Buy 980 Ti or wait for Pascal?

thebufenator said:
Oh look, leldra white knighting for Nvidia in another thread.

OP, def wait for at least a week or two to see what happens.............
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Yeah, I'm paid by NVIDIA to defend their terrible performance and their subpar engineering efforts

I am waiting on a friend of mine to benchmark AotS with and without overclocks on his 970, will post when I have them
 
I keep seeing posts saying: "This summer" "This year" "A couple of months",etc for the release of a consumer grade pascal based card graphics card. Yet we have not received any official announcement of a card let alone an official release time frame for said card. So maybe I'm missing something here but isn't it a little too early to be telling people to hold out for pascal when no one knows an official launch/release date? (Yes I did see the nvidia page with pascal tech specs)


I watched the GTC keynote yesterday and wanted to hear something official other than AI, AI, AI, AI, self driving car tech, more talk of AI, oh look a pascal based processing unit, let's talk more about AI. But unfortunately was rather disappointed. (AMD conferences are just as bad IMO)


My plan is when it comes time to buy another video card next month unless I hear some sort of announcement I'll either buy another 980 ti to replace the one I sold to pay taxes, or I'll give the Fury X a shot
 
Draconian said:
I keep seeing posts saying: "This summer" "This year" "A couple of months",etc for the release of a consumer grade pascal based card graphics card. Yet we have not received any official announcement of a card let alone an official release time frame for said card. So maybe I'm missing something here but isn't it a little too early to be telling people to hold out for pascal when no one knows an official launch/release date? (Yes I did see the nvidia page with pascal tech specs)


I watched the GTC keynote yesterday and wanted to hear something official other than AI, AI, AI, AI, self driving car tech, more talk of AI, oh look a pascal based processing unit, let's talk more about AI. But unfortunately was rather disappointed. (AMD conferences are just as bad IMO)


My plan is when it comes time to buy another video card next month unless I hear some sort of announcement I'll either buy another 980 ti to replace the one I sold to pay taxes, or I'll give the Fury X a shot
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To be fair though, you were wrong to expect anything else from yesterday's conference, a lot of people did speculate they'd announce consumer Pascal at GTC, it was never likely though - was pretty obvious from outset that Tesla will be their priority
 
Ieldra said:
To be fair though, you were wrong to expect anything else from yesterday's conference, a lot of people did speculate they'd announce consumer Pascal at GTC, it was never likely though - was pretty obvious from outset that Tesla will be their priority
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Wasn't really expecting them to announce anything as I was unaware of the conference until just a few minutes before it started. If anything my thought process was more of a "let's watch this and see what is announced, maybe a new graphics card announcement?"
 
Draconian said:
Wasn't really expecting them to announce anything as I was unaware of the conference until just a few minutes before it started. If anything my thought process was more of a "let's watch this and see what is announced, maybe a new graphics card announcement?"
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They only focused on AI and neural networks because it's a big change from before, GP100 DP performance is monstrous, but that doesn't need much advertising , everyone was expecting a big bump in DP as it was overdue
 
I still don't see that a card like the 980TI will be poor at running VR at current VR gen specs.

Is there any hope that NV will be able to enable asynch via a driver update as it seems as though it is supported by the hardware?

I guess at this point, the 980 Ti may have been the wrong choice, but I don't think a bad choice. I am a bit concerned by NV drivers based on what I am reading. I always thought NV had a better driver set than AMD but sheesh people are freaking out about the latest release.
 
HardUp4HardWare said:
I still don't see that a card like the 980TI will be poor at running VR at current VR gen specs.

Is there any hope that NV will be able to enable asynch via a driver update as it seems as though it is supported by the hardware?

I guess at this point, the 980 Ti may have been the wrong choice, but I don't think a bad choice. I am a bit concerned by NV drivers based on what I am reading. I always thought NV had a better driver set than AMD but sheesh people are freaking out about the latest release.
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I was running a 980 Ti until Monday morning and had the drivers that were released on 03-28 and had the drivers that were released before that point, no issues to speak of. I have been one of the few that has had a generally good experience with Nvidia and AMD drivers. I wouldn't let driver issues deter you from an AMD or Nvidia card at the moment.
 
I'm planning to wait... the only game I really want that looks like it might be troublesome on my GTX 670 is Assassin's Creed Syndicate, and that's mostly because it's designed to use more than 2GB of VRAM. I could probably just run it at medium or low, but I'm thinking that if I'm going to power up my graphics, I might as well wait until they can give me a chip that will do the same thing as a 980 with less power. I don't like being on the bleeding edge with hardware because you have to worry about heat and power... plus, my PSU is a few years old now and I don't want to buy a card that uses more watts than my current one. Probably it would be fine, but don't want to risk it... this computer could last me several more years if I don't wear it out.
 
