MSI GTX 970 SLI for UHD and later 4k..Return them since new specs?

[madglee]

Hey guys,

I bought two MSI GTX 970's and have them in SLI. My plan was to upgrade my ancient 1680x1050 22" with a 27-30" UHD monitor, and run the two for gaming and general office stuff.

Now that we know the GTX 970 is running at 3.5GB VRAM instead of 4GB, how worried do I need to be that I will see stuttering and frame drops once I get these new monitors? I only bought the thing 29 days ago, so I am tempted to return them.

Let's say I can afford two GTX 980's in SLI, but only have a 750 watt PSU (Corsair). Should I wait until some cards better and cheaper than the 980's come out, or should I keep my 970's, or do something else?

 

[Zerk2012]

You should of waited on buying the video cards till the 8gb Vram versions came out.
You shouldent have stuttering problems but high settings are not really going to hapen.

 

[krells]

You can use DSR to render at 4k quality and see the performance impact. If you still want to return the 970's and can't afford to sli 980's you could get a 295x2 for under $700.

 

[madglee]

You should of waited on buying the video cards till the 8gb Vram versions came out.
You shouldent have stuttering problems but high settings are not really going to hapen.

What do you mean? You have two 970's, too? Who would wait until some new 8GB card came out? How is this relevant to my question?

 

[madglee]

You can use DSR to render at 4k quality and see the performance impact. If you still want to return the 970's and can't afford to sli 980's you could get a 295x2 for under $700.

So, in other words, yes the GTX 970's will performance impact regardless of driver update by Nvidia? And if I had the cash, the dual 980's would be way better? Or should I wait - aren't some new chips coming out which will drive the 980s way down in price?

 

[krells]

You can use DSR to render at 4k quality and see the performance impact. If you still want to return the 970's and can't afford to sli 980's you could get a 295x2 for under $700.

So, in other words, yes the GTX 970's will performance impact regardless of driver update by Nvidia? And if I had the cash, the dual 980's would be way better? Or should I wait - aren't some new chips coming out which will drive the 980s way down in price?

No, I tried it with my 970s to see how it worked. I used battlefield 4, Metro Last Light, Far Cry 4, and Shadows of Mordor. I kept all settings at Ultra and didn't run out of vram or stutter. The average framerate was between 30 and 50 depending on the game. I am sure lowering the settings a bit would increase the framerate to a more acceptable range.

My suggestion was to try it with DSR on the games you play so you could see if the games you played worked and if the framerate was acceptable to you.Your PSU could handle 980's in SLI but for the extra $500 I don't think the 15% increase in performance is worth it.

EDIT: Your title is confusing. You say sli for UHD and later 4k but they are the same resolution. Do you mean QHD 1440p and 4k later?

 

[madglee]

You can use DSR to render at 4k quality and see the performance impact. If you still want to return the 970's and can't afford to sli 980's you could get a 295x2 for under $700.

So, in other words, yes the GTX 970's will performance impact regardless of driver update by Nvidia? And if I had the cash, the dual 980's would be way better? Or should I wait - aren't some new chips coming out which will drive the 980s way down in price?

No, I tried it with my 970s to see how it worked. I used battlefield 4, Metro Last Light, Far Cry 4, and Shadows of Mordor. I kept all settings at Ultra and didn't run out of vram or stutter. The average framerate was between 30 and 50 depending on the game. I am sure lowering the settings a bit would increase the framerate to a more acceptable range.

My suggestion was to try it with DSR on the games you play so you could see if the games you played worked and if the framerate was acceptable to you.Your PSU could handle 980's in SLI but for the extra $500 I don't think the 15% increase in performance is worth it.

EDIT: Your title is confusing. You say sli for UHD and later 4k but they are the same resolution. Do you mean QHD 1440p and 4k later?

Sorry, yes, I meant for QHD 1440p and then 4k later when it can actually be used for gaming.

 

[krells]

I have been running the 970's in SLI on a 1440p monitor for months and haven't any performance issues. Regardless on the "scandal" the just perform really well.