Primarily Gaming Purposes - GTX 970 vs GTX 980 vs GTX 780Ti - 2/3 Way SLI ?

[RussianSensation]

i'm not shooting for a specific FPS, but i want to be able to play games for the next 4 years in Ultra/High !


Monitor setup = 3x1080p or a 3x1440p

Rest of the PC,

Debating between a 4790k vs the 5820k at 16GB DDR3/4 RAM with SSDs in RAID Performance and HDDs in RAID Storage...

Dual 970s ~ $660-700
Dual R9 290Xs ~ $600
Dual 980s ~ $1100

Right off the bat I would eliminate 980 SLI. You pay nearly double of 290X CF for less than 10% increase in performance, 20% when both are max OC. Even compared to 970 SLI, 980 SLI is only 14% faster.

A single 970/290X is a good match for 1440P. If you go 3 of those monitors, you will want 3 of those cards. There is little point in watercooling the 970/980 cards since they have minimal voltage control and overclock to ~ 1.45-1.5Ghz on air anyway.

You can start off with dual 970s for example and if it's not sufficient, add a 3rd. Then with the $ saved from not getting dual/triple 980s, just upgrade to GM200 or Pascal in 2 years. Your strategy of buying 3x $550 GPUs which are 14% faster than 970s that costs hundreds less, and keeping them for 4 years is a poor one. Unless you can afford to buy the best every 6-12 months, no point in buying the top of the line cards and keeping them for 4 years. 4 years ago, the flagship card was a $499 GTX580, a card 2x slower than a $380 780Ti today.

 

[sidrockrulz]

Right off the bat I would eliminate 980 SLI. You pay nearly double of 290X CF for less than 10% increase in performance, 20% when both are max OC. Even compared to 970 SLI, 980 SLI is only 14% faster.

A single 970/290X is a good match for 1440P. If you go 3 of those monitors, you will want 3 of those cards. There is little point in watercooling the 970/980 cards since they have minimal voltage control and overclock to ~ 1.45-1.5Ghz on air anyway.

You can start off with dual 970s for example and if it's not sufficient, add a 3rd. Then with the $ saved from not getting dual/triple 980s, just upgrade to GM200 or Pascal in 2 years. Your strategy of buying 3x $550 GPUs which are 14% faster than 970s that costs hundreds less, and keeping them for 4 years is a poor one. Unless you can afford to buy the best every 6-12 months, no point in buying the top of the line cards and keeping them for 4 years. 4 years ago, the flagship card was a $499 GTX580, a card 2x slower than a $380 780Ti today.

Also found this to support your statement,,..

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_980_SLI/8.html

The 970 is def more value for money any way.

But will it support 3x1440p ? Also, how do you think it will scale in the next 4 years ?

 

[sidrockrulz]

So, say i get the 4790k on a z97, with 2xGTX980s and add one later, will the Z97 boards support x8x8x4 still in a three way SLI ?

This: http://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/MAXIMUS_VII_FORMULA/specifications/ tends to say otherwise...

The spec is listed as :
2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8)
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode) *1
3 x PCIe 2.0 x1
1 x mini-PCIe 2.0 x1 *2



Does this mean i cannot do 4 way at PCIe 3.0 speeds ?

 

[el etro]

Is not the best bang for the buck, but is better to do only 2-way configurations to avoid optimization and performance scaling problems.

Voted two-way GTX980 sli.

 

[sidrockrulz]

Is not the best bang for the buck, but is better to do only 2-way configurations to avoid optimization and performance scaling problems.

Voted two-way GTX980 sli.

When you say scaling problems, what do you mean ?

 

[wand3r3r]

Here's the dropped frames (SLI problems) in the launch drivers. The FCAT show a lot of dropped frames. You can see the scaling of 3x in the same review.

Here's another SLI review.

 

[el etro]

When you say scaling problems, what do you mean ?

Scaling problems is that the 3-way 780Ti or GTX 970 rig can many times show bad scaling on newer games. 2 way scaling scales better, it can made the value of the rig grow up more. 2-way configs is already harder to be optimized in all newer games(BTW the Nvidia patches via driver its multi-gpu configs faster than AMD). Is Clearly that you can pick the 3-way GTX970 SLI for your rig, and maybe the lack of the optimization for the 3rd GPU don't affect your gameplay in the games you will play, due to the 2-way SLI(or single card) already making more than 60fps minimuns on the resolution/setting you will play.

