New GTX 970 & 980: Dream GPUs for Skyrim modders?

[Nearox]

Well I just check anandtech, toms's hardware and some dutch sites and everybody is talking about gtx 900 series not 800 :)

[EssArrBee]

I read in one of the articles that this marks the end of driver support for DX10 cards. People with those 8800GTs will finally have to upgrade. Man, talk abut legacy support.

 

The new drivers are out today with better G-Sync support too. I really like the G-Sync tech and hope AMD comes up with something along those lines so more monitors will have that as a standard. I mean AMD did come up with that awesome hair physics tech, I mean who wouldn't want that, but if I had to choose between hair physics and better frame refresh syncing, I choose the later.

[hishutup]

Maybe the 800 series is for OEM only

900 is for consumers

 

AMD did the same with the 8000 and Rx 200 series

[Neovalen]

Anyone interested in buying a pair of EVGA SuperClocked 670 GTX 4GB by chance? Works great, using them now to play BF4 / Skyrim at 2560x1600. Thinking about possibly selling mine and picking up a single one of these with the little bit of cash I got spare until I get enough to buy a second.

[TechAngel85]

The power efficiency is due to the new Maxwell architecture which is in it's second generation with these new cards. For those of you that can wait another year to a year and a half, the Pascal architecture will be out in 2016.

 

Btw, 800M series is only for notebooks. There aren't even any drivers for download for a "desktop" version on Nvidia. Keep in mind that some articles forget to include the "M" when they discuss such things.

[xxx78]

I just ordered GTX 980 ::D:

[mattfromoz]

I just order the GTX 970. Will see how that one goes. Not quite as good as the GTX 980 but a hell of a lot better than my current GTX570.

[DanielCoffey]

According to the review, the 980 is only about 10% more powerful than a 780ti... before overclocking. Is there any other benefit a single 980 brings to the table for Skyrim?

Edited September 21, 2014 by DanielCoffey

[Neovalen]

Not that I know of Daniel. Its a great step up for us with 600 series or below cards though. If I had a 780ti I probably would not jump unless you could get it cheap through the EVGA step up program or something.

 

The 970 looks pretty nice from a price/performance perspective with a SLI pair being $700ish. Single 980 looks to be running $570 per card. (Using EVGA.com)

 

I've got my 670 SC 4GB SLI pair (which still work great, especially at 1080p) up for $400 on Craigslist. if I manage to sell them I have to decide on 970 SLI or 980 single card. The 970 GTX SLI seems better imo but Skyrim has its issues with SLI. Other games haven't been an issue with SLI.

[mattfromoz]

4gb although I am not sure if you need that much. The price for the new cards is pretty good as well. Last week I was looking at the GTX 770 4gb card at approx the same price as I spent on the GTX 970. I guess not worth upgrading from a GTX 780Ti though to the GTX 980.

Picked up the 512gb Crucial MX100 SSD drive as well so really half a new computer. I will stick with my overclocked I5-2500k for the time being though.

[Marthenil]

According to the review, the 980 is only about 10% more powerful than a 780ti... before overclocking. Is there any other benefit a single 980 brings to the table for Skyrim?

I've been wondering the same. Might even try and sell the 780ti at the 980 cost (would be doable if not for the dip in the economy).

I'm having some serious FPS drops with ENB on, and although it might be user error, every bit of help is worth it in my opinion.

[DanielCoffey]

My 780ti overclocks incredibly well (silicon lottery luck) to 1274/7800 compared to 928/7000 (+37%) so I will wait until either the 980ti or a cash windfall before making the move.

[Spock]

People with those 8800GTs will finally have to upgrade. Man, talk abut legacy support.

Are there still 8800GTs running? Afaik those cards had a fairly limited lifespan.

 

Asus seems to have done a significantly better job then EVGA on the aftermarked cooler for the 970 cards btw.

[Nearox]

My 780ti overclocks incredibly well (silicon lottery luck) to 1274/7800 compared to 928/7000 (+37%) so I will wait until either the 980ti or a cash windfall before making the move.

Yeah I really would not upgrade from 780ti or even form 780.

 

However for everyone else the 970's performance per dollar ratio is by far the best of all the high end cards. As a bonus, with the low power consumption also comes low temps so hopefully the 970s will overclock very well. Their low power consumption also makes them ideal for SLI. 

 

Personally I would go for 970 instead of 980. Here a single 980 costs 570 euro while a 970 costs 330 euro... Can almost buy 2x 970 for that :P

[Crimson13]

Welp, I was thinking about getting the GTX 780 but comparing it to the GTX 970 with a -$200 to the one I was thinking about getting? Really looking forward to it, it'd be a nice upgrade to my 660ti.