680 SLI vs Single 980ti for 1080p gaming

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shred_777

shred_777

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So I've been away from PC gaming for a while as there's been a lot of Playstation 4 games I've been digging. I'm getting back into big budget third party titles though (Assassin's Creed, Tomb Raider, Battlefield etc).

Previously I've had mixed experiences spending lots of money on my SLI setup. I previously maxed out BF3 on a 680 sli setup and when this same setup failed to perform as well on Battlefield 4 I rebuilt. The system was as follows:

4820k i7 Oc stable and cool at 4.6Ghz (previously an entry level i5 quad core)
8Gb RAM
Strider Gold Rated 1000w PSU (650 watts previously)
Asus ROG Rampage IV Formula MOBO (smaller cheaper mobo previously)
2x EVGA Superclocked GTX 680's

Even with this rebuild, I wasn't happy with the lack of support for SLI. In BF4 in particular, although my max fps was over 140, it would frequently drop to 35. Running one didn't yield the same performance but it was stable without ridiculous drops at least.

I'm frustrated with the idea of games just ignoring $500AUD worth of my PC and have decided I'd prefer an extremely high end card rather than running two moderate high end cards in SLI in the hope to avoid poor optimization for SLI.

About 6 months ago I loaned one of my 680's to my gf so I'm only running one at the moment. I was initially looking at the Titan X (as the Z is WAY too expensive) but it looks like the 980Ti is very close in performance and significantly cheaper.

What are your thoughts friends?

(Keep in mind I just want to max out 1080p with at least 4xAA and keep the drops above 60fps in the latest AAA games with hopefully sufficient future proofing. My machine was rebuilt so as not to throttle an SLI setup).

Aside from poor optimization from various titles the only thing which seemed to genuinely challenge my rig (when I was running the two 680s) was running anti aliasing on the recent Tomb Raider reboot. With the new Tomb Raider I'm anticipating the demands to be even higher so I want to be able to keep up WITH anti aliasing and everything running max at 1080p.


 
Solution
ShakedG
The 980ti should be able to max out any AAA titles, and IMO the Titan X is not worth nearly double the price. One of the key differences is that today's AAA titles use very VRAM heavy AA, and so the 3 (or was it 4?) GB that the 680s have are not enough for 1080p with decent AA. The 980ti has 6GB of VRAM which should be just right for the most demanding games even with SSAA (the only currently supported true AA in Rise of the Tomb Raider, unfortunately no MSAA).
So in conclusion, you can't really go wrong with the 980ti
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ShakedG

ShakedG

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The 980ti should be able to max out any AAA titles, and IMO the Titan X is not worth nearly double the price. One of the key differences is that today's AAA titles use very VRAM heavy AA, and so the 3 (or was it 4?) GB that the 680s have are not enough for 1080p with decent AA. The 980ti has 6GB of VRAM which should be just right for the most demanding games even with SSAA (the only currently supported true AA in Rise of the Tomb Raider, unfortunately no MSAA).
So in conclusion, you can't really go wrong with the 980ti
 
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ShakedG

ShakedG

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He said he wanted to play AAA titles, with high AA. The 970 doesn't have enough VRAM, or GPU power to max out 1080p with AAA titles. Maybe at medium-high with postfx AA, but with true AA the 980 can barely handle it.
 
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R

Rookie_MIB

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Jul 27, 2013
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The 980ti would be the way to go if you're looking for a balance between price and raw performance. The Titans are only a few percent better (3-5%) while being about 75% more expensive. You're really paying for that little bit of extra 'top end'.
 
