Nvidia Launches GTX 980 And GTX 970 "Maxwell" Graphics Cards ($549 & $329)

The 980 is an incremental jump over the the 970 full stop. If it had the same price:performance as the 970 it would be around $400. You're paying a large premium for the prestige of owning the fastest single GPU on the market.

Yeah, it's 67% more expensive. I would have bitten at $499, though.
 
Any real benefit from going to GTX 680 SLI to a GTX 980? I assume that I should wait until I can get SLI for cheap, but I'd like to go back to a single card if performance is up to the task.

Edit: I guess that GTX 970 SLI would be a more sensible approach, right? Better price:performance ratio, while keeping noticeable gains. But then again, I'd rather go back to a single GPU for my next upgrade.
 
So I have a 780Ti right now.

My current options are 970 SLI, 980SLI, or just hold out for inevitable 980Ti.

Going to a single 970 or 980 doesn't seem like much of an upgrade other than the cool new features they have.

980SLI would work fine with a Seasonic Gold X760 PSU I assume?
 
in the guru bench sli would be like 440w and they even use a Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme oced to 4,6ghz, but dont forget drives , extra cooler , led and stuff
Could I get anything by selling my PSU?

Selling my 670 would take some of the stuff of a new PSU away, at least.
 
I'd aim for 600W on SLI. 550 would be doable on an exceptionally good PSU. 500 is just a bad idea. You're spending $700 on video cards. Pony up $65-100 for a decent PSU to handle it.

If you have a stock clocked 4670K, shame on you.;P
Ignore that garbage. A decent 750w PSU will run tri SLI 970s without difficulty. You have nothing to worry about running a pair.
I'll second this.
 
Arrrgh! I read this:

price not worth imo, 970 or 970 sli

But then I read this:

The 980 is an incremental jump over the the 970 full stop. If it had the same price:performance as the 970 it would be around $400. You're paying a large premium for the prestige of owning the fastest single GPU on the market.

I'm torn! I know if I buy a 980, I won't have to upgrade for a very long time. However, the price of the 970 is extremely attractive.
 
Well shit. First time in ages I'm frothing to replace my 460, that price is insanely good. Even importing to Australia I'd expect it to run AUD$400 at most.

Should be a damn huge step up from a 460 to the 970!!!

Where are you going to import from?

I'm thinking of using Smokey if I can't get a good price from a "real" store.
 
I need to go to sleep for a drive in the morning... but I don't want to miss these going on sale and the Gigabyte or Asus 970s selling out.
 
You still need to run whatever CPU you have, and if you are running SLI that likely means a unlocked CPU so you can overclock. Plus people that run SLI also tend to OC the GPU's, so why even fuck around with low watts?

Even with all that a decent 600w will be fine. These total power consumption tests are always ran with OCed CPUs as it is.

Why suggest people waste cash on a new PSU when the one they gave is perfectly fine for the task?
 
I've only owned a 660 ti, and the idle temp for the asus 970 is pretty off-putting to me. Like it's the one thing that's making me consider EVGA's version instead. The EVGA doesn't seem to be that much louder in idle or load compared to my 660 ti either. Am I just being too cautious or is this not as big a deal as I'm making it out to be?

Well, the Asus has the fan deactivated during idle which should explain the temps.
 
Selling my R9 290 for a 970, gonna SLI it later.

The latency and SLI performance benchmarks for these cards are very impressive.

EDIT: Do we know when we'll be able to buy these?

I'm thinking about it, but also wondering what kind of price I can actually get.
 
So I have a 780Ti right now.

My current options are 970 SLI, 980SLI, or just hold out for inevitable 980Ti.

Going to a single 970 or 980 doesn't seem like much of an upgrade other than the cool new features they have.

980SLI would work fine with a Seasonic Gold X760 PSU I assume?

Just keep the 780ti, wait for the full Maxwell. These cards are only a good deal if you're coming from the 600's and older.
 
Anyone know what the UK price of the 970 will be? I had my eye on a Phantom 4GB 770, but if the price is right I might hold out for the 970 (I presume it will be quieter and cooler?)
 
Even with all that a decent 600w will be fine. These total power consumption tests are always ran with OCed CPUs as it is.

Why suggest people waste cash on a new PSU when the one they gave is perfectly fine for the task?

Because they are dropping $600+ on GPU's and I don't want to see them blow up there system??? You seem to be rather reckless with your PSU recommendations here.
 
I need to go to sleep for a drive in the morning... but I don't want to miss these going on sale and the Gigabyte or Asus 970s selling out.

