Worth going from SLI 980Ti to SLI1080?

  • Thread starter Deleted member 72990
  • Start date
D

Deleted member 72990

Guest
I have dual 980Ti's, they are the Gigabyte Windforce which is a non-reference design with the 3 fans on it. They are very nice. Now that I have SLI I'm wondering if it would be better to go to a blower design to evacuate the heat out of the case rather than having two cards spooling the same air around inside the case. I see that a reference 1080 and a Windforce 980Ti are about similar in price on Amazon. Do you think it would be a smart move to sell my two 980Ti's while they still are valuable to migrate to a blower configuration of a faster card for SLI?
 
If the games that you've played support SLi, and you liked the way that SLi worked on your system, go for it!

Same stuff just more frames.
 
I have a Streacom FC12 desktop ATX case, and I have to have to have the vent panel above the video cards off so the heat can convect out of the top of the case since it can't get out the back. Looks a little ghetto that way especially for such a nice case. Hopefully with reference blowers it will shoot the air out the back and provide better circulation. I'm sure I'll be out a little bit of money but might be a nice refinement, slightly better performance, and less power usage.
 
Performance wise, even with a 4K monitor, you should be fine with 2x980Ti. not sure how much more FPS you could get out of the dual 1080 to be meaningful. if you want bragging rights or have money to burn, why not?
 
Performance wise, even with a 4K monitor, you should be fine with 2x980Ti. not sure how much more FPS you could get out of the dual 1080 to be meaningful. if you want bragging rights or have money to burn, why not?

Well, the current performance is quite nice. Part of the interest in the change is also to have better air flow performance by using a blower card instead of what I currently have - due to the case I have. Didn't know if it would help the situation.
 
If you really have the money to spare, sure, but honestly I wouldn't believe the difference to be worth it. I upgraded from a pair 970's and got 20-40% increase. I'm happy. If I'd had a pair to 980ti's I doubt I would've done it yet. I recommend waiting to see what comes out in the next year or so.
 
Just reading and posting on another topic(1060 reached 3GHz) and that reminded me of a few things.

If you really want to upgrade and are willing to wait a year or so then many(including someone from NVIDIA) have said they are going to debut something in January. If its(cough. . .cough) the next mythical TI then I would recommend either waiting for the best air cooled or a proven, reliable water cooled solution with impressive clocks(in the 2.4Ghz or higher range). With the added Vram(even if its not DDR5x or HBM2) a single card should easily rock 4k with those kind of specs. In either case it would have to be the fastest gpu clock to matter for you. In regards to Vram I've done extensive testing with mine and most things use around 6-8gb vram, at4k. 1440p drops to around 4-6gb and then there are games that will try to use as much as you give 'em(GTA V, ROTTR, DOOM). 6Gb is still a pretty good sweet spot. I read a technical interview with someone about DDR5x vs. DDR5 vs. HBM2 and there's more hype than useful performance gains. DDR4/DDR5 are plenty fast enough for most things and everything else are more bragging rights. GPU's are still the biggest source of bottlenecks.

I believe something like that would be the only credible successor to 2 980ti's and also help the presently sinking SLI ship but even then you'd only be looking at about 20% performance increase theoretically. That little gain still might not really be worth it.

I love SLI but its true the dev's really are backing away. If they come back it'd be nice but at the moment its not looking good and I've been exceptionally disappointed with NV's lack of recent support. Thankfully I've been learning about SLI bits lately and that's helped quite a bit. If you haven't yet, I'd recommend learning about SLI bits and NV profile inspector. It's a pretty easy way to optimize SLI setups even more and get some pretty impressive gains for no money at all, just some time. This could be of much greater help for you than an upgrade. It helped breathe some life into my old 970's that are now back the original build they started with(1080p setup), and help push these 1080's into a more efficient tier for the 4k/1440p I use 'em for.
 
Skip a card generation if you buy the flagship. I vote no reason to upgrade.

