How important are the new GTX 900 series features and 1 extra gig of memory?

[Pavel Pokidaylo]

Hi. I have an MSI 780 ti gaming and now that I'm playing the ROG Swift PG278Q at 1440p I need more graphics power. The price of this card has come down substantially...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127770&cm_re=780_ti-_-14-127-770-_-Product

At this price it's only about $100 more than the 970 which is currently sold out just about everywhere. It's also faster than the 970 and even faster than the reference 980. The easiest thing for me to do now would be to buy a second one of these and SLI. My other option is to wait for a restock of the 970s and buy two of them for SLI and try to sell my 780 ti. I wouldn't get anywhere near what I paid for it though and the 970s would be a slower setup than the 780 ti SLI.

I'm just about ready to order the 780 ti but I do have some concerns. The first is the 3gigs of ram that the 780 ti comes with. To my knowledge, it hasn't been a problem yet but I read that "Bethesda" I believe it was have made it clear that their new game "The Evil Within" needs a card with 4gigs to play at max settings. Do you think this is true? Will my 780 ti not be able to handle the game because it only has 3 gigs? Will upcoming games be following suit with this 4gig minimum? What do you think?

I'm also thinking about the new features that come with the 900 series. I've been told that Nvidia has already stated that these features will also work with some of the high end 700 series cards but I've also read that is false. How important do you think these features are?

I know some games have an SSAA option built in. Will this new DSR feature be a hardware type thing that works with every game or will it only work in games that already have the SSAA feature and if so what's the difference?

The new voxel lighting sounds interesting, thoughts on this?

MFAA is another one that sounds good to me I mean 4XMSAA visual quality at 2XMSAA performance hit, why not right?

What do you guys think? Are these features important to you? Should I be gunning for the extra gig or will I be fine with 3?

Any input is appreciated thanks!

 

[iamlegend]

The 780ti is still a powerful GPU and will crush the GTX 970. It will also last about 5 years I think for more demanding games in the future.

However, what I think is the best advantage of the 970 is the power consumption, well I guess for engineers, power consumption is our main concern, but for performance wise the 780 ti will compete against the 900 series.

About the future MSAA,FSAA,SMAA blahblahblah, I won`t care so much about that, as long as a game can be play smoothly.

 

[Pavel Pokidaylo]

Hey thanks for the reply. I have a good PSU - Seasonic X series 1050W Gold and good airflow case - Carbide 500R so I'm not really worried about consumption or heat. My main concern is the 3 gigs not being enough for future games. The new features couldn't hurt either I guess but I don't really know anything about them or how important they are.

 

[iamlegend]

Basically those features are used for more smooth graphics, like smoothening the edges of grass/rock/trees/house which I don`t feel necessary. I don`t even look at the details of the d*** grasses.

For the 3G of memory I suppose it is for higher resolution gaming. Like 4k etc, because you will be needing more memory so that it can process more graphics needed for this resolution.

 

[Pavel Pokidaylo]

So here's what I'm thinking. I just read that DSR is a maxwell thing and works off the hardware so you can use it in any game that supports resolutions higher than 1080p. I'm on a 1440p monitor but I guess this feature would be nice for games that are not very demanding. This way I could improve the image quality from 1440p to near 4k. Of course if the game is demanding it will be a big performance hit. I still don't really understand what the new voxel lighting does, to me it just looks brighter but that does make it look nicer so I guess this couldn't hurt either. MFAA could be usefull too.

Eh I think I'll just order a second 780 ti. Those features are nice but I think I'd rather have the higher performance of the 780 ti and I don't want to go through the hassle of selling the one I have and only getting half of what I paid for it originally.

These are benchmarks for my 780 ti and one of the new 970s.

MSI 780 ti gaming - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_780_Ti_Gaming/6.html

Asus Strix 970 - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_970_STRIX_OC/6.html

My 780 ti beats that 970 in just about every game and by quite a bit in some games. I'll just order the 780 ti now. Only thing that sucks is that I paid $700 for the first one. I guess I shouldn't really be complaining though considering people bought Titans =/

 

[iamlegend]

Technology changes man, it`s contagious.

"It`s not on what you have, it is what you do on what you have."


~iamlegend~

 

[Pavel Pokidaylo]

Look at this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127834&cm_re=gtx_980-_-14-127-834-_-Product

 

[iamlegend]

Lol, It`s unreasonable

 

[Pavel Pokidaylo]

so just go with the 780 ti?

 

[iamlegend]

Would you like to swap with me GTX 970 for 780ti? haha

 

[GOM3RPLY3R]

I know this is solved, but I think I want to show some input here.

I recently got my Gigabyte GTX 970 Gaming Edition and I have to say, it's fricken amazing. ^_^

I have increased my performance on the Furmark 1080p burn in from an overclocked GTX 770 with a Kraken G10 and Corsair H50 @ ~45 FPS to an overclocked GTX 970 @ ~ 80 FPS . The temperatures did change, with the 770 being at 62ºC on water to a warmer 68ºC on AIR (YES, on AIR. The WINDFORCE logo on the side does. not. lie.).

Also in ArmA 3, on the Ultra Setting preset on the runway at Stratis with 80-85 FPS, up from a previous, I believe, ~50-60 FPS.

The only two games I have had a problem with are Modded Minecraft (155 Mods) and CS:GO. Both of those games (when full screen) experience worse frames than my GTX 770 and a heartbeat type of frame lag that happens, well, like a heartbeat.

Also to note, my DisplayPort doesn't work properly. Only the very last DisplayPort receives signal, and when it does, it doesn't display. In a 3 monitor setup, I have to then disable my 2nd monitor, and on my third monitor, enable my main monitor, then re-enable the 2nd monitor, and it works ~fine.

So far, I am seeing performance, ~ on par with a 780 Ti, however I did notice when I enabled certain things (MSAA, Shadows) to a certain degree (usually High - Very High), the performance would actually increase a small bit. I don't know if this has to do with the memory being utilized better with different settings, the software that helps the 900 series cards render those things better, or some other magical phenomenon that is not explainable, but it happened.

I hope that it isn't a hardware issue, and if it is, I'll have to RMA it, but then wait until they come back in stock. >.<

I hope this input helps.

 

[Pavel Pokidaylo]

Thanks for the input man. I still have not really decided on what I'm going to do. I want to order a second 780 ti but I'm really skeptical about MSI now with all the coil whine and issues wit hthe motherboard im having. As far as 970 vs 780 ti performance it's clear that the 780 ti beats it by quite a bit, atleast an overclocked 780 ti does. The stock 780 ti has a very low core clock compared to 970/980 and most reviews pit the cards against each other with reference clocks. In those techpowerup reviews I posted you can see that my MSI 780 ti pulls ahead of the 970 by quite a bit in many games. It's true that in some games it's only about a 5fps difference but in others it's 10fps by that I mean 35 fps for 970 and 45 fps for 780 ti.