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Started by zqa20 | | 28 answers
gtx 980 SLI bottleneck?
I have a 3570k and I'm wondering if this would bottleneck 980 in SLI
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October 17, 2014 8:54:14 AM

Now that I've switched from the I5 3570k to the i7 4790k, (Gtx 980 stock reference) I'm getting a good amount more in fps in some games IE Watchdogs. The 3570k does bottleneck it a bit, but I had the cpu at stock clocks. Increasing the clock might help.
September 19, 2014 6:21:56 PM

If your planning on gaming on a 1440p 120hz+ monitor then yeah 2 gtx980 would be best. 1 will do plenty good on it's own but if you have the budget and really want to then get the 2.
September 19, 2014 4:08:16 PM

depends on the game. you dont have to hit or sustain 144fps to enjoy the benefits of a 144hz refresh. if its battlefield 4 in a 64 man server going hard, you would need two if you want to keep your minimum fps above 90-100fps@1440p, probably about 110-120fps@1080p. averages will be much higher. im on a 60hz 1440p monitor and im spoiled by ips. i cannot go back to a tn based panel. if your serious about getting all this gaming horsepower, i would look into when the strobbed backlight ips high refresh 1440p gysnc panels will be coming out.
September 19, 2014 4:02:38 PM

nikoli707 said:
dgingeri said:
Well, with a pair of GTX 980s, it would be a bit more pronounced. I still wouldn't think it would be worth upgrading the CPU, though.


zqa20 said:
sigh, how much of a performance scaling loss do you think i'd see then with a 3570k@4.5?

I still don't fully understand how my 3570k could bottleneck that bad. From my understanding haswel is almost the same as ivy in terms of gaming. A 3570k@4.2 is just as fast as a 4770k so surely @4.5 I'm going to get the same experience as a haswel refresh right? I might be wrong but that's what i thought.


i wouldn't worry about it, your 3570k@4.5 is very very fast by any standard.


Thanks, do you think i'd need two 980s to take advantage a 144hz 1440p g sync monitor? or should i just go for a single 980 on a 1080p 144hz monitor?
September 19, 2014 4:02:38 PM

(double post)
September 19, 2014 3:57:51 PM

dgingeri said:
Well, with a pair of GTX 980s, it would be a bit more pronounced. I still wouldn't think it would be worth upgrading the CPU, though.


zqa20 said:
sigh, how much of a performance scaling loss do you think i'd see then with a 3570k@4.5?

I still don't fully understand how my 3570k could bottleneck that bad. From my understanding haswel is almost the same as ivy in terms of gaming. A 3570k@4.2 is just as fast as a 4770k so surely @4.5 I'm going to get the same experience as a haswel refresh right? I might be wrong but that's what i thought.


i wouldn't worry about it, your 3570k@4.5 is very very fast by any standard.
September 19, 2014 3:50:48 PM

sigh, how much of a performance scaling loss do you think i'd see then with a 3570k@4.5?

I still don't fully understand how my 3570k could bottleneck that bad. From my understanding haswel is almost the same as ivy in terms of gaming. A 3570k@4.2 is just as fast as a 4770k so surely @4.5 I'm going to get the same experience as a haswel refresh right? I might be wrong but that's what i thought.
September 19, 2014 3:35:48 PM

Well, with a pair of GTX 980s, it would be a bit more pronounced. I still wouldn't think it would be worth upgrading the CPU, though.
September 19, 2014 3:24:58 PM

dgingeri said:
nikoli707 said:
show me a game that is known to be highly threaded that can give you a quantifiable boost in fps when going with a faster processor. not horribly coded watchdogs with ridiculous driver overhead. i can definitely see small but barely noticable difference if your not running max settings at a low resolution. but in a high end game with extreme gpu demand, there just isn't enough calls to the cpu for any amount of work. ivy 4c4t@4.5ghz compared to what?.... a 5960k@5.0ghz.... maybe 4% performance loss at best in the worst case 2 way sli/cfx 980/290x setup. some games/benchmarks actually run slightly slower on x99 than they do on z87/z97, though again this is a very small hit... something like 1%.


http://www.anandtech.com/show/8227/devils-canyon-review...

It's small, but it is there.


it definitely is. but also like you said, definitely not worth uprooting an already powerful lga1155 rig to go to lga1150 for a mere 2 or 5fps, especially if your at or over 60fps@60hz. if your on a 120/144hz refresh, 105fps or 110fps will never be noticeable with the actual in game per second fps jumping from around, a gsync monitor would be much more worth it at this point.
September 19, 2014 3:12:42 PM

nikoli707 said:
show me a game that is known to be highly threaded that can give you a quantifiable boost in fps when going with a faster processor. not horribly coded watchdogs with ridiculous driver overhead. i can definitely see small but barely noticable difference if your not running max settings at a low resolution. but in a high end game with extreme gpu demand, there just isn't enough calls to the cpu for any amount of work. ivy 4c4t@4.5ghz compared to what?.... a 5960k@5.0ghz.... maybe 4% performance loss at best in the worst case 2 way sli/cfx 980/290x setup. some games/benchmarks actually run slightly slower on x99 than they do on z87/z97, though again this is a very small hit... something like 1%.


http://www.anandtech.com/show/8227/devils-canyon-review...

It's small, but it is there.

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