1080p - 970 or 980?

S

stm

Limp Gawd
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Jan 2, 2013
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Based on benchmarks it looks like the 970 oc'd would be a killer 1080p card. Pondering MSI 970 4G, Gigabyte G1, or Asus STRIX 970 or a stock 980 (haven't researched brands). Any compelling reasons for a 980 instead at 1080p? I don't buy video cards often.
 
Wouldn't even consider GTX 980 tbh. At a $230 premium it isn't worth it. Get a 970, any 970, OC the hell out of it and get off to the races.
 
Exactly. No point wasting money on the 980 for 1080p, but if you really must put down some extra dough, grab another 970 for SLI goodness.
 
Get a 980. It's tough to get 120FPS on any 1080p. What 1080p do you have? 1440x1080 or 1920x1080?
 
With DSR you can downscale from 4k if you want (given it's not in SLi yet). Really does a great job as AA. Especially in games with grass and such. I run BF4 at 200% resolution scaling and 2x MSAA with my 980 at around 60 FPS.. AC4 maxed only gets me around 60 FPS at 1920x1200. Dirt 3 downscaled from 4k with 4x MSAA ran at 100 FPS. No jaggies!

All the suggestions above are valid.
970 is great value. Basically 780ti performance at $330-350
970 Sli is good value too if you don't mind the nuances of multi GPU
980 is 12-30% faster than a 970 for $200 more. I wanted the fastest available without the hassle of SLi so I went this road. Hoping to avoid the upgrade itch.
 
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rabidz7 said:
No, I mean 1440x1080. Not everyone is dumb enough to use crap, 16:9 LCDs. I don't know if OP has a proper 1440x1080 CRT or an excessively-wide 1920x1080 LCD.
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I use the latter, 1920 X 1080 on a 40" and 120" screens. Watch more movies than game, hence the format.
 
rabidz7 said:
No, I mean 1440x1080. Not everyone is dumb enough to use crap, 16:9 LCDs. I don't know if OP has a proper 1440x1080 CRT or an excessively-wide 1920x1080 LCD.
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Says the guy with 16:9 monitors in the systems in his signature, except one 8:5...
stm said:
Based on benchmarks it looks like the 970 oc'd would be a killer 1080p card. Pondering MSI 970 4G, Gigabyte G1, or Asus STRIX 970 or a stock 980 (haven't researched brands). Any compelling reasons for a 980 instead at 1080p? I don't buy video cards often.
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If you're monitor is capable of 120-144Hz, get two 970s. If your monitor is only 60Hz, get only one. One 970 is good enough for up to 1440p @ 60Hz in most games using high settings. Unless you're looking to benchmark or use a 4k display, there is really no compelling reason to go with the 980 at a $220 premium.
 
Armenius said:
Says the guy with 16:9 monitors in the systems in his signature, except one 8:5...
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On my gaming PC, my CRT failed and I am looking for a new one. The monitor I am currently using is an emergency backup that usually goes in the closet. 20" ACDs are 1680x1050 and 16:10/8:5. My PowerBook is also 1680x1050 and 16:9/8:5. I have only one 16:9 display, and that is only temporary.
 
Armenius said:
If you're monitor is capable of 120-144Hz, get two 970s. If your monitor is only 60Hz, get only one. One 970 is good enough for up to 1440p @ 60Hz in most games using high settings. Unless you're looking to benchmark or use a 4k display, there is really no compelling reason to go with the 980 at a $220 premium.
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One 980 costs $100 less than dual 970s and comes without all the issues SLI causes.
 
rabidz7 said:
No, I mean 1440x1080. Not everyone is dumb enough to use crap, 16:9 LCDs. I don't know if OP has a proper 1440x1080 CRT or an excessively-wide 1920x1080 LCD.
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Interesting, you seem to have a crap excessively wide 1920x1080 lcd in your sig.
 
zacrobmer said:
Interesting, you seem to have a crap excessively wide 1920x1080 lcd in your sig.
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On my gaming PC, my CRT failed and I am looking for a new one. The monitor I am currently using is an emergency backup that usually goes in the closet.
 
Never thought someone would get so fire up over aspect ratios....

Besides wide helps if you use a computer for productivity reasons.
 
rabidz7 said:
One 980 costs $100 less than dual 970s and comes without all the issues SLI causes.
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For $100 more you're getting ~50-60% more than a single 980 at 1080p. Most popular games support multi-GPU nowadays. Frame time variance in SLI is better than it has ever been with Maxwell. The only real "issues" with SLI are more power draw, more heat, and a narrower tolerance for overclocking. Most issues people bring up with SLI (2-way, at least) haven't been issues since the Tesla architecture.
 
