Worth it to go from 780 SLI to 970 SLI ??

Zinn

Zinn

2[H]4U
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I game at 1440p. Have been getting serious stuttering in Far Cry 4, and have heard that Kepler cards don't really work well in this game, and driver support is falling behind.

Would there be any benefit to upgrading? My GTX 780s are running at ~1000mhz, so performance is squarely between a reference 780 and 780 Ti.
 
though call...

if you are going to oc the 970s then yes.
 
Would be a sort of disappointing upgrade in my book - spending all that for no real appreciable performance gain and that stuttering might be caused by something entirely different. I'd check to make sure that you don't have some program or service running in the background that is causing it or that it is only FC4 related with the current driver set you are running and that all of your other system drivers/MB bios, etc. are up to date. Finally, if you really do think it is the 780's, play with some in game setting and see if turning down any of the more advanced eye candy slightly gets rid of the stutter - if so, then perhaps the upgrade would be worth it to you. I've got a pair of OC'ed, water cooled 780Ti's and while jumping to 980's would be an upgrade for me, it's not a big enough one to justify taking the plunge. I'm going to wait until the next gen hits to consider doing so. Anyway, tweaking some settings and making sure that you don't have some service or program doing something while you are gaming would be a good first step to figuring out why you are experiencing the in game stutter.
 
There is a benefit. You'll easily get a good overclock with the 970s, I'd say 10% to 20% faster and better average. I've had both. Just curious, are you using the Ubisoft downloader? If you disable the Ubisoft overlay in-game in the settings, it might help with the stuttering, as it does with Far Cry 3.

I don't know what 780s are going for, but I'd get what ever you can get for them now. $250 I guess. I recommend the Zotac Omegas for no coil whine. Good overclockers also.

Your decision is, whether you want to spend $200-$400 to upgrade. Is it worth it? I'd say so, but I like having current Gen stuff so... only you can answer your question.
 
From what I understand, the best card right now for anything above 1080p is the AMD R9 295x2. I have owned nVidia for years now and have never been disappointed, but that AMD card blows everything out of the water for your resolution. I am building a new rig and it looks like this card is for me along with a 4 k monitor. Good luck
 
Well I'm not getting an AMD card.

Thinking about going with a single GTX 980 and doing SLI later too.
 
Honestly, I don't think SLI GTX780 to SLI GTX970 is worth it. If you're going to spit out a couple hundred bucks on a new gpu set up, ge the GTX980's.

Although GTX970's are damn fine cards, it's not much of an improvement on GTX780's.. unless you REALLY need that extra 1GB of vram, but I don't think 1440p will saturate all 3GB of the GTX780. I have both a catleap and qnix, and my 780's are fine.
 
I've played the entire game and some multiplayer at 1600p with 780s at 1125mhz and I never had issues with stuttering. It's always been very minor and infrequent enough that it's never affected gameplay, so I think the real issue for you is probably in the settings you're using or maybe the driver version.
 
In terms of performance, this broadly seems like trading four quarters for a dollar.
 
It's not the same. I've seen better minimums and maximums with 970 over 780. It's significantly better, as most reviews have reported in most scenaios. The only question is how much are you willing to spend to upgrade.

It's like trading a dollar for five quarters (after winning the onside kick attempt and the coin toss). :D
 
TFchris said:
Honestly, I don't think SLI GTX780 to SLI GTX970 is worth it. If you're going to spit out a couple hundred bucks on a new gpu set up, ge the GTX980's.

Although GTX970's are damn fine cards, it's not much of an improvement on GTX780's.. unless you REALLY need that extra 1GB of vram, but I don't think 1440p will saturate all 3GB of the GTX780. I have both a catleap and qnix, and my 780's are fine.
Click to expand...

The gtx 980 is only ~10% faster than the 970 at equal clock speeds (and they both oc to about the same); definitely not worth the price gap for 99% of people.