If you need better case cooling upgrade your case fans.
 
The fact that 980ti and a 1080 reference have the same price means pretty much nothing. Just that pricing is idiotic. A 980ti is about as good as a 1070, so a used 980ti should be below a 1070 by quite a bit. So, basically, you may be able to sell both of your 980ti cards and get a single 1080 for the price. If you actually need the performance, then go for it.
 
no.....just get a 1080ti SLI when it comes out...why invest 1200 bucks for a marginal boost?

Just reading and posting on another topic(1060 reached 3GHz) and that reminded me of a few things.

If you really want to upgrade and are willing to wait a year or so then many(including someone from NVIDIA) have said they are going to debut something in January. If its(cough. . .cough) the next mythical TI then I would recommend either waiting for the best air cooled or a proven, reliable water cooled solution with impressive clocks(in the 2.4Ghz or higher range). With the added Vram(even if its not DDR5x or HBM2) a single card should easily rock 4k with those kind of specs. In either case it would have to be the fastest gpu clock to matter for you. In regards to Vram I've done extensive testing with mine and most things use around 6-8gb vram, at4k. 1440p drops to around 4-6gb and then there are games that will try to use as much as you give 'em(GTA V, ROTTR, DOOM). 6Gb is still a pretty good sweet spot. I read a technical interview with someone about DDR5x vs. DDR5 vs. HBM2 and there's more hype than useful performance gains. DDR4/DDR5 are plenty fast enough for most things and everything else are more bragging rights. GPU's are still the biggest source of bottlenecks.

I believe something like that would be the only credible successor to 2 980ti's and also help the presently sinking SLI ship but even then you'd only be looking at about 20% performance increase theoretically. That little gain still might not really be worth it.

I love SLI but its true the dev's really are backing away. If they come back it'd be nice but at the moment its not looking good and I've been exceptionally disappointed with NV's lack of recent support. Thankfully I've been learning about SLI bits lately and that's helped quite a bit. If you haven't yet, I'd recommend learning about SLI bits and NV profile inspector. It's a pretty easy way to optimize SLI setups even more and get some pretty impressive gains for no money at all, just some time. This could be of much greater help for you than an upgrade. It helped breathe some life into my old 970's that are now back the original build they started with(1080p setup), and help push these 1080's into a more efficient tier for the 4k/1440p I use 'em for.
that 3GHz is a bench record and means nothing. It is like 5GHz RAM that is total shit.

Also dont believe any of those things like broadwell was going to be a 5GHz chip on air....low and behold....BW struggled to get 4.2GHz
 
I went through that exact upgrade path and found it really wasn't worth the investment. The 980ti's won't get you as much as you're probably hoping for on the used market, regardless of their retail price, as a 1070 is roughly equivalent in performance. I only saw a marginal gain in benchmarking and gaming with that upgrade, and the dual 1080 setup still cost me $1300 CDN after selling off the 980ti's.

Is that to say an upgrade is not worth it? NO! Especially if you game at higher resolutions, as Kyle mentioned above. Just aim for something higher than a 1080, like the 1080ti that's coming out. The extra VRAM really comes in handy at 4k, I've seen usage spike to around 9GB in some games.
 
I'd personally get a single Titan XP or 1080ti (when available).
 
9GB!! WOW! I'm sticking with 1440P, not worth it to be on the cutting edge IMO

Yeah, its kind of scary to see the overall cost increase to go to 4k or higher. I spent that last 2-3 years piecing my 4k system together. The 1080's were the last bit. I was going to wait for Ti(s) but back in Sept. I decided I waited long enough.

Going from SLI 970's to SLI 1080's still feels good. They rock 4k/50-70fps and 1440p/90-130fps with almost everything set to max. It's also true about Vram usage. I've been in a few arguments trying to point this out. Some games in 4k will cap themselves in the 4-6gb which range which has created a myth that 8GB is overkill(I disagree) while others will eat everything you give 'em. The games that like to consume Vram will also use ~6gb in 1440p but most hang in the 4gb range. All that being said, even 8GB has me a little concerned as textures/shading/etc. should gain in Vram usage in the coming years.

