Worth it?

[Olgaline]

About to buy a new GFX card, I'm split between two Asus Nvidia cards:

1. ASUS Strix GTX970-DC2OC-4GD5
http://www.asus.com/dk/Graphics_Cards/STRIXGTX970DC2OC4GD5/

2. ASUS Strix GTX980-DC2OC-4GD5
http://www.asus.com/dk/Graphics_Cards/STRIXGTX980DC2OC4GD5/


The price difference is roughly £200 and while I'm in no doubt as to wich card is better, I am very much in doubt as to weather or not it's worth it in comparison. Initial gutt feeling says it isn't...thoughts?

 

[Raven]

Not at the moment.

There will be a new generation with us "soon™" or at least a new generation of AMD cards so I would imagine prices of current tech falling.

*Though you can always be waiting for the next gen

 

[caLLous]

The 300 series is so close though, it's well worth putting off the decision for a couple of weeks (they're supposed to announce at Computex in the first week of June I believe, or maybe at E3 for the higher end cards). My monies are ready for a 390X.

 

[TdC]

I have two of the 970GTX cards, and frankly they're beasts. the 980GTX is even more beast, but is also quite enthusiastically priced and draws more power.

 

[Olgaline]

The 300 series is so close though.

While I'm sure it'll have an impact on prices of the 290 & 295 I'm not as confidant it will do so on the Nvidia cards,
at least not in any significant way...10-20 bucks maybe but not a whole lot more..or?

As for playing the waiting game @Raven? That road is endless!

 

[caLLous]

Well, yeah, but I was recommending waiting for the 300 series because, especially with the higher-end cards and at higher resolutions, you will get significantly better performance* for your money.

*if leaked benchmarks and performance claims etc all turn out to be accurate.

 

[ECA]

Wouldn't bother with the 980, you get an extra 5fps in some games, woo. Sli 970s is more performance/money.

 

[TdC]

what @ECA said. atm I've got all my SLI woes sorted, and everything is just lovely

 

[Olgaline]

Any thoughts on the two cards going forward to Dx12? as in will Sli 970 still be superior?

 

[Scouse]

Any thoughts on the two cards going forward to Dx12? as in will Sli 970 still be superior?

DX12 in about 5 years time when there's some games for it.

Fucking consoles fucking everything up

 

[TdC]

Any thoughts on the two cards going forward to Dx12? as in will Sli 970 still be superior?

tbh I would go out on a limb and say the 970GTX in SLI is the most bang for your buck you'll see until about half way in to 2016

 

[fettoken]

Sorry for this quick hijack, but anyone have a spare Geforce 7xx or Radeon 29x i'd be interested to take off their hands! Be willing to pay ofc.

 

[Olgaline]

Got the 970

But since I'm not as rich as Teeds I'll have to wait get the second card in June/July for the SLi

 

[Overdriven]

If you SLI then 970x2 is better than a single 980 (Evidentially, taking price into consideration) - However, if you hold out 2-3 more weeks (Post E3) the 980TI Is coming out, which should drop some other prices a little.

With the 3XX series out soon too, it could be worth waiting.

(I'm probably jumping to nVidia when they release the TI as AMD are being twatish with drivers recently)

 

[TdC]

Got the 970

But since I'm not as rich as Teeds I'll have to wait get the second card in June/July for the SLi

dude, check out my post in the Witcher 3 thread about turning off in-game AA / overriding it from within the Nvidia control panel. Given my results with W3, I am very much inclined to faff about with other games. I've played a lot of Metro2033 and such, and the remastered game is absolutely killing when you turn up the in-game AA. Very much inclined to check out what happens. I'll keep you updated

 

[TdC]

ok, so I have found out that the Nvidia CP is not all-powerful. There is some trickery going on where games built on specific engines will or will not allow the control panel to override or enhance settings.

if, for example, you have any game on the Unreal series of engine, or the Cry-Engine, your options of setting AA outside the engine are very limited. If you're interested in faffing about, your best bet in that situation is to give the DSR settings a go and hope you have enough beef in your machine to make it work. DSR at 2x is effectively AA with some texture enhancement thrown in for good measure. You *can* turn on FXAA and Gamma, because those algorithms don't have to know about the objects in the rendering of the frame, just the end result. Thus they can be applied outside the engine's control.

