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

[Neovalen]

Am I the only one surprised that you're taking a 15 fps hit going from ugrids 5 to 7 ? I mean, I'm running ugrids 9 on a single 780 (overclocked, performance must be about that of a Titan) with a homebrew, far heavier preset than Vividian (at least baseline Vividian), with fairly hardcore inis and a heavy modlist, and I drop under 30 fps fairly rarely (say like, 10 % of the time in wide open areas). (All of this @ 1080p, CPU and ram are somewhat ****ty too). With lower grass settings I could probably be above 30 pretty much all the time. I didn't check the fps hit I took going from ugrids 5 to 9, but I very much doubt it was that large, otherwise I think I'd be getting atrocious framerates with drops in the low twenties very often...

1) I am at 1600p which is much more demanding than 1080p

2) I suspect the CPU has a lot to do with the drop not just the video cards due to the Skyrim engine.

3) I am using Vividian ENB High Quality Preset with SMAA in this instance.

[crime_syndicate]

yup, no doubt 1600p is heavy (and 4K... let's not even talk about it :p) and 60 fps outdoors with ENB @ ugrids 5 is pretty impressive stuff for cards that are not even the top of the range model and very well priced :p

[Spock]

1) I am at 1600p which is much more demanding than 1080p

2) I suspect the CPU has a lot to do with the drop not just the video cards due to the Skyrim engine.

3) I am using Vividian ENB High Quality Preset with SMAA in this instance.

Maybe it was the shot. I still agree that a 25% drop in fps seems a little large. In the riften forest going from ugrids 5 to 7 cost me less then 10% on my 290 @1600p, STEP+NLA.

It may also have something to do with render distances of certain ENB effects or SLI scaling.

Edited October 12, 2014 by Spock

[Neovalen]

Could be, I picked that particular location because it is very demanding. Perhaps try going to that location... its the bandit cave on the other side of the bridge from Whiterun.

[darkside]

Good deal on 970

 

https://slickdeals.net/f/7278740-asus-geforce-gtx-970-4gb-256-bit-gddr5-video-card-313-free-shipping

[Spock]

Could be, I picked that particular location because it is very demanding. Perhaps try going to that location... its the bandit cave on the other side of the bridge from Whiterun.

Could you send me that save so I can test the exact angle?

[Razorsedge877]

so would you buy the Asus or Gigabyte card. I have the cash in my pocket and want to buy an Asus ROg motherboard with an Asus 970 bot the gigabyte 970 has higher clock speeds and looks a lil better with the six outputs on back

Edited October 24, 2014 by Razorsedge877

[Neovalen]

Could you send me that save so I can test the exact angle?

Unfortunately I do not have the save any longer, so I cannot.

 

so would you buy the Asus or Gigabyte card. I have the cash in my pocket and want to buy an Asus ROg motherboard with an Asus 970 bot the gigabyte 970 has higher clock speeds and looks a lil better with the six outputs on back

I bought the Gigabyte for the higher base clocks and the temperatures are lower on it in general. The cards are whisper quiet and I love them. If you can get the Gigabyte I would recommend it. Drivers from Nvidia need some work still but that is standard with all new card generations and affects all brands equally.

[Spock]

so would you buy the Asus or Gigabyte card. I have the cash in my pocket and want to buy an Asus ROg motherboard with an Asus 970 bot the gigabyte 970 has higher clock speeds and looks a lil better with the six outputs on back

It seems like the gigabyte overclocks a little better while the asus card runs quieter and blows part of the heat out of the case. Your GPU cooler will most likely be louder then the strix, and the strix temps are probably enough to overclock the card anyway, so both are probably overkill. I would read up about vrm temps and falue rates (if there already are articles, this usually takes some time) to make a decision.

 

Edit:

https://compubench.com/result.jsp?benchmark=clb11

Ouch!

This is probably not a problem for current generation rasterization engines. But I would really like to know the performance difference for UE4 GI and the likes.

Edited October 24, 2014 by Spock

[Neovalen]

As if you needed another reason to get a 900 series card.... https://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/pick-your-path-bundle .

 

I contacted Newegg and they forwarded me two codes for my cards. Think I'm going with Far Cry 4 and Unity.

[Nozzer66]

Blinks... 520 bucks for a Gigabyte 970. And 490 for my fave EVGAs? (Yeah I'm an EVGA fanboi, I admit it. What can I say? :D )

 

Wallet trigger finger itching, severely...

[Neovalen]

520? I got two for 800 after tax/ship.

[Aiyen]

What the the conversion rate between your "bucks" and any real world currency? :P 

[frredddyy]

Well, I just got home from my vacation and loaded up my new 970s....

 

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/4305011

 

These things are awesome.

Hi there, I am struggling to decide between getting a single GTX 980 or a GTX 970 and later upgrade to SLI(I actually already have a gigabyte G1 970 but can return). Have you been having any issues with SLI in Skyrim? I plan on getting a 1440p monitor and playing a very modded enb'd game, but am worried about what I have heard about SLI scaling/issues with ENB.

Cheers

[Neovalen]

No problems over and above the vanilla skyrim issues (water ripples flickering). Problems with ENB from what I've found are with xfire not SLI.

 

Nvidia in general is having some driver issues of late (the 900 series is mainly affected since we can't use previous drivers) but I'm sure they will work out.