[SOLVED] Gtx 980 in sli or gtx 1080?

[hatchet5891]

The main reason I'm wondering about this is that I just got a 4k monitor and have some extra money for a second graphics card. I'm just unsure if I should get a single gtx 1080 or if I should get anot her gtx 980 to run with the one I have already in sli? I have been looking at benchmarks for both but I honestly dont see a big difference in them right now since the 1080 just released. But will the 1080 help me run 4k and maybe be more future proof for future games? It seems the biguest thing going for the 1080 and 4k is the 8gb of vram. Will that help dramatically?

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Well 4GB is not enough; so really that's all there is to this.

For really effective 4K/60FPS; you want:
2x 980 Ti in SLI (4K here is doable, but not every game)
or 1x GTX 1080

[hatchet5891]

That's kind of what I was thinking, but I just wasn't for sure. I will invest in a single 1080 then. I'm not necessarily going for 60fps anyway though, the monitor has g-sync and I really only play single player games so I am fine with fps below 60fps, as long as it is at or over 30 fps i'm happy. Thank you.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

GTX 1080 has better performance then GTX 980 SLI and with 4K the 8 Gb VRAM is certainly better then 4 Gb. Some games use more then 4 Gb even with 1080p.

[hatchet5891]

Do you guys think I would benifit from using my current 980 as a dedicated physx card as well? Otherwise I will likely just sell it on ebay. I don't know much about using cards as dedicated physix cards, just read a little bit and saw an option in the nvidia control panel to specifically select a gpu for the task.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Plus there can/will be issues with SLI in a lot of games.
And if your PSU is lacking; GTX 1080 is much lower power + at higher performance for a single GPU (under 200-watt-TDP) If already had the investment into a 980 Ti for a while now, then I'd say stay there for now. But 970/980 will not be good for beyond 1440p at all, mostly due to lack of VRAM.

GTX 1080 has no real issues pulling 4K (2160p) / 50-60 FPS in most games.
And if you look at benchmarks, that was often achieved even with plenty of AA applied. Turning that down or even off would yeild better or more stable FPS averages. Cause at that high of a res, in most games it is actually still crystal clear w/ AA off, or very low.

There will also be GTX 10 Series ~ 1080 Ti and Titan as well.
1080 Ti should have around 16GB VRAM

[Azza ☠]

A single GTX 1080 would be better than GTX 980 in SLI.

The reason being you have double the memory 8GB (4GB on the SLI won't stack), plus it has double the memory bandwidth (GDDR5X vs GDDR5). Less power requirements, therefore less noise and heat levels too. SLI also depends on the game to how well it will perform, compared to the GTX 1080 which would perform well over all.

Saying that, if other people end up selling their GTX 980 for cheap and you can pick one up for a bargain/steal and you already have the room/wattage requirements, then perhaps.

[JS]

Originally posted by hatchet5891:

Do you guys think I would benifit from using my current 980 as a dedicated physx card as well? Otherwise I will likely just sell it on ebay. I don't know much about using cards as dedicated physix cards, just read a little bit and saw an option in the nvidia control panel to specifically select a gpu for the task.

Just sell it, don't waste it on physx.
You really don't need a dedicated physx card in this day and age

[Bad 💀 Motha]

PhysX card? Are people still serious with that BS?

[Azza ☠]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

PhysX card? Are people still serious with that BS?

What about Goat Simulator? Need a dedicated PhysX card for that!

[banzaigtv]

Originally posted by Azza ☠:

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

PhysX card? Are people still serious with that BS?

What about Goat Simulator? Need a dedicated PhysX card for that!

Nope. Game runs 60 fps maxed out on a single GTX 970.

[hatchet5891]

Thanks every one, you have been so helpful. I will buy the 1080 and sell the 980. Looking forward to some 4k gaming.

[Tywin]

If you arent needing the money from selling the 980, save it, DX12 can use 2 video cards without sli link, even amd and nvidia cards together. All that stopping you now is not many games using dx12. it's up to game devs to use the technology. Only one game right now does that, that I know of, and its Ashes of the singularity.

[Reactor-Critical™]

Two 980's in SLI would out perform a single 1080 in certain situations.

SLI is great for multiple screens @ higher resolutions, however, SLI (even these days) is substantially inefficient and often poses more problems than one would think.

In theory just from a logical perspective, you would think 2 cards would yield twice the performance right.....30fps with one 60fps with two. Unfortunately you will never see anywhere near that in real life. The average performance increase you could expect to see would be along the lines of 30% +/- depending on the game title, your other hardware and of course the games graphics/rendering/filtering options & resolution.

SLI would be more beneficial for slightly older GPU's.

All in all, if your not running multiple screens at 3 or 4K, then a single 1080 would suffice nicely with any game thus far @ 4K.

SLI just isn't up to par due to the way other system hardware is designed. There are too many bottlenecks still. Other components in your system would have to be re-designed/manufactured in a big way from the ground up to take full advantage of SLI and that's not expected to happen anytime soon.

Hell...just about all game developers are still coding in 32 bit. I mean...wtf...lol...how long have we had 64 bit hardware and OS's?? Come on already.

Tim

[Damian]

NONE of them.. save your $$$ and wait till 2018 and Volta.. Volta will have HBM2 and you get 20-30% more performance for 900$ than the 1080.. you need to skip 2 generations not each one.. you will lose money and gain almost no performance.

[Andrius227]

I myself upgraded from 2x gtx980's and bought a 1080. Much better. 99% of the games didnt even use both of my 980's anyway.