This is beacuse most of us voted on 2 x 980GTX SLI.

 

[cbn]

You can see the scaling of 3x in the same review.

Keep in mind that scaling only applies to a single 4K monitor.

If he goes triple 1440p, the total resolution will be around 34% higher....and scaling should improve.

 

[cbn]

Here is the 980 GTX 2 way vs. 3 way SLI comparison from guru3d Wanderer linked:

34% increase in FPS with a 50% increase in GPU. (Not bad, and I would imagine the scaling would be even closer to 50% with triple 1440p monitors compared to a single 4K monitor)

9% scaling from 50% increase in GPU. Not so good, but would also improve at triple 1440p.

24% scaling from 50% increase in GPU.

3% scaling from 50% increase in GPU. Not good.

2% scaling from 50% increase in GPU.

39% scaling from 50% increase in GPU. Pretty good scaling here already at 4K.

44% scaling from 50% increase in GPU. I'd have imagine this would go to perfect scaling on triple 1440p.

22% scaling from 50% increase in GPU.

Overall, it looks like only 2 or 3 of those games might not scale well (using x3 980 GTX) with an increase in resolution to triple 1440p....but I could be mistaken.

 

[RussianSensation]

Also found this to support your statement,,..

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_980_SLI/8.html

The 970 is def more value for money any way.

But will it support 3x1440p ? Also, how do you think it will scale in the next 4 years ?

You think 980 SLI will provide better gameplay than 970 SLI at 3x 1440P over 4 years? The extra 13-17% performance is going to barely make a dent at such resolutions in modern games. As far as 980 SLi outliving 970 SLI over 4 years, that's not going to happen either. Every 3 years GPU performance increases about 2-2.3X, with an annualized growth rate of about 30-33%. Think of it this way:

970 SLI = 88%
980 SLI = 100%

In 3 years = Insert Card ABCD SLI = 200-233%
In 4 years = Insert Card ABCD SLI = 260-303%

That means in 2 roughly years, there will be a card ~60-66% faster than 980 for $550. Shouldn't be surprising since that's about the time when NV's Pascal should launch.

For this reason, I would not buy any $1100 GPU setup and keep it for 4+ years (unless there was some factor involved like bitcoin mining that made cards free). By far the better strategy unless you are top 1% or upgrade frequently is to buy NV's 2nd best and upgrade more often. 480/580/680 didn't last any longer than 470/570/670. Would you say a $500 580 is a fast card today? No you wouldn't because a $200 R9 280X is 40% faster just 4 years later.

GPU progress is too just fast and prices drop too rapidly to justify overspending $300-400 extra for a 7-10% gain in performance when that $300-400 extra nets one 50% more performance in 2 years when it comes time to resell your old card(s).

Even if you forget the 970 for a second, 780Ti is $360-380 on many occasions:
http://www.ncixus.com/products/?sku=96778&promoid=1413

Think about it:

Dual 780Tis are going to be $750 or less..
Dual 980s are going to be $1100 at least.
Performance gain is 5-10%, maybe 20% if you get poor 780Ti overclocking.

As I already told you, your strategy of buying flagship cards and keeping them without upgrading for 4 years is a poor one to put it mildly. It's way better to buy dual 970s/780Tis and sell them in 24 months and get something faster with the money saved + resale value instead of dumping $1100 into 980s today. The people on our forum who buy 980 SLI will upgrade in 2-2.5 years because they know if they keep such a card for too long, it'll drop to $175 in resale value by the 4 year mark. Since you won't be gaming on a single 1080P monitor and are considering 3x 1440P setup, you will want a pretty fast GPU setup over the next 4-5 years not just over the first 2 of those years. For that reason, while 980 SLI will be good for the first 50% of your timeframe, they will become far too slow for the remaining portion. But if you buy 970 SLI/780Ti SLI, you will get most of that performance in the first 1/2 of ownership time and then at half way mark be able to sell these cards and get A LOT more needed performance. In other way to explain is that 980 SLI will hardly provide a better playability than the 970 SLI/780TI setups other than a few small settings or bumps in AA but when your 970 SLI will become too slow, 980 SLI will be just as unplayable, forcing you to upgrade or sacrifice IQ settings by a large degree.

