can you tri sli 970s?

From what i remember reading, 970 can go Tri SLI and the 980 can do quad SLI
 
Here's official mention that the GTX 970 supports 3-way SLI:

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-970/specifications

Looking at Nvidia's specs for the 600 series and later 3-way SLI is a feature for the GTX 660 Ti and higher in the 600 series, and the GTX 760 and higher in the 700 series.

4-way SLI (four single-GPU cards) is an x80 or higher flagship feature. Nvidia's specs for the GTX 780 Ti. Titan and Titan Black are odd, saying only "SLI-Ready" and not saying if they are 3 or 4 way SLI capable, but we know the Titan does 3-way SLI and the Titan Black does 4-way SLI, and I found mention elsewhere of people doing 780 Ti 4-way SLI, so I'm going to go ahead and assume they can all do 3-way and 4-way SLI.

Dual-GPU cards such as the Titan Z and GTX 690 are, of course, only capable of Quad SLI (two dual-GPU cards).
 
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You can 3xSLI 970s, but... Why would you? You is better off with 2xSLI 980s.
 
Looking at Nvidia's specs for the 600 series and later (I didn't bother looking further back), 3-way SLI is a feature for x80, x70, and x60 Ti cards, but not for x60 cards or lower, meaning the GTX 660 Ti and GTX 760 Ti have 3-way SLI while the GTX 660 and GTX 760 do not. Presumably, that will mean a GTX 960 Ti would have it but a GTX 960 would not.

Edit: and 4-way SLI (four single-GPU cards) does seem to be a x80 flagship feature. Nvidia's specs for the GTX 780 Ti. Titan and Titan Black are odd, saying only "SLI-Ready" and not saying if they are 3 or 4 way SLI capable.

Just an Fyi. The gtx 760 could do Tri SLi, & there was no 760 Ti. All retail GK104 cards could do Tri SLi at the very least. The only GK104 cards that couldn't do 3X were the OEM 660s, again not retail. Otherwise correct.

You can 3xSLI 970s, but... Why would you? You is better off with 2xSLI 980s.

The price for 3X 970s would match the 980s give or take a few $ and performance in supported games would be greatly better.

Say someone mainly plays Battlefield 4. 3x 970s would give you a much better gameplay experience than 2x 980s. Again the price/perf of the 970 will come out on top.

OP. Yes. You. CAN!
 
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Just an Fyi. The gtx 760 could do Tri SLi, & there was no 760 Ti. All retail GK104 cards could do Tri SLi at the very least. The only GK104 cards that couldn't do 3X were the OEM 660s, again not retail. Otherwise correct.



The price for 3X 970s would match the 980s give or take a few $ and performance in supported games would be greatly better.

Say someone mainly plays Battlefield 4. 3x 970s would give you a much better gameplay experience than 2x 980s. Again the price/perf of the 970 will come out on top.

OP. Yes. You. CAN!

970 triSLI would be about 10% faster than 980 SLI in one or two games, if you only look at FPS, but in reality most games have terrible implementation of triSLI or none at all. Even if it's supported your frame pacing will be worse than SLI making for a less smooth experience.

Look at this review with 980s. SLI scales pretty well. Trisli scales well on occasion, most of the time it doesn't scale and is in reality making the game play worse since frame pacing is worse with triSLI. http://us.hardware.info/reviews/562...s-hardwareinfo-gpu-performance-score-20142015

Albeit this article is a little old, look at frame pacing for tri-SLI titans vs. SLI titans. http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...marked-4K-Resolutions/DiRT-3-999-Level?page=2
 
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Both of what we said is correct.

If someone does their homework and research one or the other could be for them. As usual less cards will give you better compatibility and better single card performance. But again say your fav game scales well, it could be worth it. Alls I'm sayin.

Some people aren't as susceptible or notice higher frame times as others. That's one of those things where you may not know till you try. I also recall seeing an article way back that showed better frametime with 3x SLi vs 2x.

Your first link is an amalgamation of games. Some people don't play all games in their "gpu score" list.
 
While researching the edit of my post above, I found Nvidia's announcement of the GTX 780 Ti. It includes a chart which says that the GTX 780 Ti has 4-way SLI while the Titan, 780, 770, 760, and 680 all have only 3-way SLI. At least some of these are definitely wrong (see the links in my post above).
 
