What GPU setup is best: 2x970's, 1x980 ti

[michaelkm8]

Hey all,
I just built my first computer last week and am thinking about moving up the GPU already. I know it's ridiculous, but please humor me. I have a gigabyte wind-force gtx 970 right now and don't know if I want to stay with it or move up. So as the title states should I go SLI or just upgrade to a 980 ti? Reason being is that the memory thing is annoying me enough to write this post and I want to not have to do anymore shopping around for a few more years. The last computer I had lasted five years and ran all my games at medium to low setting as of this year so I was pretty happy with that. So i'll be gaming at 1080 not 4K FYI and I have the following components. Thanks for all the help.

I5 4690K Processor
Windforce Gtx 970
Evo 850 500GB SSD
16GB Mushkin 2133 MHz Ram
Gigabyte Gaming Gt Motherboard
Corsair AXI 850 Gold PSU

 

[clutchc]

I don't know how you can be unhappy with even 3.5 GB of VRAM gaming at 1080p. Have you ever monitored the amount of VRAM usage? I barely see my usage ever reach even 2 GB. And that's at max in-game settings. Maybe we play different games.

Adding a 2nd GTX 970 will be faster that a single 980 Ti. Of course, adding a 2nd 980 Ti in the future is always another option. But VRAM is not doubled in SLI.

 

[michaelkm8]

I don't know how you can be unhappy with even 3.5 GB of VRAM gaming at 1080p. Have you ever monitored the amount of VRAM usage? I barely see my usage ever reach even 2 GB. And that's at max in-game settings. Maybe we play different games.

Adding a 2nd GTX 970 will be faster that a single 980 Ti. Of course, adding a 2nd 980 Ti in the future is always another option. But VRAM is not doubled in SLI.

I understand that right now at 1080 I can play 99% of games on ultra and only use 2GB of VRAM, but my issue is that if games are now using more than half of the "good" ram on the card then what about next year? I don't want to run into the issue down the road where that is a problem. I just don't want to run into any issues for many years and that's really what I wanted to know. So I read that SLI only adds about, what, 25%-50% additional performance to the set-up? So if I just buy another gtx 970 in a few years that would probably be the better option then, as it would be less than $500.00 total cost for the two GPU's versus buying a $650.00 GPU. Thanks again.

Also these cards are only a year old so that's the other issue if so much VRAM is already being used.