It's odd to me that you can't decide between 4790K and 5820K for keeping for 4 years when the cost difference between both platforms is $150-170 at MC but you are so eager to spend $350 extra for just 5-10% more performance 980 SLI will offer over 780Ti SLI. And if you want to add a 3rd card down the line, it would be better to sell 980s and buy dual GM200s than buying a 3rd 980 in 2 years. Not to mention going 3rd card requires you get a more expensive Z97 PLX board which destroys the value proposition of the 4790K over 5820K in the first place.

Now if you go dual 970s or dual 780Ti, you don't even have to worry about Tri-SLI scaling or frame stutter issues since you will be ready to upgrade in 2-2.5 years to another pair of fast single GPUs. This way in your 3rd and 4th year, you will get 100-200% more performance than 980 SLI, exactly when you'll want more performance for 2017-2018 games.

This is beacuse most of us voted on 2 x 980GTX SLI.

I am actually very disappointed that so many of our forum members recommended such an overpriced setup given teh recent adjustments in pricing. Looking at the benchmarks of 780Ti SLI vs. 980 SLI, unless one can't sleep at night knowing their GPU isn't the best, it's a huge waste of money to get $1100 980 SLI over $720 780 Ti SLI or $660 970 SLI in the context of not upgrading the GPU setup at all over a 4 year period.

This forum has really changed from when I joined, when people now complain about 100-200W of extra power usage for GPUs due to electricity costs and heat and yet are willing to recommend someone spends 50% more for 5-10% more performance, ignoring $$$ entirely. It's a pure contradiction. It's almost if the money we earn/save for a future upgrade path to buy newer products is the least relevant aspect now, behind features, perf/watt, etc. At that point why aren't all of us gaming on Quad-SLI 980s with 5960X? I thought the whole point of a PC forum is to help people find the best balance of $ spent on good components to get a good gaming experience, and not overspend too much so that you are smart with your $ and leave some for the next upgrade, rather than to recommend that someone simply buys the best. If someone just wanted to buy the best components all the time, what's even the point of a forum other than bragging? Even during 470 vs. 480 or 570 vs. 580, the price disparity was more reasonable and the performance delta was greater than between a $360 780Ti and $550 980.

I don't need someone to tell me that Quad-SLI 980 and 5960X, all water-cooled is the best. If a gamer can't afford Quad-SLI 980 and 5960X, then obviously money is a factor and then we have to discuss how to best spend it effectively. To each his own but I'll just keep a mental note of how fast GPUs get by October 25, 2018 and what it costs to buy a card with 980's performance at that time. Normally I would have no problem recommending 980 SLI if that gamer is willing to upgrade in 2-2.5 years but over 4 years I cannot recommend such a setup. It's simply a waste of money because it's not an efficient way to keep your gaming PC up to date. It's basically suggesting that the GPU future-proofing model is superior to upgrading more frequently, an idea which has failed to be true in the last 30 years.

 

[Pariah]

The post about 3 way scaling above makes the 780ti 2way look like the clear value champ. You get the same performance as a 980 2way for $300 less, assuming you can even find a $550 980. 780 2way would definitely be my vote. As russian mentioned above, it makes no sense to spend significantly more for 10% more performance (or 0% vs 780 2way), in an attempt to delay obsolence. In 3 or 4 year, that 10% difference will be totally irrelevant.

Watercooling 980's also seems to be pointless. Early reviews indicate that TDP is limiting overclocking, not GPU temperature.

 

[Lepton87]

I've got 5820K, ASUS ROG Rampage V Extreme(There's something about the ROG series that makes me overpay for it for no obvious advantages) and 4x4DDR4 2667MHz waiting to be installed, what's funny is that they have been waiting to be installed for 3 days now. I've got dual Titans and I had tested a Gainward 970 and it was about even with a single Titan. If I were you I would buy 3x 290X because CF is right now superior to SLI with more than 2 cards and possibly with just 2 especially compared to maxwell SLI which is worse than Kepler. Titans seem better for SLI than 780Tis due to more RAM, especially with as much as 3 cards 3GB can become a limit.

