EVGA 980 SLI match.(what second card)

DonkeyOatie · Oct 19, 2015

One of my students upgraded their GTX 970 to a GTX 980.

EVGA GeForce GTX 980 GAMING Part Number: 04G-P4-1980-KR

The card is OK, they say, but a bit too noisy. In the quest for even more performance, they want to SLI on a EVGA 110-B2-0750-VR.

Which of the other EVGA 980s should they consider?

Sergeant_Sneaky · Oct 19, 2015

It is best to get an identical card, most of the time, different 980's should work but occasionally they just won't work together. What are their full specs? That PSU should be enough.

DonkeyOatie · Oct 19, 2015

They don't want a second card the same. They say the noise is very annoying. The card they have is one of the blower cards.

• 1126MHz Base Clock
• 1216MHz Boost Clock
• 144GT/s Texture Fill Rate
• 4096MB GDDR5 Memory
• 7010MHz Memory Clock
• 224.3GB/s Memory Bandwidth

Sergeant_Sneaky · Oct 19, 2015

DonkeyOatie :

Ah I see, sorry, I missunderstood the question. Blower style are the loudest kind, the ACX coolers are quiet. If they are willing to change the brand, my Palit 980 is quiet under load, I set my fans to be on 45% 24/7 and while gaming the max temp I see is around 62/63c while the computer is silent. I will never go back to a reference card after having two of them, I've gone multi fan and won't go back, it's so much quieter/cooler.

DonkeyOatie · Oct 20, 2015

Useful information, but my concern is just how 'same' do a pair of cards need to be for SLI? Any two 980's? Memory speed same? Clocks?

From what they say the fans are noisy (they are very picky, I have not heard the card yet to confirm) and there is some kind of 'electrical' noise. (Coil whine?)

Sergeant_Sneaky · Oct 20, 2015

DonkeyOatie :

If your student is saying about the noise, won't they want to replace the original card anyway? Theoretically you can pair any 980 with any other 980, they should match clock speeds automatically, you can only pair two cards with the same amount of VRAM though, 4gb and 4gb, not 4gb and 8gb for example.

They are probably experiencing coil whine yes, one thing they can try is limiting their FPS using something like MSI Afterburners Rivatuner add on, this will at least lower the coil whine volume in most cases. He/She could also use Vsync but that will cause input lag.

DonkeyOatie · Oct 20, 2015

They already threw away a GTX970 (I have it now). Parental unit has limits. They are unlikely to spring for TWO GTX 980s.

(You are only 14 once, I quess)

Annoying enough not to want a second one. I suggested headphones, but they like the Gigawatts output by their sub-woofer.

If clockspeed matches, I assume that they both clock to the slowest, so there would be no point in getting anything faster, or can they overclock the slower one? A bazillion FPS is one of their targets, so slowing down is not an option. They have 4Gb so I will match that.

With a Blower card, and an open card, which is the best configuration? Which one goes closest to the air intake?

Sergeant_Sneaky · Oct 20, 2015

DonkeyOatie :

The fastest card should downclock to the slower cards speed, yes, they don't always but it doesn't seem to cause any issues, if it does downclock to the slower card, it won't be noticable in terms of fps, you can overclock the cards together, you can almost always get a healthy clock speed gain. If the cards are close together (I don't know which motherboard they own) then I personally would put the blower style on top, as it can pull air through and push the hot air out the back of the case, if you put the dual fan on top, the hot air will be pushed straight back down into the other card. You could try both and see what gets them the lowest temperatures but that is how I would personally set it up.

DonkeyOatie · Oct 20, 2015

They have a horizontal motherboard, so 'top' means nearest to the intake, furthest from the CPU? They are replacing their motherboard with a Maximus VII Gene and upping their case to the same Thermaltake Core V21 used in my Science Fair Project system. (They had a Core V1 and an ASRock H79m-ITX/Ac.)

Sergeant_Sneaky · Oct 20, 2015

DonkeyOatie :

The top to me is the one closest to the CPU, in the top or second from top slot (depending on the motherboard config). What CPU do they have?

DonkeyOatie · Oct 20, 2015

4690K. Only clocks to 4.6Ghz though.

Sergeant_Sneaky · Oct 20, 2015

DonkeyOatie :

That's perfectly acceptable, are they going to be running 1080p? If so, at what refresh rate?

DonkeyOatie · Oct 20, 2015

3 x 1080p monitors at 60 Hz but considering 2 x 3440 x 1440, don't know refresh.

The original GTX 970 would not run the monitors at acceptable speed.

Sergeant_Sneaky · Oct 20, 2015

DonkeyOatie :

If they go down that route, I assume one of the 1440p monitors will be for web pages etc while the other one is used for gaming?
1080p surround is tough to run, two overclocked 980s should be enough, assuming they are willing to drop MSAA and a few other settings in newer games.

