GTX 970 SLI

N

Nicholars

Gawd
Joined
Jan 10, 2012
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Is Nvidia SLI still a lot worse than a single card? I want SMOOTH framerates, no microstuttering etc. Would I be disappointed if I upgraded to 970 SLI? It would cost me slightly less than a 980ti or an AMD fury card and in DX12 it should be able to use all the memory (7Gb) and possibly run smoother, but I don't know I have never used SLI.

I read a lot about microstuttering and not as smooth as a single card, but is that improved now or will it have microstuttering or lagging etc. ? If it is going to have microstuttering in every game then I will not get SLI, but if it is as smooth as a single card 99% of the time then it would be worth getting.

Can anyone who uses these cards in SLI tell me how close it is to a single card, obviously FPS is much better but how smooth is it?
 
Depends on the game. Newer games seem to be better. WITCHER 3 for example is fantastic scaling - I get 97%/98% on my 970's. But certainly can't give a guarantee of being "as smooth as single card 99% of time" since you haven't stated what games you plan on playing and everyone is different in this regard. As a rule I've stayed away from SLI for the past few generations, skipped it for the 6xx and 7xx series since I used to see inconsistent performance, but GTA5 and Witcher 3 performance with 2 cards dragged me back again. In general they seem to have improved SLI in drivers and the newest games pretty well.

Also I wouldn't count on the pooled memory rumors of DX12 that keep getting regurgitated. Even if it turns out to be true or partially true, games will still have to be coded for it. So you wouldn't see the benefits for a long time. People assuming they'll install DX12 and suddenly their games library will magically be using the sum of the VRAM on multiple cards as one pool - these people are a little naive.
 
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DPI said:
Depends on the game. Newer games seem to be better. WITCHER 3 for example is fantastic scaling - I get 97%/98% on my 970's. But certainly can't give a guarantee of being "as smooth as single card 99% of time" since you haven't stated what games you plan on playing and everyone is different in this regard. As a rule I've stayed away from SLI for the past few generations, skipped it for the 6xx and 7xx series since I used to see inconsistent performance, but GTA5 and Witcher 3 performance with 2 cards dragged me back again. In general they seem to have improved SLI in drivers and the newest games pretty well.

Also I wouldn't count on the pooled memory rumors of DX12 that keep getting regurgitated. Even if it turns out to be true or partially true, games will still have to be coded for. So you wouldn't see the benefits for a long time. People assuming they'll install DX12 and suddenly their games library will magically be using the sum of the VRAM on multiple cards as one pool - these people are a little naive.
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Thanks for reply, pretty much confirmed what I already thought about SLI... yeh I was not expecting old games to work on the pooled memory but maybe newer ones... Hmm I think I will skip SLI and get a single card then, I was hoping that they had almost perfected it by now.
 
Runs fine in all latest games for me. No micro stutters. Only games that had issues were UBI games and Dragon Age Inquisition. All of which has been resolved.
 
I have two 970 HOFs in SLI (first time ever going multi-GPU because of cost and concerns like you voiced) and play the following at 1440p@144: BF4, DOTA2, SC2, D3, and Heroes of the Storm.

Since I got my second card I've also gone back through my backlog and started replaying cards that could get close to taxing my system. I've been playing: Borderlands 2, Dues Ex, Batman series, Witcher series, Company of Heroes 1 &2, and DOW2 (actually does tax the system more than everything so far listed except for BF4).

I haven't noticed micro-stuttering in my new or old titles.
 
OP I think you will be much happier with a single gtx 980 ti. Its not much slower overall than 970 SLI and eliminates the worry of any real or potential SLI issues. Many people say SLI is fine but its a fact that there will always be more issues with it. A few games games such as Wolfenstein dont even support SLI at all. Heck unless something has changed, the Unreal Engine 4 does not support SLI and it is going to be a pretty common DX 12 engine.
 
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