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3059120

970

it boosted to a whooping 1367MHz, very high clocker

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3072586

Titan's score, slightly lower and the titan is ever so slightly overclocked but that gainward card isn't reference clocked either is it? 1300MHz boost clock and it actually boosts to 1367MHz

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/2763914

SLI TITAN, virtually doubling of graphics performance and that's at 8x/8x PCI-E 2.0, curious if my new platform is going to change anything.

 

[KaRLiToS]

When you say scaling problems, what do you mean ?

Nvidia always had poor scaling above 2-way SLI configurations. I remember when I had the Valley Thread at OCN. Those were my scaling percentage with GK104 and GK110. Nothing much has changed since Maxwell apparently.

( Please pay attention to the graphs, they contain a lot of infos. )

In numbers

In graphs

But on the other side, this is what I get with 4 x 290x in Sniper Elite 3. (With Dx11 of course ) (Those bench were made with 8040x1440 which is triple 1440p monitors with bezel compensation)

This is the only reason why I went with AMD. I also have a 3 x 1440p setup and I wanted 4 cards, I know that Nvidia always had less scaling with 4 cards so my choice was clear at this point.

Also search for XDMA technology (Bridgeless) or click here to learn more

 

[cbn]

Nvidia always had poor scaling above 2-way SLI configurations. I remember when I had the Valley Thread at OCN. Those were my scaling percentage with GK104 and GK110. Nothing much has changed since Maxwell apparently.

( Please pay attention to the graphs, they contain a lot of infos. )

In numbers

Looking at the Nvidia Kepler cards (6 series and 7 series) in the graph above it clearly appears the scaling gets worse as the cards become more powerful. (That makes sense to me because as GPU computation time decreases the effect on frame times becomes less and less compared to the cpu computation time)

But is that a problem intrinsic to Nvidia? Or a "problem" created by the fact Nvidia makes powerful cards?

 

[Lepton87]

Or a "problem" created by the fact Nvidia makes powerful cards?

yeah like GTX980 is so much more powerful than 290X. SLI above 2 cards sucks and that's it. Better to use Radeon for 3 cards+ with its XDMA engine which makes it better for
m-gpu provided you have more than a paltry 16 lanes that mainstream Intel plarform offers but if you want 4 cards you also should probably want HW-E.

 

[KaRLiToS]

yeah like GTX980 is so much more powerful than 290X. SLI above 2 cards sucks and that's it. Better to use Radeon for 3 cards+ with its XDMA engine which makes it better for
m-gpu provided you have more than a paltry 16 lanes that mainstream Intel plarform offers but if you want 4 cards you also should probably want HW-E.

Exactly.

 

[Lepton87]

I have considered another Titan but scaling looks really bad, If I really wanted and needed more performance I would sell Titans and for that price buy 4x290 but the noise would be unbearable so probably 3 aftermarket 290X. But I think I'm set for 28nm GPU, next ones will be 20nm and I hope NV revamps SLI, not that I have anything againts Radeons but Maxwell power efficiency is very impressive I clocked only 370W on my meter for my entire PC (Old one in the link) with 970 and it was 430W with an overclocked Titan +100/400 +37.5MV so at stock it would be 30W less I guess. Still 30W less for more perf I have to OC Titan to barely match it, because it was a pre-overclocked 970, almost on par with a 980.

 

[SperglordActual]

I have considered another Titan but scaling looks really bad, If I really wanted and needed more performance I would sell Titans and for that price buy 4x290 but the noise would be unbearable so probably 3 aftermarket 290X. But I think I'm set for 28nm GPU, next ones will be 20nm and I hope NV revamps SLI, not that I have anything againts Radeons but Maxwell power efficiency is very impressive I clocked only 370W on my meter for my entire PC (Old one in the link) with 970 and it was 430W with an overclocked Titan +100/400 +37.5MV so at stock it would be 30W less I guess. Still 30W less for more perf I have to OC Titan to barely match it, because it was a pre-overclocked 970, almost on par with a 980.

If your PSU can support either setup with no issues why does power consumption even matter? Surely performance is much more important?

 

[cbn]

yeah like GTX980 is so much more powerful than 290X. SLI above 2 cards sucks and that's it. Better to use Radeon for 3 cards+ with its XDMA engine which makes it better for
m-gpu provided you have more than a paltry 16 lanes that mainstream Intel plarform offers but if you want 4 cards you also should probably want HW-E.