DonkeyOatie · Oct 21, 2015

One monitor is for communication, Skype, information, hints--- and the other is for the co-operative game playing. One of their 'team' is non-playing 'intelligence' who watches and advises.

So you are saying that SLI 980s cannot run all titles on 3 x 1080p at maximum settings? (I realize that there are some games where the CPU will be the limit due to poor coding or optimization). If so, this will come as great disappointment.

This level of performance is beyond my experience or needs.

Sergeant_Sneaky · Oct 21, 2015

DonkeyOatie :

No, it won't max out all games in surround, here is an example in GTA 5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bdqJer7Y5w, if you go to the description it will show the settings he was using and the fps. GTA 5 is a pretty graphically intensive game though.
At 1440p/3x 1080p, the CPU will not be the bottleneck in games, it only just bottlenecks my card in GTA 5, and that's with one monitor at 1080p. The GPU's will start to struggle before the cards do in most situations, even if it (CPU) does start to struggle it will most likely still be producing above 60 fps if the cards can produce that.

DonkeyOatie · Oct 21, 2015

Thanks. That was at 144Hz. I'm assuming that only 60Hz for surround 1080p will help.

Anyway thanks for the information.

Summary

1. Any GTX 980 will work.
2. The cards will automatically match speed.
3. Overclocking the slower card may help with overall speed.
4. The newer card should be 'open'.
5. The 'blower' card should go closest to the CPU.
6. Even 2x 980 or SLI may not get a bazillion FPS on 3 x 1080p or 2 x 3440 x 1440 on Ultra, even when CPU is not limiting.

I'm astonished at the amount of money the kid is pouring into this machine. Thanks for your help. If my summary needs correction, please let me know.

Sergeant_Sneaky · Oct 21, 2015

DonkeyOatie :

The monitor refresh rate doesn't affect fps in any way, it just allows the monitor to show the extra frames if it goes over 60.

1. Yes.
2. They should, sometimes they may not, but that won't cause a problem, you can match them yourself if you want.
3. Yes, if they don't match speeds, you can bring the slower card up to the same speed and then overclock them both together from there, if necessary.
4. For less noise and generally better temps, yes, if the reference card is left in they will still hear that though.
5. In the ideal situation yes.
6. It should produce a playable fps, depending on this student's preference as to what is playable. If they went for the 2x 1440p option, they may be able to use the onboard graphics for the second (communications) monitor to avoid GPU performance loss.

Anything above 1080p can become expensive very quickly, one 1440p will be easier to run than 3x 1080p (if the student is able to use the onboard graphics for the second monitor) Here is a video of GTA 5 at 1440p, almost max settings besides MSAA, which is set at 2x https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVekUbkTah8

DonkeyOatie · Oct 21, 2015

Doesn't the GPU have to generate more than twice as many frames to keep up with a 144Hz monitor compared to a 60Hz? 60FPS won't be OK on 144 Hz???

This card http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=04G-P4-2981-KR has the same specs, but an ACX cooler. Is there any reason to suggest anything different?

Sergeant_Sneaky · Oct 21, 2015

DonkeyOatie :

It doesn't have to, it'll just display the amount of fps your gpu can display, if you have 60 fps, it will be the same as a 60hz monitor but if you have more than 60 it will display that amount. The fps generated by the gpu will be the same whether you have a 60 or 144hz monitor, but you will be able to see more of these frames on 144hz. I hope that makes sense.

DonkeyOatie · Oct 21, 2015

Sergeant_Sneaky :

What you said is really what I meant. On a 60Hz monitor you cannot tell the difference between 80 FPS and 160 FPS, (I assume, not playing those games myself) On a 144Hz monitor you can tell the difference between 80FPS and 160FPS, so to keep the look, the GPU must keep up with the monitor.

Sergeant_Sneaky · Oct 21, 2015

DonkeyOatie :

Sergeant_Sneaky :

What you said is really what I meant. On a 60Hz monitor you cannot tell the difference between 80 FPS and 160 FPS, (I assume, not playing those games myself) On a 144Hz monitor you can tell the difference between 80FPS and 160FPS, so to keep the look, the GPU must keep up with the monitor.

Yes, if you don't have a constant frame rate, I can imagine it would be annoying.

DonkeyOatie · Oct 23, 2015

Passed on recommendation. Now they are wondering if GTX980ti might not be a better solution. Wish I had that budget.

Sergeant_Sneaky · Oct 23, 2015

DonkeyOatie :

A 980ti would give better value for money, it's about 10 fps off of 2 980's in SLI at 1080p, the extra VRAM would help at the higher resolutions but there is a bit less performance.

DonkeyOatie · Oct 23, 2015

Yes, but they already have one GTX980, only a few months old, so the marginal cost is higher, (adding a second 980, vs replacing the one they have with a 980ti) and if they later SLI them, they will need a new PSU too, EBGA B2 750W won't do it.

EVGA 980 SLI match.(what second card)

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