Draconian said:
I was running a 980 Ti until Monday morning and had the drivers that were released on 03-28 and had the drivers that were released before that point, no issues to speak of. I have been one of the few that has had a generally good experience with Nvidia and AMD drivers. I wouldn't let driver issues deter you from an AMD or Nvidia card at the moment.
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That is reassuring. I am sure I will be quite happy with the card. I am essentially going to double my performance and that is going to be very fun.

Plus I really don't care if I feel the need to sell it later on and take a hit. I figure if I lose $200 in a year then it is still money well spent.

Hell, I have wasted money on lesser things. I own a PS Vita.....I have so much junk god help me.
 
HardUp4HardWare said:
That is reassuring. I am sure I will be quite happy with the card. I am essentially going to double my performance and that is going to be very fun... I figure if I lose $200 in a year then it is still money well spent.
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I find this to be the healthier approach in the long run. A lot of the time, the money isn't worth the grief we put into the wait vs. buy question.

Don't look back OP.
 
a 980Ti worth the money and will worth the money. You will loose some $ because, independent by new cards appearance the top cards loose them value (not percentual, but we figure big lose coz of big price) apparently quicker than mid/low-end cards
 
flatty said:
a 980Ti worth the money and will worth the money. You will loose some $ because, independent by new cards appearance the top cards loose them value (not percentual, but we figure big lose coz of big price) apparently quicker than mid/low-end cards
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wut
 
thebufenator said:
OP, def wait for at least a week or two to see what happens.............
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I really don't get the logic in this waiting more time after people already waited for GDC and nothing came out of it for consumer news. Even when the "1080" comes out, there is just going to be a good reason to wait for the "1080 Ti".

A 6870x2 configuration is basically crap,OP should upgrade and enjoy better performance now instead of playing the waiting game.
 
The 980ti is not a good investment for VR. You really need Pascal performance in my opinion, because VR is limited to one card and you can't do SLI. I would just get the biggest baddest Pascal card you can afford. I don't think VR will take kindly to frame rate drops. That is not to say the 980ti is slow, just that for next gen tech like VR I think you'll want a next gen card.

In this particular situation, with this whole new VR experience, you need to bring out the biggest guns you can IMHO.
 
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Blackstone said:
The 980ti is not a good investment for VR. You really need Pascal performance in my opinion, because VR is limited to one card and you can't do SLI. I would just get the biggest baddest Pascal card you can afford. I don't think VR will take kindly to frame rate drops. That is not to say the 980ti is slow, just that for next gen tech like VR I think you'll want a next gen card.

In this particular situation, with this whole new VR experience, you need to bring out the biggest guns you can IMHO.
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I think at the recent GDC there was an Nvidia slide that showed Nvidia VR-SLI as a supported feature...
 
Assuming Pascal is able to handle/run DX 12 better, I would most certainly wait for Pascal. Because in its current state, Nvidia cards are having a hard time with DX 12 games right now, with AMD cards running circles around Nvidia cards in DX 12. Ashes of Singularity, Hitman, and Quantum Break all run considerably better on AMD than Nvidia cards.
 
addictedto60fps said:
Assuming Pascal is able to handle/run DX 12 better, I would most certainly wait for Pascal. Because in its current state, Nvidia cards are having a hard time with DX 12 games right now, with AMD cards running circles around Nvidia cards in DX 12. Ashes of Singularity, Hitman, and Quantum Break all run considerably better on AMD than Nvidia cards.
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I wouldn't expect Nvidia to beat AMD in Gaming Evolved titles, the only time it's ever happened is Battlefield 4.
The other broken DX12 games have bigger problems right now (Quantum Break, Gears of War, Tomb Raider) to be focused on who wins in performance.

Nvidia wins in GoW and Tomb Raider, AMD wins in Hitman and Ashes. I've seen inconsistent results for Quantum Break but it's either a tie or AMD wins (haven't seen anything show a lead for Nvidia). Things will probably change in those games as new patches/drivers are released.

Since AMD is heavily focused on pushing DX12 now, for obvious reasons, it's safe to assume they will dominate all the way through Pascal. AMD will win in all of their sponsored games, it's a mixed bag for everything else. Nvidia is now fighting a battle against shitty Microsoft ports and AMD-specific optimizations. Most reviewers make a habit of skipping shitty ports in their benchmarks but considering more than half of the existing DX12 games are buggy, I hope reviewers test them anyway since it's the only performance metric we have so far.

If DX12 is going to be a mess for the next year, we should at least know which brand is handling it better.
 