The graphs I linked didn't have 980 GTX or 290X.

It was a comparison of Nvidia 6 series and 7 series cards to AMD's HD7970, HD7950, HD7870XT and HD7990.

...And I saw the scaling fall off on the AMD cards as well, with the stronger cards scaling worse than the weaker ones (ie, the same problem Nvidia has)

P.S. Is there any proof that Nvidia tri-SLI scales poorly with their most powerful cards when really high resolutions are used?

 

[RussianSensation]

yeah like GTX980 is so much more powerful than 290X. SLI above 2 cards sucks and that's it. Better to use Radeon for 3 cards+ with its XDMA engine which makes it better for
m-gpu provided you have more than a paltry 16 lanes that mainstream Intel plarform offers but if you want 4 cards you also should probably want HW-E.

With the big guns not out (GM200), Nvidia went for 50-100% higher profit margin on the 980. You have a 398mm2 28nm 256-bit 980 after-market cards selling for $580-630, when 780Ti 561mm2 384-bit sells for $360-370!

OP, I would just grab 2x R9 290s for < $500 or even 3 of those for < $700 (think about this: 3x 290s now cost barely more than a single 980!):

http://m.newegg.com/Product/index?itemnumber=14-161-459

At 3x 1440p, or 3x 1080p, this is a good stop-gap solution until GM200/390X come on board and prices on 980 level of performance drop. Right now the 980 is 25% faster than 290 for nearly 2.5x the price. That tells you just how overpriced the 980 is at the moment. Therefore buying 980s and keeping them for 4 years is literally the worst thing that one can do with his money. Titan $1000-level performance can be had in a $300 R9 290X less than 2 years since Titan launched. I'll let that sink in for the OP.

If he prefers NV, 970s or 780Tis.

 

[RussianSensation]

L

The graphs I linked didn't have 980 GTX or 290X.

It was a comparison of Nvidia 6 series and 7 series cards to AMD's HD7970, HD7950, HD7870XT and HD7990.

...And I saw the scaling fall off on the AMD cards as well, with the stronger cards scaling worse than the weaker ones (ie, the same problem Nvidia has)

P.S. Is there any proof that Nvidia tri-SLI scales poorly with their most powerful cards when really high resolutions are used?

If you had read HardOCP's various reviews as well as Sweclockers and Hardware.fr 4K testing, 295X2+290X Tri-fire and Quad-Fire were the best setups for high resolution gaming until 980 came out:

http://m.hardocp.com/article/2014/0...x2_xfx_290x_dd_trifire_review/10#.VEzUyqZXfCQ

Right now you might beat Tri-Fire 290s with 980s at 4K by 25% but it will cost you a ludicrous amount:

R9 290 = $230-260
R9 290X = $300

Vs. 980 = $550

Now triple that. It's way better to buy the cheaper 290/970 setup and sell those when something faster comes out. 980's performance advantage will not matter that much at such high resolutions (3x1440p) since it's not fast enough to increase playability substantially.

3x 980s = $1650 (20-25% faster at high rez)
3x 290s = $825

If you go with 290s, you save $825. Even if you sell those 290s for 50% of their value in 12 months, you will have $412 + $825 saved = $1,237. That might buy you 3x 390s or nearly 2x GM200s. Or maybe you can hold out for 2 years and get something even faster and cheaper than 390/GM200. That's my point. Holding on to expensive videocards is like washing $ into the toilet, kinda like buying an i7-980X for $999 to future proof and then have it beaten in games by an i7 2600K 3 years later for $330.

 

[CP5670]

The price of the last gen cards has really fallen sharply. I got a 980 for $500 at the beginning of the month, and at that price it seemed worth it over the 780Ti/290X which were still at least $430. At the current prices, it doesn't seem like such a great deal anymore. I wouldn't touch any comparable SLI/CF setup, however.

If you go with 290s, you save $825. Even if you sell those 290s for 50% of their value in 12 months, you will have $412 + $825 saved = $1,237. That might buy you 3x 390s or nearly 2x GM200s. Or maybe you can hold out for 2 years and get something even faster and cheaper than 390/GM200. That's my point. Holding on to expensive videocards is like washing $ into the toilet, kinda like buying an i7-980X for $999 to future proof and then have it beaten in games by an i7 2600K 3 years later for $330.