My wife took her first day off in ages... tomorrow. So now she can be home to enjoy a day together.. while I try to score $1k worth of GPUs...

I can tell you this is not going to be the day that she or I had planned.
 
Just keep the 780ti, wait for the full Maxwell. These cards are only a good deal if you're coming from the 600's and older.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Only reason I would upgrade now is if I can get good money for the 780Ti. Put it up on Craigslist. Let's see if I get any bites. It's only going to lose more value as time goes on, so I'd rather sell it while it's still worth something.

Should have sold it when the Maxwell rumors were floating around.
 
Because they are dropping $600+ on GPU's and I don't want to see them blow up there system??? You seem to be rather reckless with your PSU recommendations here.

With all the overcurrent and over voltage protections on modern quality PSUs, nothing is blowing up. The absolute worst case scenario is a system shutting down if the PSU is over loaded but again, that's not happening on a quality 600w PSU with SLI 970s.

Would you expect a single 290x to blow up a 600w PSU? Because the power consumption of SLI 970s isn't much more than that.
 
Awwww man my 750W is to low? Come on...I just bought it. Anything I could do besides get a new power supply for SLI 970?

I used to run 2x 4GB 680s with a good 750w PSU. Both the 970 and the 980 are more power efficient. So it'd still be fine for both of these new cards in SLI.
 
Just keep the 780ti, wait for the full Maxwell. These cards are only a good deal if you're coming from the 600's and older.

Not to mention, if you are going to feel the need to upgrade to "full" Maxwell then the ONLY thing you should even consider is the 970 SLI route.

But yeah, stick with the 780ti unless you have a dire need for more today.

One neat thing about the 970's, is that they are candidates for other purposes if you want to upgrade later. They'd be pretty damn good in HTPC situations, secondary PCs, etc. I wouldn't want to hand down a 780ti to the kids PC, but I wouldn't think twice about doing just that 6 months down the road with a 970.
 
The 980 is an incremental jump over the the 970 full stop. If it had the same price:performance as the 970 it would be around $400. You're paying a large premium for the prestige of owning the fastest single GPU on the market.

I'm sold on a 970. Thanks.

So far I've only seen reviews for non reference 970's. Hopefully the reference designs are good overclockers as well.
 
I think the only advantage the EVGA has is -1db under load and slightly less power consumption while the Gigabyte is clocked higher and OCs higher.

What I'm afraid of, is that it will all come down to what is still in stock and that I may have to just go with whatever is available.
 
With all the overcurrent and over voltage protections on modern quality PSUs, nothing is blowing up. The absolute worst case scenario is a system shutting down if the PSU is over loaded but again, that's not happening on a quality 600w PSU.

You told the dude with 550 watts he was good to go for SLI. If there's one thing you don't want to cheap out on with a build, it's the PSU. Having more watts then you need is never a bad thing.
 
You still need to run whatever CPU you have, and if you are running SLI that likely means a unlocked CPU so you can overclock. Plus people that run SLI also tend to OC the GPU's, so why even fuck around with low watts?

500watt is not 'low watts'...

Even with all that a decent 600w will be fine. These total power consumption tests are always ran with OCed CPUs as it is.

Why suggest people waste cash on a new PSU when the one they gave is perfectly fine for the task?
Because of several years of marketing brainwashing, astroturfing , misinformation and people desperate to justify their 150+ euro 1000watt psu purchases combining to change people's perspective on how much power their pc consumes and how big a power supply they need.

At others asking: again, people were running gtx 260s (180watt tdp) and power hungry i7 920/960s (130watt lol, massive compared to modern i5/i7s) on 350 watt power supplies for years without issues.

A few years ago it was especially bad (including on gaf), tons of people replacing their perfectly fine 450-550 watt psus with 750+watt ones just because they were buying some 200watt tdp gpu...
 
Hmmm, I'm currently running 4 GB GTX 760. Not sure if I should jump at either... may continue to wait until next year for Witcher III + 4k monitor.
 
500watt is not 'low watts'...


Because of several years of marketing brainwashing, astroturfing , misinformation and people justfifying their 150+ euro 1000watt psu purchases changing people's perspective on how much power their pc consumes and how big a power supply they need.

At others asking: again, people were running gtx 260s (180watt tdp) and power hungry i7 920/960s (130watt lol, massive compared to modern i5/i7s) on 350 watt power supplies for years without issues.

A few years ago it was especially bad, tons of people replacing their perfectly fine 450-550 watt psus with 750+watt ones just because they were buying some 200watt tdp gpu...

I doubt a 550W PSU has a lot of amps going down that 12V rail. That's the key here, 550W are normally not rated for SLI.
 
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