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guanyu210379

guanyu210379

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Mar 30, 2007
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GTX980Ti is a small budget overkill for 1080p, GTX970/R9 390 is the better solution.
For 1440p, GTX980Ti/Fury X is your only option for AA games. (alternative GTX970s on SLI)
GTX980 is a mix bottle, sometimes only 15% faster than GTX970 sometimes 40%. GTX980 is not that good in term of price/performance.
Titan X? too expensive, poor price/performance value. (worse than GTX980 in that term)

Do not worry about VRAM if you are playing on 1080p. 3.5GB is plenty. Even Witcher 3 uses below 3GB on 1440p.
Only very few games use more than 3.5GB on 1440p, on 1080? almost no games out there, not even the VRAM hungry Shadow of Mordor.
Those blabbering about not having enough RAM on 1080p only emphasizing those extremely few games.

GTX970 however has already issues delivering fps above 40 with all maxed and activated Witcher 3 @1080p settings plus ENB mod. Not because of the VRAM but because GTX970 is simply not strong enough. So far, Witcher 3 is the only game in my library which can push GTX970 to it's limit @1080p.

If you ask me which GPU, you should choose. I would say only either GTX970 or GTX980Ti.

Note:
I have been using GTX970 since October 2014. (currently using 2 since I bought XB270HU in April 2015)
Mostly playing Witcher 3 but I played Shadow of Mordor and other games too.
 
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ShakedG

ShakedG

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Have you played Rise of the Tomb Raider? It eats up your VRAM with high AA. 4 GB of VRAM is not enough for me to get a constant 60 fps with 2x SSAA, and with 4x SSAA it runs on 30-40 FPS. I agree that it is mostly because of the GPU power and not the VRAM, but the VRAM is a factor here. My point being that the 970 is starting to struggle with modern AAA titles, and that is exactly what he asked.
 
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shred_777

shred_777

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ShakedG. You seem to be really touching on the issue but thanks to everyone for your input so far. I just don't want to be in a position where I have a single moderate high end card which is JUST designed for 1080p and it starts to drop below 60fps when I push the poop out of it. And I love pushing the poop out of game appearance at 1080p.

I also figure that seeing as cards like the 980ti and titan cards are marketed as 1400 and 4k cards, they will effortlessly destroy 1080p experiences. And that is what I want.

I don't EVER want to see the lower side of 60fps. EVER.
 
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shred_777

shred_777

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This pleases me.

Looking at getting an EVGA FTW 980ti
http://techgage.com/article/evga-geforce-gtx-980-ti-ftw-graphics-card-review/1/
 
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ShakedG

ShakedG

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Great choice IMO
 
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rcald2000

rcald2000

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@shred_777, I think a GTX 980 Ti is an excellent idea. However are you aware that a new Nvidia GPU architecture is potentially coming out as soon as next month (April) ? I apologize if this is already been mentioned by someone else; I crunched for time and on perused the responses. Anyway, I would suggest that you hold off until April. I doubt the replacement for the 980 Ti is coming out, but perhaps the 980 replacement will at least be announced and then you could get a better idea of what the roadmap will look like for the next Nvidia architecture; Pascal. But if you're determine to not wait it out then go for the 980 Ti. That'll be a great upgrade to your two 680's in SLI. Also selling those two 680's on Ebay should recoup the majority of your investment in the 980 Ti or future 1080 Ti. Good luck.

By the way, the "777" in your handle, is that in reference to the Boeing 777? I'm only curious because I'm taking private pilot lessons and I have an interest in commercial jets and their propulsion. Be cool.
 
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shred_777

shred_777

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Thanks for the heads up. As you said though it takes a while for anything more than the reference models to come out. I'd imagine I'll be waiting a while. In any case whatever I buy will be outdated sooner or later. I figure that the best you can do is to future proof as much as possible. If you see any flaw in my logic though, I would welcome your perspective.

PS: Nah "Shred_777" is an old handle of mine online and I've just stuck with it. But I do appreciate the craft of piloting and all things airborne -with the exception of disease and mosquitoes.
 
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rcald2000

rcald2000

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Cool. I love EVGA power supplies and graphics cards. If I had a choice, removing price from the equation, I'd get the Classified. But honestly the FTW is just as good for my purposes. I lowest EVGA model number for the 980 Ti that I would buy is the 4995. I think their company has the best support, as I talk with them regularly.
 
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