Few questions about GTX 970 SLi

[gamefriik200]

I ran out of Yahoo points and Nvidia customer service(or whatever that is) mostly work like Rockstar Games customer service so I came here, what an Surprise.

 

So GTX 970 has 4GB but 3,5GB of it is faster and 0,5GB is slower, and I have heard that if you cross the 3,5GB limit then you can see suttering. But if I would choose GTX 970 Gaming SLi then it has 7GB faster memory, but If I would still cross the3,5GB limit with SLi would I still see suttering or not?

 

 

Oh and is Cooler Master V850 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply enough for GTX 970 Gaming SLi and for i7-4790K?

Edited August 18, 2015 by gamefriik200

[Kampret]

Keep in mind that SLI and Crossfire does not combine VRAM into a single pool. It works by having the exact same copy of the data inside the master GPU's VRAM.

 

So yeah, you would see the usual issues after going after 3.5 GB. It's not like it affects the 970 that much at 1080p at the moment.

[Andreaz1]

^This, VRAM doesn't add up so you'll still only have 3.5GB of effective memory.

 

However, a V850 should be plenty to run two 970's in SLI.

[gamefriik200]

Oh f*ck THAT! GTX 980 Ti then

[sivispacem]

Actually, with W10 and DX12 it should be possible for vendors to push GPU drivers which enable proper splitting of the frame buffer, so both cards no longer have to replicate each other's frame buffer. That will mean effective doubling of the VRAM in SLI.

 

Hasn't happened yet though.

[swirler]

Considering the issues that come with SLI already, I cant see this becoming a thing for a very long time.

 

I do hate SLI, no experience with it has ever had me thinking its honestly the way to go, but before I bought a 980 Ti I did swap my GPU with my bf's 970 and purchased another 970 to see if maybe recent years had seen improvements. Graphs like this sure make it seem like theres great performance to be had

 

The reality is not what the benchmarks suggest. I tried a good dozen games and I was not impressed at all. I had to run in borderless windowed mode in many games, so straight away I was losing performance. It was also the first time I experienced micro stutter in GTA.

 

The difference going back to a single strong GPU was night and day. No messing around, no setting desktop res to a DSR mode prior to launching a game so it would work (!), no being forced into any display mode, no micro stutter....

[sivispacem]

I can't say I've ever experienced any real or tangible issues with SLI, and I've had a couple of systems using it now. Never really identified perceptible microstutter, the performance increases have always been pretty substantial and I can't think of more than one or two games I've ever had issues with. I appreciate some people do have genuine problems though.

[swirler]

Tbh, in my own mind Im immediately at odds with it, since you pay a 100% more for the extra card but its a roll of the dice as to how it'll scale. I know some games manage to squeeze a near perfect double the performance, but its a bit more of an exception than the rule. If your playing something that gets 3/4's or more you need to be pleased with that. I wasnt happy that I had to ditch full screen, so my accepting 3/4's gain had to quickly be adjusted down again.

 

Something I didnt mention (as its really unlikely to be a concern for most), if Im playing on my TV and its a game with either poor UI scaling or a lot of dialog, reading it in 4K is a nightmare, so with those titles I'd opt for 1080p, and because I had to go windowed that meant I had to adjust the desktop down before I started the game (or play it using 1/4 of the screen - obviously not doing that!).

 

At least I was able to try it out cost free, since I put the new 970 into a machine I built for someone ;p

 

The 980ti has better min fps values, making the gap between its average and its min smaller, which in turn lends to a smoother experience. Considering the cost of a pair of 970's is pretty much on the button of what a 980ti costs, its a no brainer (for me!).

[Kampret]

Always go with a higher-tier GPU before resorting to combining multiple GPU's.