As far as going from GTX 780 SLI to GTX 970 SLI, I'd say it would be worth it if you can get it swapped within a couple of hundred bucks or less. Anything more than that really and I'd just hold out for a single GM200 card or something else. You'd see appreciable gains in performance, as well as lower noise levels + lower heat output + higher oc'ing + whenever nvidia bothers we'll get MFAA support for SLI which is a big deal on performance too. I went through the same transition except I sold my single 780 for around $400 at the time and then upgraded to 970 SLI for a total of $650 for both cards :D... even in single-card testing it's a noticeable difference however and minimum framerates are consistently quicker.

Here's a benchmark review I found awhile ago for the GTX 970 oc'd vs the 780 oc'd and others (note the clocks listed on the graphs are base clocks; actual boost clocks are printed in the review text and noted in red by me above the charts; the OP's gtx 780's at 1ghz boost would line up with the ~900 base clock Asus 780 tested):

_____________________

http://www.reviewstudio.net/2028-asus-gtx-970-strix-oc-review-bring-the-maxwell-to-the-owl

It compares a 1228mhz GTX 780 Ti OC vs. 1300mhz GTX 780 OC vs. a 1530mhz GTX 970 OC, for the curious (boost clocks as stated in the text).

The 780 Ti in the review is stated to be running at 1228mhz boost in-game with 1975mhz memory (7900mhz qdr)
(http://www.reviewstudio.net/1179-as...iew-best-performance-dead-silent/overclocking) and you can find the same reference in the 780 OC review on their site.

BASE CLOCKS are listed by them in the graph. Boost clocks according to the review are as stated above :). This is actually the best oc-to-oc comparison between a 780 ti at good clocks, 780 at good clocks, and GTX 970 at good clocks, that I have seen yet.

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The gap in other reviews narrows a little at 4K, while remaining similar to 1080 when done at 2560x1440 resolution, keep in mind. (They have a 3dmark score in there too but list the combined, rather than GPU, score which makes it meaningless :(). The GTX 970 oc'd stacks up very favorably to the GTX 780 Ti oc'd and consistently beats out the 780 oc'd.
 
I went from a pair of reference EVGA GTX 780 SC to a pair of ASUS STRIX GTX 970, and I think it was worth it at 1440p. The experience has been subjectively much smoother in every game I have played since, even if the framerate wasn't necessarily better. Despite what many graphs I have seen say the frame pacing of SLI with Maxwell has been much better than Kepler in my experience. I would sometimes see the framerate bottom out in a few games like Metro and Tomb Raider with the 780s, causing momentary hitching. I have yet to see this happen with the 970s after 4 months.
 
Not worth unless you can get it essentially free (aka sell the 780's and with that money buy both 970's). I haven't read all of the FarCry 4 stuff on the [H] but what little I did glimpse at showed AMD suffering hard, so definitely a good choice on not going there. Kepler cards with FC4 do seem to be challenged a little more than Maxwell cards by some graphical settings within that game so it very well could be the old architecture or it could just be shoddy SLi profiles causing the microstuttering - which means upgrading won't get you anything but shiny new cards and a large pain in the ass swapping them out and selling the old.

TLDR: Upgrading is a 50/50 shot for removing the microstuttering - so unless you can get it for "free" by selling the old cards I'd wait 2-4 months for GM200.
 
Only worth it if you:
1. Want the lower power draw/heat output of the 970s.
2. Need the extra VRAM.

...imo
 
I would probably wait at this point. Dual 780s is still pretty stout, and AMD has their cards coming out in the next several months most likely. That will either force NVIDIA's hand and we'll see fully enabled GM200 boards, or you'll at least see price cuts.
 
DejaWiz said:
Only worth it if you:
1. Want the lower power draw/heat output of the 970s.
2. Need the extra VRAM.

...imo
Click to expand...

I would say this as well.

If you grab x2 970's now, then by next year (2016) you will want newer cards. Since you've done it once, you will want newer cards again by 2017. Then starts the cycle of keeping with new gen cards when you dont really need to except having new gen cards.

Turning down graphics settings may appease the stuttering, but its your choice since you have a 1440p.

All of the responses, mostly goldentiger's "I'd just hold out for a single GM200 card or something else", should give you a clue about "needing" to upgrade.
 
I wouldn't do it. I would just wait for the next wave of cards to come out and then move to a newer gpu then. You would get more bang for your buck on the next release. 2 780s is still a great setup.
 
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