AAA games for a single 980Ti at 4K though. You are also going to have to turn down settings or live with less than 60 FPS. This is one I found with a quick Google search. In Shadow of Mordor SLI 980s are able to average 66 FPS while a single 980Ti averages 55 FPS.

The fact is that 4K is still very tough to pull off if you care about maxed settings and 60+ FPS.

Edit: Here is one I found for GTA V that shows that neither card SLI 980s or a single 980Ti are good enough for 60 FPS at 4K. Again, the 980 SLI setup is above the single 980Ti though.

 

[king3pj]

Check out this PC Gamer 980Ti review and scroll down to the "980Ti vs Multi-GPU Benchmarks" section.

http://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-ti-review/

SLI 980s beat a single 980Ti at 4K in every game they tested. It appears that 4GB of VRAM is enough for 4K and the SLI 980 performance advantage is more important than having 6GB of VRAM for gaming at 4K.

 

[Tamatinz]

Great discussion - thanks! Couple of points:
1) Despite a recurring theme of 'watch out for SLI' I have had literally zero issues with any of my games on my previous two builds with SLI Nvidia cards. Never experienced tearing, stuttering or other issues and this includes AAA titles, old school ones and some indie games. Maybe I'm lucky.
2) Despite the value advantage I am steering well clear of AMD/ATI cards - I had 3 successive builds with single or double card installations and each and every one had major, ongoing driver issues. Never again. I haven't had any issues with Nvidia. Plus at work our AMD systems have far more issues than our Intel ones - I normally go for the underdog but I'm sticking with Nvidia / Intel.

Its an interesting issue here but I'm pretty sure I'm going to go single 980Ti and a 1440 screen - single card, nice and simple with the possibility of expansion in the future if I win the lottery!

Again thanks for all your considered input 🙂
Cheers