BTW in the realm of overkill and fantasy check out the reviews for the p5000 and p6000. Drool. . . .drool. . . . .a man can dream. One card costs as much as my whole system but talk about getting the job done!
 
Yeah, its kind of scary to see the overall cost increase to go to 4k or higher. I spent that last 2-3 years piecing my 4k system together. The 1080's were the last bit. I was going to wait for Ti(s) but back in Sept. I decided I waited long enough.

Going from SLI 970's to SLI 1080's still feels good. They rock 4k/50-70fps and 1440p/90-130fps with almost everything set to max. It's also true about Vram usage. I've been in a few arguments trying to point this out. Some games in 4k will cap themselves in the 4-6gb which range which has created a myth that 8GB is overkill(I disagree) while others will eat everything you give 'em. The games that like to consume Vram will also use ~6gb in 1440p but most hang in the 4gb range. All that being said, even 8GB has me a little concerned as textures/shading/etc. should gain in Vram usage in the coming years.

BTW in the realm of overkill and fantasy check out the reviews for the p5000 and p6000. Drool. . . .drool. . . . .a man can dream. One card costs as much as my whole system but talk about getting the job done!
techpowerup has reviewed memory usage in every titan release and several other cards and as of a year ago 4GB was enough for all games and only a few used >4GB but there was no difference between 4GB and 8GB of VRAM.


just go google techpowrup reviews and you'll see there is almost no difference. Games that use 8-12GB of VRAM work the exact same on 4GB of VRAM. They are just programs to fill it up if it is free....because it is full doesn't mean all that is is 100% needed!
 
techpowerup has reviewed memory usage in every titan release and several other cards and as of a year ago 4GB was enough for all games and only a few used >4GB but there was no difference between 4GB and 8GB of VRAM.


just go google techpowrup reviews and you'll see there is almost no difference. Games that use 8-12GB of VRAM work the exact same on 4GB of VRAM. They are just programs to fill it up if it is free....because it is full doesn't mean all that is is 100% needed!

I've read those and many other reviews as well(its kind of frightening how much time I spend reading 'em and their comment sections). I'm not denying the facts and mostly agree. There's no doubt that GPU clocks are the real concern. My main point is that as texture packs and more bells + whistles are added to games they may end up hitting that 6-8+GB/4k with greater detrimental effects. The only thing that is truly working against that theory is that most dev's are primarily focused on console optimizations and that will hold back the Vram issues.

Off the top of my head I'm not aware of any games that are truly designed for 4k yet. If you know of one I honestly would be interested in reading those reviews. Most 2015-2016 do look great but when I read a quote from CD project asking if they are planning a 4k remaster for Witcher 3(even after Cyberpunk) and answered no that kind of gave me a shock. The game already looks amazing(uses 4-8GB) but its hard to believe it wasn't necessarily designed for 4k. I think I may have also read a similar one for ROTR, but I'm not positive on that one. It's even more shocking when most 'remasters' for 2010-2014 games are only updating to 1080p. Gaming at 1080p has already been around for nearly 10-15 years. When 4k really starts to hit its stride in possibly the next 2 years or so I think the Vram issue may be of greater concern but as I said that also will depend on how much focus goes into the consoles vs PC optimizations. Up scaling seems to be the current strategy and who knows how long that will continue to be the norm.

The bottom line is that my recommendation for bjornb17 was to just get the fastest most reliable single Ti or whatever is next and not worry so much about the Vram(size or speed).
 