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So is there a new card right around the corner? Should I sell my 980ti's?
 
i asked this same question in December and bought a 980ti and it's awesome. if pascal came out today i would not have regretted it. 4 months of goodness
 
HardUp4HardWare said:
I'm sorry, is there a solid, tangible reason AMD is somehow future proof
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After Pascal is released, nVidia is going to completely forget their 9xx series cards even existed, it's what they do. Previous gen AMD cards will continue to see improvements even after they are no longer in the spotlight. History has shown us all of this.
 
HardUp4HardWare said:
The thousand dollar question.

I am thinking about getting my rig ready for VR.


Now I want a big boy card and I don't want to skimp.


I am currently running 6870 x2 in crossfire for 1080P gaming. So I am well past due to upgrade.
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980 ti or wait for news to release....once news releases...wait some more if you dont want a 980ti. It goes in circles if you want a big boi card. ;)
 
I have no skin in the game for VR - but I do want to be able to enjoy my swanky new Dell 144Hz Gsync monitor. Got rid of the xfire 290's and my main goal is a good single card solution that will last me 2 or 3 years at least. I have no problem paying 500-600 dollars for something good. The latest tech show this past week where nvidia talked up their AI stuff? meh. I was very tempted to pull the trigger on a 980ti, but after playing around for the first time in a long time on my MSI ghostpro laptop, I can squeak by for another few months just fine with a 970m chip. Was pleasantly surprised that even at 1440p it was till smoother in certain titles it seemed. Hell, seems I have less and less time to game anyway, at work all night tonight, getting in the car and driving 200 miles to go work all weekend in our houston facility.

Best thing it seems it to just try and forget about pascal for a few months enjoy what I have and whenever it does hit drop a wad on the x80 and squeal with delight. Would it be a fair hope to say that with the huge die shrink, we might be seeing some amazing overclocking potential with Pascal?
 
GeneticWeapon said:
After Pascal is released, nVidia is going to completely forget their 9xx series cards even existed, it's what they do. Previous gen AMD cards will continue to see improvements even after they are no longer in the spotlight. History has shown us all of this.
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Unfortunately it is more complex than that.
Choosing a game where AMD can compete (what may be skewing peoples perspective is that there is a lot of games back then that were highly optimised for NVIDIA or used features-functions they excel at), the 780ti was only a bit faster than the 290x.
Being selective we can still see there are modern games that the 780ti is performing similar to when it was released against a 290x; being selective is important because many games are being designed around consoles these days and so this may be a trend why we are seeing greater divergence generally as more developer work is needed with NVIDIA hardware , along with why AMD is also performing better in DX11 in quite a few those AAA.

So a few modern games showing that the 780ti was not crippled.
The Division PC im Techniktest: Benchmarks von 17 Grafikkarten plus CPU-Kernskalierung
GTA 5 PC: Benchmarks von 25 Radeon- und Geforce-Karten plus Skalierung von 1 bis 6 CPU-Kernen
Rise of the Tomb Raider PC: Update mit neuer Benchmarkszene, frischen Grafiktreibern und CPU-Skalierung

So this breaks the theory NVIDIA is fully to blame for what is happening.
Cheers
 
So what I did is this:
I bought a eVGA 980Ti SC+ from a real cool dude from [H]. for $500. I thought that was a fair price given the condition and age of the card.

I figure I will get a good amount of use from this and prolly be able to unload when/if I upgrade.

Honestly, SO MUCH has to shake out right now that if I chose to wait I would be waiting for a very long time. Too long.

DX12 is new, VR is new, Pascal isn't even out yet. So yeah, I could wait for all that to settle, but I would be waiting a year I think.

I may even defer on VR and look for a new 2K or 4K monitor and just enjoy the 980Ti.

So yeah maybe in a year AMD Fury X will be better than this in DX12 like some benches are showing, but maybe not. Maybe Nvidia will figure things out. Don't really care because 100% of my games are NOT DX12 and even a large portion of my backlog maybe 90% are DX9.


Like someone posted here, I am running 2 6870s so I will have melting eyes when I run this regardless. :)
HOWEVER, I have to say those damn 6870s in crossfire worked fantastic and for 1080P they pumped an excellent amount of pixels.
I have been very pleased with them.
 
Always buy the latest flagship GPU every single year as soon as it launches and sell your old card. Any other way will lead to you having a slow GPU at some point of the year for some game that you won't feel like playing unless it's maxed out.

This includes selling your 1080 when the 1080 Ti launches 9 months later. It's alright because the after the Ti, the next architecture could take 15 months like the 980 Ti till now. You don't want to be stuck with a slow non-Ti 1080 for 15 months!
 
