At the moment my build is pretty much the following:
i5-2500K, Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz RAM, Asus Sabertooth P67, Samsung EVO 850 500GB, an old Hitachi 500GB HDD and an MSI gtx 970.
I will be changing my PC to i7-6700K, Corsair Vengeance LPX 2400MHz, MSI Gaming M7 motherboard, Corsair RM850 PSU, keep the SSD and put in a Western Digital Black 2TB HDD and keep my GTX 970. While I am at it and shopping for the new parts, is it worth it getting an other GTX 970 for SLI since it's not really an expensive card to begin with?
If you want to be able to max out games then yes! But do keep in mind not all games support Crossfire/SLI.. "most of them do". It would be better if you sold your 970, added money you were gonna use to buy a second 970 and got a 980 Ti instead. Single 980 Ti performs about equal to 970 SLI. You get more VRAM and won't have to deal with SLI.
If you want to be able to max out games then yes! But do keep in mind not all games support Crossfire/SLI.. "most of them do". It would be better if you sold your 970, added money you were gonna use to buy a second 970 and got a 980 Ti instead. Single 980 Ti performs about equal to 970 SLI. You get more VRAM and won't have to deal with SLI.
This, single GPU always better than Crossfire / SLI since it takes less watt and generate less heat - to be added to what @insane_metalist already said about not all games support SLI/Crossfire and you'll get more VRAM.
You don't have to change your MOBO to do SLI/Crossfire so if you want to save the costs, you can pick up another 970 =)
If you want to be able to max out games then yes! But do keep in mind not all games support Crossfire/SLI.. "most of them do". It would be better if you sold your 970, added money you were gonna use to buy a second 970 and got a 980 Ti instead. Single 980 Ti performs about equal to 970 SLI. You get more VRAM and won't have to deal with SLI.
Actually 2 970s perform quite a bit better than a 980ti if the game scales well which most of the really demanding ones do.
And before you try to compare a oced 980ti to non oced 970s keep in mind the 970s can oc just as well, I've got mine at a comfortable 1530mhz.
But there are some games that don't support SLI or take a while to release support for SLI so there is a downside.
If you had no GPU I would say go for a 980ti but you already have a 970.
if you can't wait for Nvidia's newest gpus out spring next year and need the performance make sure the games you play support SLI and get another 970.
If the games you want to play don't support SLI then sell your 970 and get a 980ti.
My advice is wait for the newest GPUs out next year.
Some games won't make use of more than 2-3GB of VRAM right now when going to 1440p. Other games eat up VRAM like it's Cookie Monster in a cookie store.
Usually most games run around 2-3GB of VRAM for me, but I know that one specifically eats up all 6GB of VRAM when ran at 2K DSR - Shadow of Mordor. I can only venture to guess that this'll become the norm especially when the next line of GPUs come out. I was amazed at how much VRAM Shadow of Mordor eats up. When I remove DSR and play at 1080, the VRAM sits around 2-2.5GB.
If you haven't used SLI before you need to weigh the pros and cons and see if a SLI setup is for you:
Pros:
Great performance leap over a single card setup (of course, depending on the GPUs you're comparing) on games that have good SLI drivers/support
Hook up monitors galore! Though, this is really isn't as big of an issue since the 6xx series. On my old 570s (even the 580 had this issue) I could only connect 2 monitors to one GPU. If you wanted 3D or 2D surround back then, you needed 2 GPUs.
Cons:
Generates more heat (top card will run 5-10C hotter over the bottom) unless you have a water cooling setup
Draws more power
Not all games support SLI (this isn't as common as it was 3+ years ago). So the game runs off one GPU instead of two.
Not all drivers work well with SLI. I ran into a problem with my 8800GTS 512MB cards years back. Driver 182.50 was the only stable driver for my setup for 9 months (this isn't a common thing, but it can happen).
You will come across a game that just won't work with SLI. You'll have to actually disable SLI - but this is only a minor inconvenience.
Generally costs more over a single high end GPU
You're limited by SLI performance due to driver releases and the game itself (not as much of an issue as it was years past)
So, weigh the pros and cons (clearly the con list is greater, but that doesn't mean it should be a turn off for using Crossfire or SLI). I ran SLI for 11 years. I used 7600 GT PCIE, 8800GTS 640MB (Step-Up program used from EVGA to get 8800GTS 512MB), GTX 280s and GTX 570s.