I've read those and many other reviews as well(its kind of frightening how much time I spend reading 'em and their comment sections). I'm not denying the facts and mostly agree. There's no doubt that GPU clocks are the real concern. My main point is that as texture packs and more bells + whistles are added to games they may end up hitting that 6-8+GB/4k with greater detrimental effects. The only thing that is truly working against that theory is that most dev's are primarily focused on console optimizations and that will hold back the Vram issues.

Off the top of my head I'm not aware of any games that are truly designed for 4k yet. If you know of one I honestly would be interested in reading those reviews. Most 2015-2016 do look great but when I read a quote from CD project asking if they are planning a 4k remaster for Witcher 3(even after Cyberpunk) and answered no that kind of gave me a shock. The game already looks amazing(uses 4-8GB) but its hard to believe it wasn't necessarily designed for 4k. I think I may have also read a similar one for ROTR, but I'm not positive on that one. It's even more shocking when most 'remasters' for 2010-2014 games are only updating to 1080p. Gaming at 1080p has already been around for nearly 10-15 years. When 4k really starts to hit its stride in possibly the next 2 years or so I think the Vram issue may be of greater concern but as I said that also will depend on how much focus goes into the consoles vs PC optimizations. Up scaling seems to be the current strategy and who knows how long that will continue to be the norm.

The bottom line is that my recommendation for bjornb17 was to just get the fastest most reliable single Ti or whatever is next and not worry so much about the Vram(size or speed).

int he future sure but currently it isn't an issue and by time they added stuff that actually uses the RAM it wont matter because you wont even be able to run it lol
 
int he future sure but currently it isn't an issue and by time they added stuff that actually uses the RAM it wont matter because you wont even be able to run it lol
I wholeheartedly agree. It's ironic, I've scrimped and saved over the last 10+ years to upgrade and build the rig you see in my signature(the old build listed in my bio was where that one started) and before that a P4 that over 5+ years I was able to max out. Now I'm slightly cutting edge but waiting on game devs to catch up but by the time they do I'll need to upgrade again. Oh, well its ebb & flow of the cycle.

p.s. That server build of yours is a beast.
 
I wholeheartedly agree. It's ironic, I've scrimped and saved over the last 10+ years to upgrade and build the rig you see in my signature(the old build listed in my bio was where that one started) and before that a P4 that over 5+ years I was able to max out. Now I'm slightly cutting edge but waiting on game devs to catch up but by the time they do I'll need to upgrade again. Oh, well its ebb & flow of the cycle.

p.s. That server build of yours is a beast.
Thanks. I still have to fix snapRAID...i got a super bad batch of HDDs :/

See if you game at 1440P 120hz or 4K 60hz Natural Selection 2 can barely maintain 120hz in my build and at times it does dip in certain maps and areas. War Thunder I can't maintain 120hz 1440p and a 1080 is only like 10ish% faster which wouldnt even do it!

So amny games i have are either single thread limited or still GPU limited and i dont even play cutting edge games. I don't understand where people say games need to catch up decides be multi thread and support SLI :/

Hell RCT3 is like 30FPS at 4K because CPU is so badly single thread limited. Luckily that new one came out. Planet coaster or something which was actually made by frontier. I am dying to try it but too cheap to pay for a game that isn't a hard copy. If i pay for a lisence stuck to an account and i can only play on 1 PC at a time ever though i own 1100+ games and i should be able to play each game on a seperate PC......you get my point. I refuse to pay 40-60 bucks for a game. $5 is my max...i'll wait 5 years. Unless it is a must have game and 15ish is my max lol. Fuck DRM licenses.
 
Ok, so I decided to hold off on the upgrade. I only bought my second 980 TI recently, haha. Gonna focus on an HTPC build next instead.
 
Thanks. I still have to fix snapRAID...i got a super bad batch of HDDs :/

See if you game at 1440P 120hz or 4K 60hz Natural Selection 2 can barely maintain 120hz in my build and at times it does dip in certain maps and areas. War Thunder I can't maintain 120hz 1440p and a 1080 is only like 10ish% faster which wouldnt even do it!

