Sli 970s or single 980.

[Noodlesbadoodles]

Hey I plan on upgrading my gpu but I'm not sure if I should get two 970s or one 980. I know performance will be better with two 970s but there's the hassle with sli. I plan on gaming on three monitors 5760 x 1080. I would like to get one 980 and try to avoid going down the sli route. Will a single 980 cut it at high settings? All I can find is benchmarks at ultra settings. Thanks

 

[getdamafiaonyou]

Here is a benchmark 970 sli will outperform a single 970 at that resolution.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_970_SLI/14.html
Personally I wasn't fond of the performance I was getting from 970's SLI at 5760x1080 so I went with AMD cards. That doesnt mean it's bad, I was just rather disappointed.

 

[Winly]

NO, the GTX 980 will not play at ultra at that resolution on three monitors, I believe you will need to go SLI

 

[HWlover]

It would be best to wait, single 980 is obviously better, especially after the recent events, but it's too pricey for what it is, and one 980 won't be enough for resolution like that, so unless you need to have it now, i suggest to wait for 980TI or 380X with HBM(could be interesting)...

 

[blackbandit]

Yes, I agree with HWlover. It's much more beneficial for you to wait till prices drop or the 980Ti etc to come out.

Advice my mate gave me is always plan to go for one good card to start with, then get another when it becomes cheap a while later for SLI/CrossFire. Starting off with 2 cards means you will most likely need to swap out both cards for the next upgrade. And you've already said you'd rather avoid it.

I say go 970 SLI if you must play with 3 monitors now or just wait for the new cards and then reassess. You could then choose between next gen or 980 SLI.
It's not to say the 980 won't run triple 1080p setup, but you'll certainly have to compromise the high/ultra quality to get reasonable fps on many games.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_980/1.html
Page 7-23 is the performance for each game.