I contemplated running 2 970s in SLI, but instead I opted for 1 high end card. I went with the 980Ti (Zotac 980Ti AMP! Omega). It has a decent factory OC and can take an extra 100-150Mhz on the Core and memory without batting an eye. It has 6GB of VRAM so I can run games on 5760x1080 or 2K/4K DSR.
Just some food for thought before you make your decision.
At the moment my build is pretty much the following:
i5-2500K, Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz RAM, Asus Sabertooth P67, Samsung EVO 850 500GB, an old Hitachi 500GB HDD and an MSI gtx 970.
I will be changing my PC to i7-6700K, Corsair Vengeance LPX 2400MHz, MSI Gaming M7 motherboard, Corsair RM850 PSU, keep the SSD and put in a Western Digital Black 2TB HDD and keep my GTX 970. While I am at it and shopping for the new parts, is it worth it getting an other GTX 970 for SLI since it's not really an expensive card to begin with?
My opinion is hold off.... I expect to see the next generation of NVidia cards within maybe 6 months which promises to be a huge leap.. And if directx 12 is true, you could still sli your brand new next gen NVidia card with your 970..
Hard to say, UE4 and id tech 5 don't support SLI. On the otherhand there's a lot of deals going around for 970s, so the games that do support it will run a lot better.
Some games won't make use of more than 2-3GB of VRAM right now when going to 1440p. Other games eat up VRAM like it's Cookie Monster in a cookie store.
Usually most games run around 2-3GB of VRAM for me, but I know that one specifically eats up all 6GB of VRAM when ran at 2K DSR - Shadow of Mordor. I can only venture to guess that this'll become the norm especially when the next line of GPUs come out. I was amazed at how much VRAM Shadow of Mordor eats up. When I remove DSR and play at 1080, the VRAM sits around 2-2.5GB.
Lately games have been eating VRAM like crazy indeed. I noticed even @ 1080P newer titles like GTA V and BOIII already use 3.9GB - 4GB. Nearly two years ago games used 3.9GB - 4GB @ 1440P.
Some games won't make use of more than 2-3GB of VRAM right now when going to 1440p. Other games eat up VRAM like it's Cookie Monster in a cookie store.
Usually most games run around 2-3GB of VRAM for me, but I know that one specifically eats up all 6GB of VRAM when ran at 2K DSR - Shadow of Mordor. I can only venture to guess that this'll become the norm especially when the next line of GPUs come out. I was amazed at how much VRAM Shadow of Mordor eats up. When I remove DSR and play at 1080, the VRAM sits around 2-2.5GB.
Lately games have been eating VRAM like crazy indeed. I noticed even @ 1080P newer titles like GTA V and BOIII already use 3.9GB - 4GB. Nearly two years ago games used 3.9GB - 4GB @ 1440P.
I think usage around 3GB of vRAM will be the norm for a while unless devs start pushing past console limitation more often.
Most of the time the devs use the same assets and at most a minor texture res bump like with AC Unity.
I am rocking 2 970s that I got at release and haven't had any "major" stuttering issues while gaming at 1440p.
Black Ops III had issues at max 1440p until I edited the ini file which solved a memory cache issue then it ran smooth.
Note: even people with the GTX 980ti GPUs were getting stuttering in Black Ops III.
The only time I could get any stuttering in GTA V if I start going crazy with AA and the settings in that game are a bit over the top.
GTA V ran smoothly maxed out at 1440p if I didn't raise the MSAA higher than 2xMSAA which was fine when I mixed it with SMAA.
Similarly AC Unity ran smooth maxed out at 1440p so long as I didn't go over 2xMSAA but that was when the game first released and I have not tried it after it received a bunch of updates.
Shadow of Mordor maxed with ultra textures did have some issues when it first released but was quickly fixed for me and the only way now to replicate a scenario with stuttering is to quickly run across the map then turn around and repeat which I never really did and if I did the stutter was over in the blink of an eye and wouldn't happen again until I replicated that scenario.
The ultra textures barely showed any difference to begin with even in screenshot comparisons I only noticed slight differences like the roots on the walls.
Can't really think of any other games I had stuttering issues with. The exceptions were from just raising MSAA too high when at 1440p.
I have over 450 mods in Skyrim with tons of high res textures and even then it is a smooth experience.
Currently playing The Witcher 3 and it's one of the best looking games IMO and rarely goes above 3GB in vRAM at 1440p with settings forced beyond ultra.
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