Armenius said:
For $100 more you're getting ~50-60% more than a single 980 at 1080p. Most popular games support multi-GPU nowadays. Frame time variance in SLI is better than it has ever been with Maxwell. The only real "issues" with SLI are more power draw, more heat, and a narrower tolerance for overclocking. Most issues people bring up with SLI (2-way, at least) haven't been issues since the Tesla architecture.
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I've been reading a lot of grief in the threads on this forum and others. I'm sure it'll get resolved eventually... but don't act like SLI is all rainbows and sunshine all the time. Some games I want to play in the near future are actually worse with SLI (Bioshock Infinite), ect.

https://forums.geforce.com/default/...y-lower-voltage-than-the-other-driver-bug-/1/

I'd prefer a single 980 at 13,100 3dMark than 2x 970s at around 16,000 3d Mark. Plus if the BIOs mods ever come out I can (most likely) OC my one card higher (%wise).
 
Dayaks said:
I've been reading a lot of grief in the threads on this forum and others. I'm sure it'll get resolved eventually... but don't act like SLI is all rainbows and sunshine all the time. Some games I want to play in the near future are actually worse with SLI (Bioshock Infinite), ect.

https://forums.geforce.com/default/...y-lower-voltage-than-the-other-driver-bug-/1/

I'd prefer a single 980 at 13,100 3dMark than 2x 970s at around 16,000 3d Mark. Plus if the BIOs mods ever come out I can (most likely) OC my one card higher (%wise).
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It's true that there are some games that don't work well with SLI. It's never going to be perfect with the current GPU->CPU interface, but I also think there is a lot of outdated information or even misinformation out there with regards to SLI that makes it seem worse than it actually is. The issue you linked is currently a real problem that I am dealing with myself, but this is most likely a driver issue that will be easily fixed from a user perspective by simply updating a driver whenever a new one is released.

Also... 3DMarks? Really? I've seen those scores floating around, and those are cumulative scores that include the CPU-bound tests. You have to look at the graphics score to get a real picture of the performance difference. In the case of 970 SLI it's around 20-21k compared to around 15k with a single GTX 980. Never mind the fact that I wouldn't give any credence to 3DMark scores when considering gaming performance.

Since you mentioned Bioshock Infinite...
bioshock_1920_1080.gif

= 53.325% more performance than a single GTX 980, which falls in line with my stated 50-60% more performance.
 
rabidz7 said:
Get a 980. It's tough to get 120FPS on any 1080p. What 1080p do you have? 1440x1080 or 1920x1080?
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Irrelevant. Either way the difference would be minimal and 120FPS was not directly mentioned, nor is it necessary. Gaming @ 1080p on a single graphics card is still a long ways off before 120FPS is easy for all games.

rabidz7 said:
One 980 costs $100 less than dual 970s and comes without all the issues SLI causes.
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SLI, while not my cup of tea, has improved drastically on the past few years. While it's still a pain in the ass the efficiency can be upwards of 90-95% compared to a modest 10% improvement from a 970 > 980 for $230 more. It's a horrible price > performance ratio. If the difference was a solid 25% stock from 970 > 980 I'd say go for the 980, but realistically it's a bad buy for a lot of people.
 
Armenius said:
It's true that there are some games that don't work well with SLI. It's never going to be perfect with the current GPU->CPU interface, but I also think there is a lot of outdated information or even misinformation out there with regards to SLI that makes it seem worse than it actually is. The issue you linked is currently a real problem that I am dealing with myself, but this is most likely a driver issue that will be easily fixed from a user perspective by simply updating a driver whenever a new one is released.

Also... 3DMarks? Really? I've seen those scores floating around, and those are cumulative scores that include the CPU-bound tests. You have to look at the graphics score to get a real picture of the performance difference. In the case of 970 SLI it's around 20-21k compared to around 15k with a single GTX 980. Never mind the fact that I wouldn't give any credence to 3DMark scores when considering gaming performance.

Since you mentioned Bioshock Infinite...
bioshock_1920_1080.gif

= 53.325% more performance than a single GTX 980, which falls in line with my stated 50-60% more performance.
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I see your avg FPS chart and I raise you FCAT results!
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_980_sli_review,11.html

About 30% of the time the frame rates are approximately less than 20% better than a single card for Bioshock Infinite. Anyways, you are right it's gotten A LOT better than the FCATs I was looking at from a year ago... looking at Tomb Raider/Thief the scaling is beautiful. Too bad they didn't do more FCATs on games with the 970/980s.

I was VERY tempted to get multi-GPU but was burned in the past. Far Cry 3 running terrible, BF4 had random patches that would make SLI/xfire unusable...I just wanted to skip that this go around. :)
 
Dayaks said:
I see your avg FPS chart and I raise you FCAT results!
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_980_sli_review,11.html

About 30% of the time the frame rates are approximately less than 20% better than a single card for Bioshock Infinite. Anyways, you are right it's gotten A LOT better than the FCATs I was looking at from a year ago... looking at Tomb Raider/Thief the scaling is beautiful. Too bad they didn't do more FCATs on games with the 970/980s.

I was VERY tempted to get multi-GPU but was burned in the past. Far Cry 3 running terrible, BF4 had random patches that would make SLI/xfire unusable...I just wanted to skip that this go around. :)
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Yeah, Far Cry 3 has similar frame time variance issues as Bioshock Infinite. That might be extraordinary, though, which is probably why Guru3D didn't test more games. It would be interesting also for them to show the difference in experience with SLI between Fermi, Kepler and Maxwell. Just looking at the frame time graph with the Metro 2033 benchmark and comparing it to my 780 SLI results shows significantly fewer valleys and peaks with 970 SLI.
 
