Going 4K - should I double up my 970gtx in SLI or go 1080?

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Tommyboyo

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I'm building a new rig and was hoping for your views on this. 4K is what I'm after and I have the option of reusing my current MSI 970 gtx and adding another in SLI for £280, or dropping that and going for the more expensive single 1080 option. The latter is obviously more pricey but the former involves buying old tech.

I'm not able to buy 2x 1080s so if the 970 in SLI is broadly comparable to 1x high end card I might go for that. If however I upgrade to the 1080 is my 970 essentially useless or can it be put to work somehow? what are your thoughts on these options?
 
The only reason I would not buy is it is using the older GDDR5 tech with only 3.5 GB of usable ram available. If it were a 980, I might consider it or if you had an AMD card with HBM. Otherwise, try to find a used 970 really cheap which would be good or stick with 1440p for now. A 1080 is good but, if you are looking for 4k 60fps all the time maxed out, it will not happen.
 
Sell the 970 and just get the 1080. You will be needing the higher vram more than just getting comparable power for cheaper with 970 sli.Keeping the 970 and using it as dedicated physx card would be the only useful thing for it really. I'd rather have the extra money towards the 1080 though than a few extra fps in the couple physx games.
 
As someone with a 1080 and a 4K monitor, I can say that one 1080 isn't enough unless you sacrifice a decent amount of image quality.
 
jedimasterben said:
As someone with a 1080 and a 4K monitor, I can say that one 1080 isn't enough unless you sacrifice a decent amount of image quality.
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agreed my 1500 980TI can't do 1440P 120hz or 4K 60hz. a 1080 is only marginally faster.

Basically get a 1080 TI or Titan XP. definitely don't go SLI (so few games actually work with it) and I wouldn't bother with a 1080 personally. If i have the cash i am getting a 1080 TI.
 
Go 1080: Im running 4K on two maxwell Titans and if a game does not support SLI, Im boned. Two 970s would piss themselves.
 
im running a single 1080 at 4k, and most games I play run fine cranked all the way up or fairly all the way. doom, no mans sky, war hammer vermintide all look fine and run fine maxed out a 4k. almost all the vr games ive picked up run fine cranked up all the way.
 
1080 rules at 4K. Obviously Titan XP would be better but I think go 1080, dual 1080, or Titan XP.
 
1080 isnt enough without some detail turn downs. My 1080 does 2100 -2150 on boost. I can 60 fps lock some titles but some such as far cry primal is not even close. Your gonna need a txp to be closer or a ti whenver that drops. Buying a 1080 now is just silly.

I had 970 sli long time ago doens't even cut it for 3440x1440 less yet 4k.
 
It all depends on the game and what you think ok FPS is. I have a 980 GTX highly OCed with it on water, and I can play a lot of games at 4k with some settings turned down. just an example, I can play DOOM at 4k with close to everything on ultra but shadows and a few other settings on high and still get 50+ fps. This is with vulkan on yes. Most games I still play at 1080p or 1440p since my TV which is 4k can do 1080p at 120hz, 1440p at 60hz and 4k at 60hz. It just depends on the game and what ok FPS is. Only reason I would say to buy a 10xx GTX card is if you have the money and are ok with spending it. SLI just plain sucks to me. If it doesn't work with a game, you just wasted your money on a 2nd gpu for no reason. From what I have seen now adays, most games do not always support it very well.
 
nycdarkness said:
1080 isnt enough without some detail turn downs. My 1080 does 2100 -2150 on boost. I can 60 fps lock some titles but some such as far cry primal is not even close. Your gonna need a txp to be closer or a ti whenver that drops. Buying a 1080 now is just silly.

I had 970 sli long time ago doens't even cut it for 3440x1440 less yet 4k.
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This, 1080 is not enough for 4k. I don't get some say it is lol, no way. Technically even a TXP is not enough for real harsh titles either but it is the closest, and second best are two 1080s.
 
SLI 970's vs. 1080 for 4K? GTX 1080 ALL THE WAY! SLI 970's will struggle quite a bit since they perform about the same as a 980Ti with less VRAM. The 1080 is by far the best choice. Just check some benchmarks.
 
thesmokingman said:
This, 1080 is not enough for 4k. I don't get some say it is lol, no way. Technically even a TXP is not enough for real harsh titles either but it is the closest, and second best are two 1080s.
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This man is right. I've been through too many GPU's in the last 2 years trying to find my desired performance level for 4k (which is to say, absolutely everything maxed at 60 fps min). I had 2 970's, then 2 980ti's, then 2 1080's, now finally 2 Titan XP's. The 2 1080's came pretty damn close but some settings still needed to be turned down. One might be able to handle 4k at high settings with a few sacrifices in quality, and some fps drops. As for your question though, I wouldn't even consider 2 970's for 4k, average vram usage in my games ranges from 5gb to as high as 10gb.
 
Had SLI in 970's at 4K and it was horrible, "4GB" or should I say 3.5GB just wasn't enough at 4K and I noticed frequent stuttering and slowdowns because of the small VRAM and the experience wasn't pleasant. Either wait for the 1080Ti or something better, though SLI in 1080's is ok at 4K, using it right now and it's fine, though SLI support isn't too spectacular these days.
 
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