DX12 confusion sli etc

I don't know about you all, but all the talk around dx12 leaves me thinking i don't know what to think.
For the next year or so I'll be playing Star Wars Battlefront, Rainbow 6 Seige, and Dues Ex. All 3 i believe will run dx12. I'm looking to get a new card after my old gtx 690 died, with all the promise around sli in dx12 I'm tempted to go this routemwith say, 2 x gtx 970. But will these games actually be worth going sli. Should i pay more and get a 980ti, seen a few njce ones on these forums for sale. Or should i save a few quid and buy a Asus gtx 780ti Matrix Platinum that someone has for sale not too far from me in Ireland. The 980ti is the most expensive option, but will it be the most reliable? Will dx12 mean that 970's in sli will be superfast. Or should i save about 250 euro and go with the 780ti Matrix, which was a beast of a card.
I have a 1080p 144mhz monitor which i dont plan on upgrading in the near future.
there seems to be some many stories surrounding dx12 and dual cards etc, i haven't looked at any AMD stuff because of all the stories i read of their drivers which only seem to be released every 6 months. Am i making a mistake overlooking these. Is it true that dual cards in dx12 do not rely on graphics drivers but more dx12 itself. I'm usually well clued up on all this, but gotta be honest and say i really dont have a clue atm.
thanks

There are two versions of multi GPU in DirectX12:

Implicit, which operates exactly the same as it does now with DirectX 11.

Explicit, which relies on both the game developer to implement in code and the drivers to support the implementation. Split Frame Rendering (SFR) is just one of the possible ways explicit can be exploited.

Both cases still rely on driver support. While SFR has the potential to be faster than the AFR solution ubiquitous in DirectX 11, it isn't going to magically make all multi GPU setups magnitudes faster than what is experienced now. The most we can hope to expect is better scaling across all interconnected video cards regardless of the method used, which would result in less microstutter and lower frame times.

What about the system being able to make use of both cards ram? Is this in both versions? Has it been revealed what version if any battlefront or rainbow six will use? If the games can make usd of all the ram from 2 x gtx 970's then that's 8GB of ram vs the 6GB of the gtx 980ti.
If we're to rely on developers to implement this though, we might be waiting a long time. The effort involved for them vs the number of people who actually have sli setups means they probably won't bother too much.

Rogue007 said:

What about the system being able to make use of both cards ram? Is this in both versions? If the games can make usd of all the ram from 2 x gtx 970's then that's 8GB of ram vs the 6GB of the gtx 980ti.

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No. The oft-repeated "DX12 is totally gonna pool your VRAM and double it bro" is a silly myth. In a SFR scenario, if GPU1 is rendering the left half of the frame, and GPU2 is rendering the right, gee do ya think they're going to have textures in common since they're both rendering a part of the same scene? That means the textures have to occupy both frame buffers just like regular SLI/CF.

Rogue007 said:

Has it been revealed what version if any battlefront or rainbow six will use?

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DX11. DICE's first DX12/Vulkan game on Frostbite 4 won't be until Q4 2016.

Rogue007 said:

If we're to rely on developers to implement this though, we might be waiting a long time. The effort involved for them vs the number of people who actually have sli setups means they probably won't bother too much.

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Which is why all the people jumping up and down about DX12 techdemos showing such-and-such card being faster are doing it about 2 years prematurely. Going to be years before a critical mass developers actually design their games for DX12 (explicit), rather than tacking a few DX12 features onto a DX11 game as an afterthought, calling it "a DX12 game" and trying to cash in on the early DX12 hype train (next Deus Ex game for example).

DX12 is in it's infancy. The only game that you can play with DX12 attributes is a closed Alpha. A single GTX 970 or R9 390 will run 1080p resolutions ~60fps just fine as long as you leave the hardcore things like GameWorks effects off. If you want those on you need to step up to a 390x / GTX 980 or bigger as they suck the soul out of your frame rate. I ran the Batman benchmark with an average over 70 fps with everything on the highest settings. Of course I can't enable the hardware PhysX effects. R9 290 @1080p.

Most of what you've heard about DX12 is marketing bullshit designed to get you to upgrade to Windows 10.

There is so much misleading info around dx12. I did a Google search earlier and it was like a pick and mix.
With the gtx 690 I was able to max out BF4 and still get 85-120fps, which with a 144mhz monitor was nice. I am hoping to continue doing this with the upcoming games battlefront, rainbow six, dues ex, and the new tom clancey game whenever that arrives. Question now is do I save myself some cash and get the 780ti matrix, spend more for 2 x 970, or go all out and try and get one of the 980ti cards for sale on these forums. Would prefer the cheaper option, but don't upgrade very often so would have to last a couple of years.

jwcalla said:

Most of what you've heard about DX12 is marketing bullshit designed to get you to upgrade to Windows 10.

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They didn't need to, I left my pc turned on for an hour or so. Came back to it and it was installing it. I'd been postponing it and the time must've ran out. Was going to wait until the creases had been ironed out before installing it.

At best DX12 will be featured only in certain titles. Buying into hardware now while say the bulk of games have yet to make an appearance is something you should not do or worry about.

DX11 took a long time to get going if it is the same for DX12 then you can afford to not bother with it this year or maybe even next year (depending on the games you enjoy playing).

***
DX12 Ashes of Singularity arrives October 22nd at Steam Early Access
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/dx...rives-october-22nd-at-steam-early-access.html

Maybe you can get something used / cheap to hold you over until Pascal?

jwcalla said:

Most of what you've heard about DX12 is marketing bullshit designed to get you to upgrade to Windows 10.

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Pretty much this. While DX12 has the technical merit to be revolutionary, it seems like it would take a LOT of work to really exploit it. I'd say for the vast majority of DX12 games, it will be more of an evolutionary step.

wrong thread