Liger88 said:
Irrelevant. Either way the difference would be minimal and 120FPS was not directly mentioned, nor is it necessary. Gaming @ 1080p on a single graphics card is still a long ways off before 120FPS is easy for all games.




SLI, while not my cup of tea, has improved drastically on the past few years. While it's still a pain in the ass the efficiency can be upwards of 90-95% compared to a modest 10% improvement from a 970 > 980 for $230 more. It's a horrible price > performance ratio. If the difference was a solid 25% stock from 970 > 980 I'd say go for the 980, but realistically it's a bad buy for a lot of people.
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This.
 
So, you are asking about a gtx 970 or 980 for 1080p? I say neither. Assuming your monitor is 60 hz, both are overkill at this resolution. Instead, wait for cheaper gtx 960 or similar cards that will likely emerge in the coming months.
 
While I have been perfectly content with my 750 Ti @ 1080/60 I went ahead and bought a 144hz monitor to go along with my new 970 :D
 
biggles said:
So, you are asking about a gtx 970 or 980 for 1080p? I say neither. Assuming your monitor is 60 hz, both are overkill at this resolution. Instead, wait for cheaper gtx 960 or similar cards that will likely emerge in the coming months.
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Yes, I'll be doing 1920X1080@60. Price between a 960 and a 970 really isn't an object. Price between a 970 and 980 might be. But my current video card is an Asus 4850 - so there's a long time in between video cards for me.
 
After running both SLI and Crossfire I can tell you that in the end its not worth it. Unless you want to build a show case or run synthetic benchmarks to impress your friends, then by all means.

For example, R9 Crossfire only works in 1 game that I play, BF4. There might be a ton of games out there that support SLI or CF, but I dont play them, nor will you most likely. So at the end of the day you are looking at a single card doing most of the work...

At the end of the day you will likely not notice any difference between 40FPS and 55FPS, unless you run a counter or again, do synthetic benchmarks. You will only be able to distinguish the difference when the game will actually starts lagging, and again 40 vs 55 FPS is not something you will notice.

After having both SLI and CF, I concluded that I will never go back to that combo because of MY NEEDS. Everyone has different goals when building a system, so I cant speak for everyone else. A single most powerful card will always be the way to go.

970 vs 980 argument is the same as 290 vs 290x, if the price difference is something you can look past, then get the 980. I got 290s because of price/performance, just like the 970s are now, but again it turned out I didnt have any use for a CF setup. A single 290x would have been fine for me all along.
 
Fair enough, but for someone like me who has a 144Hz monitor, SLI/XFire is the only way to go if I want >60 frames with every single setting maxed out. And this at 1080p no less.
 
n=1 said:
Fair enough, but for someone like me who has a 144Hz monitor, SLI/XFire is the only way to go if I want >60 frames with every single setting maxed out. And this at 1080p no less.
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Only if that game support SLI/CF, If it doesnt then the point is moot.
 
n=1 said:
Fair enough, but for someone like me who has a 144Hz monitor, SLI/XFire is the only way to go if I want >60 frames with every single setting maxed out. And this at 1080p no less.
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I'm in the same boat. As I said, most games I have played support multi-GPU and have excellent scaling to go with it.
 
Igroock said:
Only if that game support SLI/CF, If it doesnt then the point is moot.
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Certainly, but this is where the "make sure it fits YOUR needs" part comes in.

For the games I play, only 1 out of maybe 30 so far had issues with SLI (Red Faction Armageddon). But because it was an old game, even a single 780M (roughtly an underclocked 660 Ti) was enough to run it maxed with about 80 frames.
 
stm said:
Yes, I'll be doing 1920X1080@60. Price between a 960 and a 970 really isn't an object. Price between a 970 and 980 might be. But my current video card is an Asus 4850 - so there's a long time in between video cards for me.
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In that case I recommend the 970 if you can find the model you want it in stock someplace.
 
If you plan on giving the system normal use which probably a good majority will. 1920x1080P gaming then get the 970. It's more than enough for that resolution. If your going to be going after 120hz 120fps gaming. Also another scenario is if you want to play with DSR at 4k down sampled to 1080P using some MFAA. The gtx 980 may be the safer bet for those odd scenarios.
 
Armenius said:
Nope. Need something modern like the Ostendo CRVD CDM43 43" 16:5 monitor from 2009. Was way ahead of its time back then.

Anyone remember the DLP version of this display that NEC and Alienware showed off in 2008? Crazy... 4 DLP screens in one curved monitor and bulky as hell.
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4:3 is better that 16:9. 2304x1728 is a whole lot better than 2560x1440, even though they have about the same number of pixels.
 
If you're complaining about a lack of vertical space, then remember that 16:9 is also 9:16. Unless you really cheap out on buying your monitor, any decent screen will come with a stand that rotates.
 
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