Upgrade 970 to 980 Ti for 1440p gaming?

dave25211

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Good evening everyone,

So my brother recently gave me his old 27in 1440p monitor (catleap q270). Its not the best but it is also better than the old 1080p screen i had.

I currently have a 970 g1 gaming and it has been good for me so far for 1080p, but now with this new monitor it is struggling to keep decent frame rates at anything any higher than medium settings on the most recent game I am playing, The division. Everything else it is pretty decent running 45-60 ultra settings for the most part (some high some ultra).

I was wondering if I should buy a 980ti and sell my 970. What are your thoughts on this, would i notice a significant increase in performance or should i wait until the consumer level pascal cards come out?

I am not really interested in SLI due to the stories i have heard.

thanks in advance!
 
If yesterday's nV event was any indication, he will be waiting for quite a while (my educated guess is late Q3/early Q4. Same for AMD. Main issue is HDM2 is not available in quantity yet. Secondarily, current gen cards are still selling well: no reason for nV or AMD to push out something new that will undercut their mature, still-selling products.

Besides my ramblings, I'd say get a 980 ti or even a 390x and be happy now. Either will provide a big step up in performance, especially in newer games where >3.5GB VRAM is needed at 1440p.
 
A 980 Ti will be around 70-80% faster than the 970 and is the sweet spot for gaming at 2560x1440 at the moment. I say go for it.
 
If yesterday's nV event was any indication, he will be waiting for quite a while (my educated guess is late Q3/early Q4. Same for AMD. Main issue is HDM2 is not available in quantity yet. Secondarily, current gen cards are still selling well: no reason for nV or AMD to push out something new that will undercut their mature, still-selling products.

Besides my ramblings, I'd say get a 980 ti or even a 390x and be happy now. Either will provide a big step up in performance, especially in newer games where >3.5GB VRAM is needed at 1440p.

Based on what I heard about the event it sounds as if pascal for consumers maybe further out than we had originally heard or thought and that's why I'm thinking of doing the upgrade as of now.

What would be the best 980ti to get or are they all pretty much the same?
 
SLi isn't that painful. Honestly, it's pretty straight forward. I haven't had a problem with the last two SLi builds I've had, and I'm about to go SLi 970 in a week. Every now and then a game might be a POS with it...but just turn it off and go about your way.
 
That depends on your budget. If you can hash out the $600+ on a good 980Ti, go for it. Otherwise spend another $250 and go 970 SLI.

I had the same dilemma a few months ago, went with the 980Ti.
 
The SLI 970's will be fine. I had those before upgrading to SLI 980 Ti's. I don't know what stories you've heard but you generally only hear the bad stories cause no one posts about when their SLI cards ARE working. I've never had any issues with SLI.
 
I used a 4gb GTX 680 at 1440p for a while till i got a 980, but the 680 did just fine in most games with some settings like AO and AA lowered. I would wait for the next gen of cards before upgrading if i were you. While the 980ti is a great card, its not that huge of a jump from a 970 to warrant an upgrade.
 
I'd say if you can afford it go for it. Last month i did the same upgrade and the difference is huge in FO4 @1600p
Just make sure your PSU and case ventilation are up to the job. I had to swap one exhaust fan and modify fan profiles after the upgrade.
 
A 980 Ti offers about 50% boost over a single 970 at 1440p. If you can get a second 970 for cheap that may be the best way to go. Just watch the VRAM usage.


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A 980 Ti will be around 70-80% faster than the 970 and is the sweet spot for gaming at 2560x1440 at the moment. I say go for it.
70-80% faster is absolute nonsense. A 980 Ti is about 45-50% faster than a 970 stock to stock at 1440. A 970 typically has a little more ocing headroom too.
 
A 980 Ti will be around 70-80% faster than the 970 and is the sweet spot for gaming at 2560x1440 at the moment. I say go for it.
And this wasn't even posted on April fools day! What a joke man
 
The issue I run into though is in hitting over 3.5 vram at 1440p with the 970

Therefore I feel I need a card with more vram.
 
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I went from a 970 to a 980 for ~$100 (bought/sold used).

Happy with performance in FO4 and BF4 (vram doesn't appear to be limiting), don't see myself upgrading anytime soon. Might be a good cheap option for you as well.
 
Get the 980 ti. I had the 970 before and it just wasn't enough. Even at 1080p I had to turn down settings on the newer games to get a decent framerate. Now that I got the 980 ti I can turn up the settings and still get a solid 60.
 
If you have the funds then I would recommend getting the 980Ti. I went to a 980Ti from a 970 and it was a big difference. As far as the new cards go, I can wait because I don't plan to buy the pascal release of new cards, I want the pascal Ti version cards and that is definitely at least 5-6months after the pascal release.
 
The new cards that will release will be difficult to obtain so if I were in the OP's situation, I'd pick up a 980ti right now. I may have bad luck but my experience is that the new cards are low stock, low inventory, always sold out, high price and I normally have to wait a few months to find the card in inventory and that's after checking the usual places daily. My last major purchase was my current 295x2 and granted the thing was way more than I would ever pay at release, it took 6 months for me to find it in stock at a price I could afford.
 
I think you'd be better off waiting and playing games at a lower resolution for now. I don't think picking up the highest-end card you can get right now is a good solution, because modern cards can barely handle higher resolutions. The next generation of cards is going to be the one that can handle 4K, which means you have a pretty good shot at a future card that won't require a high-end PSU and excellent cooling in order to get decent performance.

If you buy Maxwell now, you'll be buying into a 2-year old architecture just before it becomes obsolete. At full price, no less. I mean, after Pascal comes out, the prices on 980Ti will drop quite a bit. So even if you really want a 980Ti and you're worried about Pascal having supply issues, this is the worst time to buy one. Wait until everyone starts dumping them for Pascal cards, and then pick one up cheap.

