Pixel power required for triple surround Asus ROG Swifts - GTX970 Triple SLI vs GTX980 Dual Sli vs Titan X

[Shockedskink311]

I'm looking at upgrading to a triple Asus ROG Swift set up or similar 2k G-Sync 144hz screens.

In terms of getting decent frame rates at those resolutions what is the best route to go down. Games in question are Assetto Corsa, Elite: Dangerous (worst game name ever) and BF4 etc.

GTX970 Triple SLI
GTX980 Dual Sli
Titan X

All come out at around £900 in the UK

I have been unable to find meaningful comparisons between all 3 on and 2k G-Sync, surround, high refresh set ups.

What are the pros and cons of each set up?

Not interested in 4k, much rather have high refresh rates any day at 2k

My PSU and rest of PC won't be an issue in running any of these set ups

 

[davidarad02]

none of those options are able to power 3 RoG swift's. those options could power only one of those.
from those options, the GTX 980 SLI is the best, as the 970's in tri SLI are really hot and noisy, and the titan X is really overpriced compared to the 980 SLI.
also, the titan X comes only with the stock cooler, and the 980 comes with several different options.

 

[doubletake]

Gonna have to agree on this, when it comes to surround/eyefinity, more cards is better, there's just no getting around the fact the more pixels you're pushing, the more hardware you need to throw at the problem. My Titan X isn't even sufficient in most newer games for my 3x1080 @ 120Hz setup. Will be picking up a second one just because of that.

 

[Shockedskink311]

Thanks for the replies. Yeah I was really hoping this wouldn't be the case. So what can power a set up of 3 Swift's at 60fps+

 

[ZeTechKing]

Maybe 2-3 way 980s, because scaling gets worse, or something like a 8gb r9 290x vapor x in 2 way sli. Cuz if u want to run alot of pixels, you need alot of vram.

 

[SameerD]

I'm debating the same setup. I think you can eliminate the GTX 970 triple SLI option. Because how would you take advantage of G-Sync? If I'm not wrong, G-Sync is only available on Display Port. If you have triple GTX 970s, you have exactly one Display Port as the other 2 cards' outputs are disabled. That leaves you with the other 2 options (Dual SLI 980s or Titan X). I think I'd prefer going with single GTX 980 and a single ROG Swift to begin with, then scale up and add the additional monitors as well as a secondary GTX 980. That way, I can take advantage of G-Sync as well as get decent frame rates (I'm not that particular about anything above 60 Hz) at 2K resolution. Please correct me if I'm wrong somewhere.

 

[doubletake]

Please correct me if I'm wrong somewhere.

You're wrong in that a reference 970 carries the regular Maxwell output layout of 3xDP, 1xHDMI, 1xDVI-D. Only some vendors offer their cards with the older Kepler layout (1xDP, 1xHDMI, 1xDVI-D, 1xDVI-I).

 

[chenw]

Triple Swifts has 33% more pixels than a 4k screen (a 4k screen is only 2.25x more pixels than 1440p), so you are looking at around 25% less fps than a 4k resolution. SLI Titan X can somewhat manage (though not very well) 4k, but even then it's not guaranteed. You will need something more powerful for 1440p surround.

980 and especially 970 is ill-suited for this task.

 

[SameerD]

Please correct me if I'm wrong somewhere.

You're wrong in that a reference 970 carries the regular Maxwell output layout of 3xDP, 1xHDMI, 1xDVI-D. Only some vendors offer their cards with the older Kepler layout (1xDP, 1xHDMI, 1xDVI-D, 1xDVI-I).

Oh! I did not know that. I use an Asus Strix GTX 970. Most of the other cards that I saw offered the same outputs. So I assumed that all GTX 970s have the same layout. I felt really cheated to see that even 960s have triple DPs, although they lacks the power to push those many pixels.

 

[chenw]

MSI's 970 only has 1 DP output, whereas Gigabyte and I believe Asus have 3 DP's.

I felt a little cheated too, but considering that MSI was the only non-reference card I had access to at the time that did NOT come with a backplate, I called it even.

 

[Ovve1234]

can two 980ti's power this system at a good fps for example games like gta v and battlefield?

 

[JUICEhunter]

I was going to say if one titan x is on the table why not go 980ti SLI, you can start with one figure out what settings to use and than kill it with the 2nd when you feel you're ready.

 

[doubletake]

lol because when OP started this thread, the 980Ti wasn't out yet.

 

[JUICEhunter]

lol because when OP started this thread, the 980Ti wasn't out yet.

Damn anyone who bumps super old threads instead of starting a new one! I really have to start looking at the dates more not my first offence but it has been a while.