I am planning on getting a new graphic card. SLI GTX 970 or GTX 980?

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GTXNvidia

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Hello, i am new to Tom's Hardware and i have seen a lot of debate against GTX 970 and GTX 980.

What do you guys think i should get? I have a 27 inch monitor.

Should i go for 2 GTX 970 or just 1 GTX 980?

If i am going to go for GTX 980, i am thinking about getting the EVGA super overclocked. Please help me out guys.

 
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jty0yt
I have the MSI GTX 970 and I have it oc'd it 1315 mhz (currently ocing it) and it is getting a score of 6353 points in Furmark and is staying at 63 degrees c with fans on 50 percent. I absolutely love the card, 60 FPS Arma 3 Ultra... 55 FPS Ultra Valley <-(stock clock)

If you arent going to 4k soon then I would recommend getting one or two 970's. The 980 is a beast and if you have anything over 1080p then go for the 980 IMO.
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MeteorsRaining

MeteorsRaining

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SLI 970 would kill a single 980 in every single way, a MUCH better value for money. GTX 980 is 10-15% better than 970 and cost 50-60% more, so SLI 970 makes sense to me. Don't get EVGA ACX 1.0, ACX 2.0 is much better though. MSI and G1 are currently the best bang for bucks in terms of cooling, performance and OCing ability.
 
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jty0yt

jty0yt

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I have the MSI GTX 970 and I have it oc'd it 1315 mhz (currently ocing it) and it is getting a score of 6353 points in Furmark and is staying at 63 degrees c with fans on 50 percent. I absolutely love the card, 60 FPS Arma 3 Ultra... 55 FPS Ultra Valley <-(stock clock)

If you arent going to 4k soon then I would recommend getting one or two 970's. The 980 is a beast and if you have anything over 1080p then go for the 980 IMO.
 
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GTXNvidia

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Okay thanks, i think i am going to go for SLI GTX 970, what brand do you recommend i get? also is there a problem with doing SLI graphic cards? i was reading and people say some games don't support it and it causes problems.
 
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J-Think

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First it depends how much money you have. But the 970 is definitely a better deal. You'll definitely get more bang for your buck with two 970 in sli (which is what I'm looking to get) then one 980.

In terms of which card to get, I've personally narrowed it down to the Gigabyte 970 GTX G1 Gaming or the MSI 970 GTX Gaming 4G, based on reviews.
Out of the two you'll have to consider how big your case is. Gigabyte has faster stock overclock and is potentially cooler then the MSI. However it is very long, so you'll have to check whether it will fit in your case. MSI on the other hand is a little slower, but it is also a little quieter, shorter and a little thinner (which is good for airflow in smaller cases). MSI also has 0db tech which gigabyte doesn't. However, Gigabyte does come with a backplate.

EVGA unfortunately been having problems, with some their cards design, so I would hold of on theirs for the time being.

Hope that helps, I'm personally still considering but i'll probably end up going for gigabyte.

Best to look around at some of the reviews and see if that helps.
 
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GTXNvidia

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I have a tower case, its extremely big. Storm Trooper.
 
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MeteorsRaining

MeteorsRaining

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All major titles support SLI and there's no issue which stops you from doing it. MSI and GigaByte G1 are currently the best 970s, with MSI having a slight edge with slimmer design and a bit better OCing potential due to great cooling.
 
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jay2tall

jay2tall

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I'll throw my $.02 in here. I just installed 2 MSI GTX970 Gaming 4G cards. From what I've read the MSI Gaming and Gigabyte G1 are the best cards out now. ASUS put an 8 pin power connector only and it limits boost. EVGA cheaped out and didn't do much over stock for their cards and if you OC they aren't anything special. MSI uses Mil Spec parts and bumped up their power on both the GPU and memory. Stock is 4 phase to the GPU, they did 6, which is what ASUS and GIGABYTE did. However, they did 2 phase on the memory, which stock is one. ASUS kept stock and I can't find what Gigabyte did. It looks kinda stock though from pics. Either way, I am MORE than happy with my MSI cards. I have them in a mid tower with decent, but not crazy air flow. The stock fan profile is really good even for most overclocking. The Fan does not even turn on until you hit 60C and some games, that doesn't even happen. I was monkeying around today and got my base GPU clock to 1300MHz and Memory to 8GHz with no effort at all. Though, I run the stock clocks right now because nothing I throw at it tanks the cards. They are extremely quiet too. My case fans are louder... and they are quiet.

However, I have noticed that some games do experience some "funkiness". So far that is Titanfall and PlanetSide 2. My buddy just bought an MSI GTX 980 Gaming and he has the same issues with PlanetSide 2 so I suspect its a 900 series card driver issue. Titanfall doesn't run anything over 60FPS and gets some artifacts, similar to PS2. I suspect there will be driver updates to correct some of these issues, as any new GPU of a new architecture can exhibit.
 
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