GeForce GTX 970 SLI review
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Ven0m
I could see 920 limiting a single GTX 680, and even 260 SLI, when working at stock speeds. Once you bump it to like 3.6GHz, I doubt that except for a few games, you'd see much improvement with 4790K over your current setup.
Depending on your CPU, mobo, and cooling, I'd expect it to reach 3.5-4.2GHz, with 3.7GHz+ being very realistic. And this should handle 970 well, even in SLI.
Footman36
Not quite sure what went on with your 3D Mark score.
I have a pair of GTX 970's in SLI and with a 4790K (stock), I am scoring over 17,500 in Firestrike.
Nice review.
Footman36
Here is the link: http://www.3dmark.com/fs/2869732
LNCPapa
I thought I already posted a thanks for this review but I can't find it so thanks H! This review convinced me to just buy another 970 instead of a pair of 980s.
kurosuke
Just wondering......
If you had the money to get either 1 Gigabyte GTX 980 G1 Gaming
Or
2 Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming (for SLi)
Which of the two will you choose?
a Single 980 or 2 970 for SLi?
(I know the choice can be easy to some folks, but is it worth it to SLi 970? or is it more worth it to get a single 980 (with no chance of Dual SLi cause that price is just high)?, 1 thing is certain with the price of the 980, its not easy to SLi atleast two of them since they are more expensive than the 970.)
StrikeQ
I've always been a fan of single cards, which is why I'd get the 980 (Though I stuck with 1x 970 cause of $$ and only play 1080P). SLI is nice and all but always hit or miss whether it'll work for the games you play. And you always seem to have to fiddle with it or wait on compatibility patches. Just not worth the headache for me.
BigBlockTowncar
I've never tried SLI, but it seems people always moan about drivers and scaling when using SLI.
HonoredShadow
2 x 970's without question. A 980 is expensive and only 10 frames or so different to a 970. You can get 2 970's and have hardly any problems with drivers and SLI but have so much power to destroy a 980 by a long shot and are paying the same amount as what 1 780ti used to be not to long ago.
LNCPapa
People don't always moan about SLI - everyone else who has it working just don't have much to say because they're busy playing.
Valken
If you have less than a 4K monitor, I would get 970 SLI. That is an incredible bang for the buck right now.
If you have a 4K monitor, or plan to buy one, I would wait a little bit for AMD to come out with their next gen within 3-6 months AND for Nvidia to improve their drivers.
We want to see where (multi) gpus can push 4K with a little bit of AA can hold SOLID 60+ or dare I dream 120 FPS with no AA in all games.
kurosuke
Will an:
XFX Core Pro 750W PSU suffice for Dual SLi GTX 970 OC further than the stock boost 1329 + CPU at 4.6 GHz?
SLI-756
yes it will suffice i imagine.
pretty sure seeing as it's Maxwell.
Ven0m
I had similar situation when buying cards in the past. 260 SLI was basically at the same price as single 285, and the performance was not even close.
With 970/980 I'll hold back until I get high-refresh-rate monitor. With 1920x1200@60Hz, getting anything faster than the current 680 is pointless.
LNCPapa
You're not playing the right games 😉
D1RTYD1Z619
What about 4k performance with 3 way sli 970s?
Add a third card
Footman36
Perhaps an update to your results?
I truly love your reviews, one of my favorite sites on the net. Keep up the good work.
I did feel that you did the review of the GTX 970 SLI a disservice though as the results both game and synthetic are all extremely low based on my testing.
All be it you test at default settings and I may tweak my cards with a slight overclock even at default you are way behind my scores. For example I hit over 18400 in Firestorm (oc of +200 core and + 400 mem) http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3716216 and you score 13355. You have a 6 core intel cpu at 4.6 and I have a 4 core cpu at 4.6 so would have expected better results from your rig. At default my cards are scoring 15892...
In BF4 using your settings I am scoring 139fps where you are scoring 108, not sure why your scores are so much lower but I will say that this two card solution sure was worth every penny.
Thanks again for the great reviews.
Greg
Megabiv
Well the review is nearly 4 months old now. Plus Nvidia have updated the drivers since then and Dice probably patched BF4 giving better performance.
Icanium
You should not compare results from overclocked cards to cards at stock clocks to invalidate performance results..
alanm
He also said... "At default my cards are scoring 15892...". So he does have a point. The 970 scaling in the review is only around 40%. I thought it could do better than that. Not sure if there was a scaling bug in earlier drivers that was fixed later on, but either way, a 13355 firestrike is a bit low. Single 970 in review is 9568.
sykozis
That poster is using an i7 4790K clocked to 4.6ghz whereas Hilbert is using an i7 3960K clocked at 4.6ghz. That poster's CPU is around 15-20% faster, clock for clock.
That poster is using the 347.09 driver whereas Hilbert was using 344.07 drivers. There have been at least 9 driver releases since the 344.07 driver.
Hilbert was using Windows7 x64 whereas that user is running Windows8.1.
That poster's comparison is invalid. Period. Considering the hardware being compared and the difference in drivers between release and current, the noted differences are to be expected.
BTW, here's my Firestrike score at my card's default clocks.
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3728665
Only 9961.
What my card does on a modest OC...
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3772204
