KFA2 GTX 980 HOF - How important are the CUDA cores?

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Evoly

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Jan 30, 2015
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Hey there!

Im googeling since a few hours and saw a lot of benchmarks and reviews about different GTX 980 and first of all i have to day im hello of impressed how close the 780 TI is compared to the GTX 980.

I saw some other graphiccards with lower CPU / RAM Hz. than the GTX 980 HOF by KFA2 getting really close to it and the only "visible" reason of that (beside silicon lottery) are the ~+800 CUDA cores. So since i always was one of the "buying for atleast 2 years" kinda guys im pretty jealous on everyone who got a 780 TI and since im aiming for a ~high end dual SLI setup i definitly would love to have something that can handle the future like the 780 TI can now.

To clarify my needs. The most important thing for me are actually FPS. I would say i could need more Cuda cores for rendering but since MeGUI doesnt support CUDA as far as i know, i wont need them in the rendering way. Overall im just confused. Please help me sorting my mind. >.<.

Kind regards
 
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JUICEhunter
You pretty much have the right idea about sli, just remember some games don't have beneficial sli support which leaves you with single GPU performance, most aaa games that need it has the support though.

Get one 980 now and one in a year or two after a few price drops. You don't need sli in less you are 2k high hz or 4k.
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jsharpley

jsharpley

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If I'm understanding you correctly, you are looking to buy a video card (or two) that will be future-proof for two years?

If so, currently the gtx 980 is probably your best solution, since it is the most powerful card also supporting Dx12.
 
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Evoly

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Jan 30, 2015
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Ye, basicly you got what im looking for. Im just a bit confused if i for example look on these charts:

1. 1080p (my current resolution) http://imgur.com/a/bIl1V

2. 4k (not sure if i will ever get into it since 1080p is fine for me and to keep 4k in at least 60fps will result in way more frequent upgrades. http://imgur.com/a/71pX5

___

So since the Radeon R9 295X2 is basicly a "single case" crossfire solution, will two of my suggested KFA2 GTX 980 HOF always bring the best result? If i do understand SLI / CrossfireX right every GPU counts as its own so mhz / cuda's / ram doenst get doubled, they simply have to do a half / a third / a fourth of the work so they will overall be "faster" for a certain amount of time. But if the Game cant handle SLI properly the GPU's will count as single ones and will still bring the result like in the benchmark if silicon lottery doesnt fool me.
 
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jsharpley

jsharpley

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In terms of overall gaming performance, 2x GTX 970 or 2x GTX 980 are an improvement over a 295x2. Here are some stats: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_970_SLI/20.html

At this point a single 970 or 980 runs 1080p at max settings very well. Running two lets you bump up the resolution but you say you don't care much for that. You could pick up a single 980 now and another one later when you want more performance. By then the price may have dropped.
 
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Evoly

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Jan 30, 2015
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Im actually just wondering if it is worth to pick two 980's for sli.

I found this video about the 960's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9N8HJ2eWN4

And here the SLI sometimes has lower results then a single 960 and this is just weird. From my understanding i thought that if the game can benefit from SLI i am fine and if not i still have 100% power of my single one. But anyways.

How would two graphiccards work without the SLI connector? I did read something about the PhysX cards they sold in like 2009. Since a lot games still use PhysX would it be possible to let one card just run PhysX and the otherone does the rest? I mean .. if it comes to a game that doesnt support SLI.
 
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Evoly

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Jan 30, 2015
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Okay, well understand that. How about my SLI question. Would going 2x 980 SLI increase there competition lifetime somehow or is it really just a thing to perform 4k / eyefinity ? Since every card has just to do half the work it needs longer to get them to the maximum or am i wrong? Im not saying that there power will be doubled but since they just have to do every 2. frame it should overall take longer to get there max power beside the vram. Or do i get that wrong? I have no damn clue. It also could be that they still just hold ~2 years since doing that 1 frame can still require all there power. Im just a bit unsure since i saw many posts about how bad SLI is.
 
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JUICEhunter

JUICEhunter

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You pretty much have the right idea about sli, just remember some games don't have beneficial sli support which leaves you with single GPU performance, most aaa games that need it has the support though.

Get one 980 now and one in a year or two after a few price drops. You don't need sli in less you are 2k high hz or 4k.
 
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E

Evoly

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Jan 30, 2015
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Thanks for the advice but even if it is foolish, ill go for two of them now. Im just unable to get another of my current Custom HD 7970 and i did check that out a half year ago so its more or less the ~2 year mark you did talk about. Ill also pay them via financing over two and a half year as i usually do and than its allready time to pick some new ones. Maybe a complete new rig since i dont know how long my 3930k will do its job. Im also curious about the DDR4 ram. and the .. 3200Mhz? So, we will see how fast games will go in development. Personally i hope they stop increasing graphics that fast and work on there gameplay content .. - Overall thanks for your opinion sharing :).
 
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JUICEhunter

JUICEhunter

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It's not foolish to get 2x 980s the only reason I said get one now and one later is that by the time you get the 2nd one it will cost less later.

Don't worry about ddr4 as there hasn't been any benchmarks that prove ddr4 produces more fps.
 
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