So amny games i have are either single thread limited or still GPU limited and i dont even play cutting edge games. I don't understand where people say games need to catch up decides be multi thread and support SLI :/

Hell RCT3 is like 30FPS at 4K because CPU is so badly single thread limited. Luckily that new one came out. Planet coaster or something which was actually made by frontier. I am dying to try it but too cheap to pay for a game that isn't a hard copy. If i pay for a lisence stuck to an account and i can only play on 1 PC at a time ever though i own 1100+ games and i should be able to play each game on a seperate PC......you get my point. I refuse to pay 40-60 bucks for a game. $5 is my max...i'll wait 5 years. Unless it is a must have game and 15ish is my max lol. Fuck DRM licenses.

Yeah I've been gaming since TRS80, 8bit Atari days and seen the pendulum swing back and forth from consoles to PC. For a time I actually stopped PC gaming during PSone/2/N64 days. It was a golden age for consoles. It definitely seems like that is happening again with this years gens but I wouldn't call it a golden age but it will be interesting to see how it affects the gaming industry as whole in the next couple of years.

I don't know if I've ever had 1100+ but its got to be somewhere around there. When it comes to threaded performance, well its a sad, sad, nightmare. I also do 3d printing/rendering/video editing. It awesome when you use a program that's optimized for it. When not, well I've done benches with my older systems and seen them hold their own with my newest tech(cool but also depressing).

I've got Planet Coaster, overall a beautiful game, in 4k it can be pretty stunning. Not the most efficient engine though, and man does it eat up your time!. I was lucky enough to find some online posts about using Arkham City profile for SLI support in NV inspector. It made a huge difference for both my current systems(970'S and 1080's), seriously about a 20-40% fps increase with max settings.
 
Ok, so I decided to hold off on the upgrade. I only bought my second 980 TI recently, haha. Gonna focus on an HTPC build next instead.

Honestly I think that's your best bet.

I kind of did the HTPC build with my older parts(2600k, Z68, 16gb, couple HHD's, 2xG1 970's). I bought a new case for 'em alongside new PSU, WIFI card, and SSD for OS. For ~$600 I've recycled it all back into a slightly cutting edge 1080p system that can push 80-100fps in most things.
 
Yeah I've been gaming since TRS80, 8bit Atari days and seen the pendulum swing back and forth from consoles to PC. For a time I actually stopped PC gaming during PSone/2/N64 days. It was a golden age for consoles. It definitely seems like that is happening again with this years gens but I wouldn't call it a golden age but it will be interesting to see how it affects the gaming industry as whole in the next couple of years.

I don't know if I've ever had 1100+ but its got to be somewhere around there. When it comes to threaded performance, well its a sad, sad, nightmare. I also do 3d printing/rendering/video editing. It awesome when you use a program that's optimized for it. When not, well I've done benches with my older systems and seen them hold their own with my newest tech(cool but also depressing).

I've got Planet Coaster, overall a beautiful game, in 4k it can be pretty stunning. Not the most efficient engine though, and man does it eat up your time!. I was lucky enough to find some online posts about using Arkham City profile for SLI support in NV inspector. It made a huge difference for both my current systems(970'S and 1080's), seriously about a 20-40% fps increase with max settings.
RCT3 in 4K is pretty neat too
 
RCT3 in 4K is pretty neat too
Thanks for the heads up. I'm on steam w/ same name. I just got it $4.99 platinum edition via winter sale. As soon as I'm done with Planet I'll move onto it in spare time. BTW I agree with you about DRM and pricing its just that Steam got me before I found out about GOG.
 
Rainbow Six Siege also has a 4k texture pack, it's about the same size as the game itself haha
 
I would hold off for next cards from AMD and NV, your current sli setup is still really fast.
 
Just noticed these two threads were back to back on the forums...
Isn't it ironic...
GPU Irony.jpg
 
Back
Top