KurianOfBorg said:
Always buy the latest flagship GPU every single year as soon as it launches and sell your old card. Any other way will lead to you having a slow GPU at some point of the year for some game that you won't feel like playing unless it's maxed out.

This includes selling your 1080 when the 1080 Ti launches 9 months later.
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I would have to agree, more or less. I believe the best time to buy a flagship GPU (or any GPU) is around launch time (give or take a few months for supply issues)... buy it much later, in the middle of a cycle like this, and you'll end up being frustrated when it's obsolete within a few months. CPU cycles are more forgiving.

My philosophy is a little different, though. I committed to skipping Maxwell and waiting for Pascal after it launched, because I already had Kepler. I always either buy the new architecture soon, or commit to waiting for the next one. It takes out a lot of the guess work. I also committed to skipping Skylake. Generally, I skip every other GPU generation, and as many CPU generations as I can get away with.

The point is, make your decision at that point... because if you don't, you'll end up in the awkward position of having purchased something just before it became obsolete and feeling like you just missed getting something better at the same price point. If you go with Maxwell, you're arguably going with a 2-year old architecture at the cusp of a new release. I kicked myself pretty hard for buying a 560Ti right before Kepler was released... ended up building a whole new system near the end of the year around Ivy Bridge and leaving the Sandy Bridge system as a back up. That's when I developed my system and decided that I would research future architecture roadmaps before building a system to avoid such awful temptations and make things easier to resist.
 
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KurianOfBorg said:
Always buy the latest flagship GPU every single year as soon as it launches and sell your old card. Any other way will lead to you having a slow GPU at some point of the year for some game that you won't feel like playing unless it's maxed out.

This includes selling your 1080 when the 1080 Ti launches 9 months later. It's alright because the after the Ti, the next architecture could take 15 months like the 980 Ti till now. You don't want to be stuck with a slow non-Ti 1080 for 15 months!
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Unless you're like some of us and only buy games we actually want to play regardless of whether we can max settings or not. I think a 980TI now is still a great card, especially since it most likely will be the end of the year before we see a full pascal line released.
 
It really depends on whether you need the extra performance NOW. If you can make do then there's really no reason to upgrade.
 
trandoanhung1991 said:
It really depends on whether you need the extra performance NOW. If you can make do then there's really no reason to upgrade.
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I understand the issues here with DX12 and Asynch, but am I to assume that the 980Ti will somehow be hobbled running VR?
If a 970 is the recommended spec for Vive, I would assume, latest frenzy aside, that the 980Ti would still be able to provide a decent basis for Vive VR.
 
HardUp4HardWare said:
I understand the issues here with DX12 and Asynch, but am I to assume that the 980Ti will somehow be hobbled running VR?
If a 970 is the recommended spec for Vive, I would assume, latest frenzy aside, that the 980Ti would still be able to provide a decent basis for Vive VR.
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Pascal is meant to have reduced latency.
So tricky to say.
Cheers
 
HardUp4HardWare said:
I understand the issues here with DX12 and Asynch, but am I to assume that the 980Ti will somehow be hobbled running VR?
If a 970 is the recommended spec for Vive, I would assume, latest frenzy aside, that the 980Ti would still be able to provide a decent basis for Vive VR.
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You have to consider that with VR you'll be aiming for 90FPS minimum, higher if you want a better experience. This is on a 3K render output AFAIK (for the Rift).
 
Just purchase the 980Ti already if you have not, you will not regret it. :) (This is coming from an AMD fanboy who not only purchased one last December but, I just bought a refurb EVGA one to go SLI.) I game at 4k on my computer but, I also game on my XBox One and 360 so I am not picky, as long as the game looks good and it is fun.

trandoanhung1991 said:
It really depends on whether you need the extra performance NOW. If you can make do then there's really no reason to upgrade.
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Although I agree with you, making do just does not seem right to me. :D ;) Then again, I have never been able to go 2 x top end video cards and stay in budget until now.
 
ManofGod said:
Just purchase the 980Ti already if you have not, you will not regret it. :) (This is coming from an AMD fanboy who not only purchased one last December but, I just bought a refurb EVGA one to go SLI.) I game at 4k on my computer but, I also game on my XBox One and 360 so I am not picky, as long as the game looks good and it is fun.

Although I agree with you, making do just does not seem right to me. :D ;) Then again, I have never been able to go 2 x top end video cards and stay in budget until now.
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I did buy the 980 Ti. Should arrive tomorrow. :)

I doubt I will have any buyers remorse.
 
Got the card today from a fellow [H] member. Card looks and runs like brand new.
Incredibly quiet and awesome. Ran 3dmark and saw greater than 3 fold increase.

Will be up late tonight.
 
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