 

[Olgaline]

Cheers. i'll look into it,

 

[TdC]

Tbh I'd go with whatever combination looks best and performs well. With W3 I was astounded by the performance. Last night I tried Metro2033 and it seems that game is just terrifically not optimized for SLI, or that the " Redux" version has textures or settings that just hate my 970GTX's or AMD CPU or something, and bumping the AA up from "0.5" (whatever that means) to "2x" is like a 20FPS performance hit. What I eventually tried was DSR 2x, FXAA on and no in-game AA, but I found I had to drop the "Quality" setting from V. High to High to have any kind of stable frame rate. So, like I said, it's either-/-or really.

I then experimented with Wolfenstein TNO and learned that that game, or specifically the iD5 engine just hates SLI and will not play with it at all. As standard I run the game with everything maxed out and have around 45FPS or so at my native rez. I tried faffing outside the game having the CUDA code run on the 970 not in use, but none of that made any kind of impact on the frame-rate at all so I reverted back to Nvidia's own settings for the game. If I want 60FPS in W:TNO it seems I'll just have to either bump down the quality or lower the rez.

That's enough for today. I have a reflection report to write now lol -.-

 

[Scouse]

So, if you had a grand to splurge what would you build right now?

I'm thinking of wanging something together purely for two things - games and virtual machines. The VM's mean I'm probably looking at an i7 for the CPU (a 5930k?) and I won't be gaming at above 1920x1080 'cause that's what my telly runs at - but I do want to run things at a bazillion fps ('cause I'll need that for when I get the rift).

I'm not hugely fussed about running SLI either tbh - but I figure the biggest advantage there would be for multi-monitor high-res setups anyway?

 

[ECA]

Wouldnt bother going X99 for the 6 core. You probably don't need more than an i5, and it certainly doesn't help fps going higher.

I'd just get a Z97 motherboard, an i5 4690k or not if you're not ocing, 8/16gb of ddr3 2133 and a gtx 970.

 

[Scouse]

Wouldnt bother going X99 for the 6 core. You probably don't need more than an i5, and it certainly doesn't help fps going higher.

I'd just get a Z97 motherboard, an i5 4690k or not if you're not ocing, 8/16gb of ddr3 2133 and a gtx 970.

Not enough cores for what I want in the i5 tbh and no hyperthreading - 6 cores, 12 threads in the i7. I understand it's total useless overkill from a purely gaming perspective tho - and I'll prolly be sticking 32Gb of RAM in the thing.

The 970 may be a goer tho. I just haven't kept up on GFX card performance as I've not had to upgrade because of consoles holding everything back. A single 970'd run everything in ultra at high FPS at 1920x1080 then?

 

[Raven]

There is little point in an I7 for purely gaming. Decent enough if you do other work with your PC though.

 

[Scouse]

There is little point in an I7 for purely gaming. Decent enough if you do other work with your PC though.

Aye - VM's...

 

[TdC]

So, if you had a grand to splurge what would you build right now?

for whatever I wanted? most likely SSD's and RAM dude. only thing that's really worth it really.

 

[leggy]

So with DSR your processor

A single 970'd run everything in ultra at high FPS at 1920x1080 then?

Popular games maybe but I doubt it for games like Witcher 3, GTA V and metro redux (the latter seems like a shit port though). Might be wrong but I'm only going on experience. I typically have to make concessions with AA and what not to get up to 60fps. The 970 is a better card but I haven't bought get one because I doubt it'd give me what I want (ie the same as what you want). Might wait for the 390x

 

[ECA]

GTA V the 970 will easily run 1080p ultra @ Solid 60fps, also 1440p, it's only @ 4k the 970 won't give you 60fps solid.

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/jasonevangelho/files/2015/04/1080p-1440p-Very-High-1940x1416.png

 

[leggy]

Not with AA. Simply not true.

 

[leggy]

Maybe shitty FXAA which makes no difference

 

[caLLous]

Also those benchmarks are at Very High, not Ultra.

 

[TdC]

@ECA is like a shifty televangelist when it comes to lauding 4K ;-)