Simple answer: yes.

Slightly more complicated answer: yes, but tri/quad-SLI is notoriously buggy, while dual-SLI is more widely supported (yet still finicky).
 
Technically speaking the 970 can do quad sli, but its not officially supported, so its an artificial limit imposed in the drivers
 
Ill be running 5 monitors in portrait.

I thought 3 cards would smooth out micro stuttering etc
 
Ill be running 5 monitors in portrait.

I thought 3 cards would smooth out micro stuttering etc

Yes there is some evidence that it can help smooth out micro stutter. Though in your case with all the monitors its an interesting situation.

I assume money is not an issue here. Imo then 980s would be best if you want to hold onto them for a long time. But since you are running 5 monitors you may want to upgrade to 8Gb cards when they are released.

Tri 970s might be the course for ya but there isn't anything in the way of 970x3 reviews at the moment. Maybe wait a week or two.
 
970 triSLI would be about 10% faster than 980 SLI in one or two games, if you only look at FPS, but in reality most games have terrible implementation of triSLI or none at all. Even if it's supported your frame pacing will be worse than SLI making for a less smooth experience.

Look at this review with 980s. SLI scales pretty well. Trisli scales well on occasion, most of the time it doesn't scale and is in reality making the game play worse since frame pacing is worse with triSLI. http://us.hardware.info/reviews/562...s-hardwareinfo-gpu-performance-score-20142015

Albeit this article is a little old, look at frame pacing for tri-SLI titans vs. SLI titans. http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...marked-4K-Resolutions/DiRT-3-999-Level?page=2

Great links thanks, very interesting. Seems like 4x is rarely useful, half the time or better it's actually worse than 3x, and 3x is only useful in a few games at Ultra HD. It's a shame the scaling isn't better beyond 2x; 4k and 144Hz 1440p certainly would benefit. That said I wish they had included some 1440p results.
 
Yes there is some evidence that it can help smooth out micro stutter. Though in your case with all the monitors its an interesting situation.

I assume money is not an issue here. Imo then 980s would be best if you want to hold onto them for a long time. But since you are running 5 monitors you may want to upgrade to 8Gb cards when they are released.

Tri 970s might be the course for ya but there isn't anything in the way of 970x3 reviews at the moment. Maybe wait a week or two.

970's are cheap enough they will hold me over till titan 2 or big boy maxwell 980ti or whatever they call it.

. i can either setll them off to family members or friends.

i should mention my monitors are 144hz.
 
Yes there is some evidence that it can help smooth out micro stutter. Though in your case with all the monitors its an interesting situation.

I assume money is not an issue here. Imo then 980s would be best if you want to hold onto them for a long time. But since you are running 5 monitors you may want to upgrade to 8Gb cards when they are released.

Tri 970s might be the course for ya but there isn't anything in the way of 970x3 reviews at the moment. Maybe wait a week or two.

AFAIK, Nvidia's surroundview does NOT support 5 screens. (Unless something changed with the release of the 900 series). Surroundview supports gaming across 3 screens, with an optional 4th screen as a peripheral display. If you have your heart set on 5 screen gaming, you'll have to stick with AMD.
 
AFAIK, Nvidia's surroundview does NOT support 5 screens. (Unless something changed with the release of the 900 series). Surroundview supports gaming across 3 screens, with an optional 4th screen as a peripheral display. If you have your heart set on 5 screen gaming, you'll have to stick with AMD.
The configurator on the GeForce website suggests that SLI GTX 970 and 980 support up to 5 monitors in Surround.

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/surround/system-requirements
 
Then again, according to that tool, 970's and 980's don't support 3D Surround in any configuration, including single gpu, which is false. So don't take that tool as 100% accurate.
 
Then again, according to that tool, 970's and 980's don't support 3D Surround in any configuration, including single gpu, which is false. So don't take that tool as 100% accurate.
That's why I qualified that statement by saying it "suggests" :p. It still lists maximum supported resolutions in multiples of 3. Maybe it's another forthcoming feature in the drivers... I don't ever plan on going multi-monitor, so not brave or rich enough to try myself :eek:.
 
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