We're almost half way through this year. I'm pretty confident that Pascal will be here by 2017, and that means less than 8 months. That's not really a long time to make down with a 970... my 670 still plays most of my games well at 1080p, although some of the newest ones like Syndicate and Unity require me to turn the detail settings down.
 
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Thanks for the responses everyone, i am still debating on if i want to upgrade or not. I can get either an open box asus 980ti Strix or a msi 980 ti LE (lite edition) for about the same price ($550). both are decent deals in my opinion but like others are saying it might be best to save funds and wait for pascal release.

However upgrading now means i can wait until pascal TI comes and get a little cheaper or even upgrade to 1080 after custom PCB's are out and matured a little.

thoughts on the above two mentions cards?

MSI 980 ti gaming LE

Asus 980 ti Strix
 
Get the 980 ti. I had the 970 before and it just wasn't enough. Even at 1080p I had to turn down settings on the newer games to get a decent framerate. Now that I got the 980 ti I can turn up the settings and still get a solid 60.
What games did the 970 struggle with on 1080?
 
Just want to mention it that the rumor mill is going that pascal based cards are coming in June. Check the nvidia sub forum. Though it won't be the "full speed" version since it will be based of GDDR5 memory. I personally won't upgrade my 980Ti to a GDDR5 pascal card I'll still wait for the pascal card that has HBM. If rumors are true pascal with GDDR5 is about a 20% bump, and the HBM version will be another 20% bump on top of that. But who knows if those figures are true or not but since it's so close to June unless you really can't stand your 970, it might be worth waiting till June.
 
Hmm.. can only talk about real world stuff. Meaning got a 970,980,980TI. Lol the TI is not 70-80% faster. On one system with 970 has a 2560x1440 monitor. I dont have any problems running games maxed. Granted the 980TI is allot better and should be. But every system is different. CPU plays a big part in this. So if CPU is doing good then a 980TI will make a nice leap.

BUT since NV and AMD are going to be coming out with something soon.. if it was ME.. no way would I update now.. would wait
 
I say this all the time, essentially every time one of these buy xxx now or wait until yyy comes out. And I say this as a person who is currently using all gigbyte equipment, kbuy the EVGA 980 Ti now, and when the 1070 cards come out in June, do a step-up. You have 90 days to do it. I did it in the past several times and the step-up program is awesome. If gigbyte had a step-up program, I would almost definitely be stepping up my 970 to a 980 Ti right now, but alas they don't.
 
I'm almost ready to sell my evga 980ti for 400 and my dell 27" 144hz gsync 1440p monitor. I waited too long for this pascal nonsense. I'm just super frustrated. I mean, I like the results I'm getting, but not all across the board like I thought I would.
 
I say this all the time, essentially every time one of these buy xxx now or wait until yyy comes out. And I say this as a person who is currently using all gigbyte equipment, kbuy the EVGA 980 Ti now, and when the 1070 cards come out in June, do a step-up. You have 90 days to do it. I did it in the past several times and the step-up program is awesome. If gigbyte had a step-up program, I would almost definitely be stepping up my 970 to a 980 Ti right now, but alas they don't.

How sure are we Pascal will be out in the 90 days for a step up?

I'm almost ready to sell my evga 980ti for 400 and my dell 27" 144hz gsync 1440p monitor. I waited too long for this pascal nonsense. I'm just super frustrated. I mean, I like the results I'm getting, but not all across the board like I thought I would.

I'll take that 980ti. :p I'm thinking of waiting for Pascal, but thats helped by people asking in FS for pretty close to the falling newegg price etc.
 
How sure are we Pascal will be out in the 90 days for a step up?
Not at all sure. From all the rumors agreeing it seems very likely they'll be at least paper-launched in June, but nobody knows when they'll actually be available. Could be immediately, could be august.
 
Just deal with the lower detail levels. Next gen cards are coming far too soon to spend $600 on a 980Ti now.
agreed wait....for the love of god or anything...dont buy any highend cards right now. you can buy my 980TI when next gen comes out if you want.
 
Not at all sure. From all the rumors agreeing it seems very likely they'll be at least paper-launched in June, but nobody knows when they'll actually be available. Could be immediately, could be august.
it was said paper was early june and actual launch was end of june.
 
People always think that but it never works out that way. What will actually happen is that NV and its partners will constrain the availability of the previous generation over time, such that when Pascal cards ship, 9xx series cards that weren't replaced will be extremely difficult to find, and prices won't drop a penny.

Of course you will be able to get them cheap used, as people upgrade.
 
Peasants are hoping to get a new GTX 980 TI on the cheap. It won't happen, never happened before. Used, maybe but that's about it.
 
People always think that but it never works out that way. What will actually happen is that NV and its partners will constrain the availability of the previous generation over time, such that when Pascal cards ship, 9xx series cards that weren't replaced will be extremely difficult to find, and prices won't drop a penny.

Of course you will be able to get them cheap used, as people upgrade.
thats what he was saying used.
 
People always think that but it never works out that way. What will actually happen is that NV and its partners will constrain the availability of the previous generation over time, such that when Pascal cards ship, 9xx series cards that weren't replaced will be extremely difficult to find, and prices won't drop a penny.

Of course you will be able to get them cheap used, as people upgrade.

That's actually already started. 970, 980 and 980 TI are all discontinued.

OP, I'd get a second 970 on eBay used. Should be good for the forseeable future and you can save the rest of the money for later cards.
 
The MSI has a higher OC and ends up being $40 cheaper after the rebate. I would go with that, no question.
 
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