This is generally true, but at the same time games are not advancing nearly as fast as they used to, and the older hardware often remains pretty good for a much longer period. I tend to get some hardware these days and forget about it for a while, and avoid frequent upgrade/resell cycles (which I used to do) since I rarely have time for it. My previous GTX 280 lasted 6 years and is still passable in many games, which would have been unthinkable at one point.

 

[RussianSensation]

My previous GTX 280 lasted 6 years and is still passable in many games, which would have been unthinkable at one point.

Ok, but I'l even give you better than that if you don't like reselling.

Instead of keeping a $650 GTX280 (or if you paid $500 for it) for 6 years, you could have gotten an HD4890 or GTX275/GTX260 216 for $195-220, then in 2 years a $230 HD6950 unlocked, then in 2 years an HD7950 for $280. In total you would have spent = $705-730 and had a reasonably fast GPU until now. With your 280, you only had a fast card for 2 years since it launched and the remaining 4 years it was slow. Now add reselling and the cost of ownership is < $705 because each time you would have recouped the cost of reselling your next GPU. And to drive my point further, GTX280 didn't last any longer than GTX260 216/275/HD4890 after the first 2 years of ownership (i.e., all of these cards were equally slow in the next 4 years of ownership beyond the first 2 years). Therefore the extra $ spent on 280 was completely wasted other than benchmark e-peen at its launch. The same can be said of ALL flagship GPUs including 480, 580, 680, 7970Ghz, X850XT PE, 6800U and 780Ti.

That's why buying a $600+ card and keeping it for 4-6 years makes no sense, even if you do not resell. This strategy has never worked.

Using the upgrading more frequently strategy, you could start off with $230-250 R9 290 and upgrade in 2 years and then again in 2 years. Such a proven upgrade strategy would wipe the floor with $580-630 after-market 980 cards over 6 years. On the NV side dual 970s will survive far longer than a single 980 for just $120 more.

 

[CP5670]

Instead of keeping a $650 GTX280 (or if you paid $500 for it) for 6 years, you could have gotten an HD4890 or GTX275/GTX260 216 for $195-220, then in 2 years a $230 HD6950 unlocked, then in 2 years an HD7950 for $280. In total you would have spent = $705-730 and had a reasonably fast GPU until now. With your 280, you only had a fast card for 2 years since it launched and the remaining 4 years it was slow.

Actually, I paid $300 for it. Best video card deal I've ever gotten.

The point is though that the card was not actually that slow for 4 years. Most of the games I played over that period were based on old engines like UE3 or Gamebryo, and it could mostly handle them fine with occasional slowdowns. It got crushed by Crysis, but that's only one series. I had admittedly held off playing several other games this year until I got something new, but there simply aren't that many games today that both tax cards and also look good enough to justify such performance.

For me, there is a certain time sink involved in any upgrade since there are always compatibility issues coming up with old games that I have to check for, so I don't like doing it too often anymore. I do agree though that at the current prices, the 290X or 780 Ti make a lot more sense. If I was buying right now, I would have gotten one of those instead. Dual anything is not an option as far as I'm concerned, as I don't have time to spend dealing with microstutter issues and getting games working properly with it.

 

[cbn]

If you had read HardOCP's various reviews as well as Sweclockers and Hardware.fr 4K testing, 295X2+290X Tri-fire and Quad-Fire were the best setups for high resolution gaming until 980 came out:

http://m.hardocp.com/article/2014/0...x2_xfx_290x_dd_trifire_review/10#.VEzUyqZXfCQ

Right now you might beat Tri-Fire 290s with 980s at 4K by 25% but it will cost you a ludicrous amount:

R9 290 = $230-260
R9 290X = $300

Vs. 980 = $550

Now triple that. It's way better to buy the cheaper 290/970 setup and sell those when something faster comes out. 980's performance advantage will not matter that much at such high resolutions (3x1440p) since it's not fast enough to increase playability substantially.

For a value set-up I don't doubt the utility of cheaper cards.

My inquiry is purely an academic one: How much of the poor scaling on 980 GTX is simply a result of the resolution not being challenging enough? How would triple SLI 980 GTX scale with triple 4K monitors as an extreme example?