upgrading need halp. Gpu and watercooling

[Twnickel315]

I currently have a evga 980 just the regular card no sc or anything. I also have an xspc water block and back plate. I am about to redo all of my water cooling and switch from regular tubing to either acrylic or petg. My questions are.. Since I already have a 980 and a water block should I just get another 980 and do sli or does a single 980ti over power the sli in most cases? Also if I were to get an 980ti will the water block from the 980 fit? I have heard mixed stories about the capability. If the waterblock doesn't fit is the hydro copper/ hybrid worth getting or should I just get my own block and install it myself?
Im currently planning on getting the acer pred x34( I have a 27" 1080p asus atm) to game on and do other stuff. 4k doesnt really interest me that much so ill be passing on a 4k monitor until later on.
Im sorry if I made this confusing im not the best at explaining myself.
1. I could sell both 980 and waterblock and get a single 980ti with sli in the future.
2. Keep the 980 and just do 980 sli.
3. I have never ran sli before. What are the benefits and disadvantages with sli over a single gpu?

 

[coozie7]

Dual GTX980s will decimate a single GTX980Ti when SLI works to its fullest so from a pure performance point of view it's the way to go but SLI has a few quirks, and not every game takes full advantage of dual cards. Although Nvidia are usually pretty sharp at keeping their SLI profiles up to date a lot of indie titles miss out as do most early access games and a lot of older titles either have no SLI profile at all or run so fast on current hardware the point is moot. With ni SLI profile, you'll be 'down' to single GTX980 performance.

SLI is also a royal pain if you go full liquid, apart from the extra heat there can be problems with connecting dual cards, more than a few out there will use dual loops in such a configuration: one for the cards, one for the CPU/MB/RAM which increases the cost and complexity significantly.

If you have the money then go for a GTX980Ti, it'll avoid the issues with SLI and simplify the liquid loop, peak performance won't be as good but the overall system will be more stable.
There are at least a couple of GTX980Ti cards with preinstalled waterblocks you can plumb directly into a custom loop, they seem to work out as being as expensive as a stock GTX980Ti+aftermarket waterblock but obviously you won't invalidate the warranty by stripping them down to install a block.

 

[Twnickel315]

Thank you for your reply! Right now money isnt much of an issue and I have been trying to find out myself which would be better for my system. I have been doing a lot of research on which is better but I cant seem to find the bad stuff about it that I want to learn about. I think right now I am just going to sell my 980 and get the 980 ti and will look into sli later on.Thank you for the help

 

[coozie7]

Main bad stuff with SLI:
It can still be a little unstable giving rise to often weird graphical glitches or even system crashes.
It needs a suitable profile which Nvidia supply through their drivers and driver updates but not every game gets these profiles.
Any game that has no SLI profile will use only one card.
Not all games can use both cards fully, even with a profile scaling varies, some games will see a nearly doubling of performance, others may only see a 25% improvement.
Power requirements, two cards draw more power and need more power leads which can clutter the case interior and may force the user into upgrading the powersupply.
Cooling can also be an issue, although that varies, in some cases where the PCI-E slots are close together the top card fans are partially blocked by the lower card, causing the upper card to run hotter.

The big plus is that it works more often than not and most of the games that have no SLI profile tend to be older titles that don't need so much graphical grunt anyway.
It's also a very effective way to boost the performance of an aging system with a lower outlay than upgrading to a single, large card.