gtx660 sc sli vs SSC gtx970

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Salmonfishy

Honorable
Nov 18, 2012
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i have 495$ and no bills to pay.
i have one evga sc gtx 660, 8 gb 1333mhz corsair ram, 3570 intel cpu, and a 1440 x 900p monitor (i know, i know.. i need a 1080p or greater monitor.. working on that)

anyway, i can get another 660 for around $150, or i can go with the ssc evga gtx 970, which is $330 and comes with the witcher 3, which is basically why i want to upgrade (and gtaV, aswell)

i hear the 660 in sli is around the same performance as the 970, and for me it would be &180 cheaper. BUT sli has its problems, my brther runs two 670's in sli and occasionally runs into problems. also, the 660 has 2 gb of vram, when in sli does that double due to the other card, or can it only use 2 gb from the first card? also, i've heard mixed things about dirrectx 12. do all 400-900 cards fully support it, or do 400-600 only emulate it?

not sure what i should do, but i'm leaning toward the 970 to be more future proof. but most of the benefits from the 970 is higher resolution and if i'm at 900p... not sure if the extra 180 bucks would be worth it. unless i upgraded the monitor later which i do plan to do. 900p is pretty bad these days.

buy another 660 or go for the 970? what would you do?
 
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The GTX 970 would be a better choice because you would have 3.5GB + 500MB VRAM (Basically 3.5GB usuable without stutter) instead of 2GB in SLI (The VRAM doesn't double in SLI)
Also the GTX 970 would create less heat, and use less power.
You could keep the 1440x900 monitor, there's no real reason to upgrade to a 1080p monitor unless you'd like a bigger screen or more detail (I don't see very much difference myself)
At least with the GTX 970 you wouldn't have to worry about SLI issues, some games don't support it (Rare for AAA titles) and some games just don't work very well with it, so overall the GTX 970 would be a better purchase and you could sell your current GTX 660 too.
You'd be guaranteed the full performance from the 970 in...
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Suztera

Polypheme
Mar 18, 2014
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THE GTX 970 would be better.
SLI does not add up VRAM, the second card only mirrors what the first card has in the VRAM. So you would only get 2GB in GTX 660 SLI.
Ignore directx 12 for now it will be a while before any games will come with directx 12.
the 900p monitor should be fine, you don't really need 1080p unless you want to.
 
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geofelt

geofelt

Titan
Oct 9, 2006
54,301
4,146
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I think GTX970 is better. You can sell the GTX660 to recoup some costs.

The vram in sli is not doubled. I have my doubts about the value of high vram anyway.
Read this:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/

DX12 reduces the path through the graphics driver. That is one reason amd loves it. A game developer must spend more time with low level code to implement it, so they may not take the time. I would not worry about DX12 with your cpu.

 
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Sergeant_Sneaky

Admirable
Mar 25, 2015
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The GTX 970 would be a better choice because you would have 3.5GB + 500MB VRAM (Basically 3.5GB usuable without stutter) instead of 2GB in SLI (The VRAM doesn't double in SLI)
Also the GTX 970 would create less heat, and use less power.
You could keep the 1440x900 monitor, there's no real reason to upgrade to a 1080p monitor unless you'd like a bigger screen or more detail (I don't see very much difference myself)
At least with the GTX 970 you wouldn't have to worry about SLI issues, some games don't support it (Rare for AAA titles) and some games just don't work very well with it, so overall the GTX 970 would be a better purchase and you could sell your current GTX 660 too.
You'd be guaranteed the full performance from the 970 in games that the GTX 660 SLI may not work well with, you could end up disabling SLI in some games and only getting a single GTX 660's performance.
 
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