SLI 970s to 980Ti's: DCS results at 4K

Today I upgraded from two GTX 970s to two GTX 980Ti's. This decision was driven almost entirely by The Witcher 3, as at 4K gameplay wasn't quite smooth enough with the 970s. My framerate in W3 went from 43 to 56 FPS, a nice nearly 33% increase, but my somewhat disappointing DCS results were as follows, all examples being simple sitting-on-the-runway takeoff missions that I typically use.

SLI GTX 970 4GB, 352.86 drivers:

MiG-15: 59 FPS / 3133 MB VRAM

MiG-21: 55 FPS / 3294 MB

Mi-8: 50 FPS / 3227 MB

F-86: 44 FPS / 3622 MB

SLI 980Ti 6GB, 353.06 drivers:

MiG-15: 71 FPS / 3152 MB

MiG-21: 58 FPS / 3277 MB

Mi-8: 62 FPS / 3261 MB

F-86: 45 FPS / 3674 MB

Those increases percentage-wise were thus:

MiG-15: 20%

MiG-21: 5%

Mi-8: 24%

F-86: 2%

With the VRAM usage being nearly identical.

So, I had hoped that this upgrade would sort of future-proof me for DCS2, but now I'm not so sure -- the current results obviously very much depend on which module you're talking about.

Im on board the AMD HBM train :-)

Cant wait to see how far I can Push HBM Memory...

AMD jumping from 512 bits to 4096 looks to me like the old Athlon+ CPU rating strategy.

Curently is very clear that raw power of AMD graph boards are superior to nvidia, but they simple cannot excel in software optimization on given standards (directx, opengl)

I wish them all the best with the new approach and I really hope to be better than Nvidia boards.

This is old news (olds)... Wait for DCS 2.X to arrive before you draw any conclusion...

Have you checked cpu usage?

DCS is very cpu dependent... I can imagine your videocards are basically just sitting there idling along even at 4k...

Have you checked cpu usage?

 

DCS is very cpu dependent... I can imagine your videocards are basically just sitting there idling along even at 4k...

Good question -- I have checked, yes, and CPU usage never goes above about 70%, whereas GPU usage varies between 60 and 100%. So I'm thinking at this point I'm still being limited primarily by GPU power.

In revisiting my F-86 results above, I realized that I was using a different takeoff airport in that case compared to the others -- with that fixed, my 980 Ti result is 68 FPS, not 45. Of course it's now too late for me to compare against the 970 results, but at least now all four tests are in the same general range.

Thanks for the benchmarks. Im looking to upgrade my 7970 to an AMD Fury will post similar benchmarks.

Out of interest...what happens when you disable sli?

Out of interest...what happens when you disable sli?

Single-card results:

MiG-15: 50

MiG-21: 46

Mi-8: 44

F-86: 53

So SLI is giving me the following improvement:

MiG-15: 42%

MiG-21: 26%

Mi-8: 41%

F-86: 28%

Out of curiosity I checked my FPS using the F86 on Kutaisi's runway and got 45 FPS. I'm using an I7 3.4ghz (no OC) and a GTX 550ti. My settings were all set to HIGH.

In PC PILOT, Wags is interviewed and states, " Other than a high end DX11 graphics card, system specs as far as I know are not going to change.

Just because we're going to DCS World 2 doesn't mean we're going to be increasing system specs. For the most part people should be seeing a performance boost."

He also states that he sees a fully realized WW2 environment, a Korean and hopefully a Vietnam environment.

Without typing everything he mentioned I will paraphrase one more interesting item. He says the only difference between DCS1 and DCS2 will be outside the cockpit. Minor lighting and shadows inside the cockpit. Other than that there will not be any differences or not any between DCS1 and 2.

The most noticeable difference will be the terrain, weather and objects, and of course the maps.

Single-card results:

 

MiG-15: 50

MiG-21: 46

Mi-8: 44

F-86: 53

 

So SLI is giving me the following improvement:

 

MiG-15: 42%

MiG-21: 26%

Mi-8: 41%

F-86: 28%

Thanks GregP. Not bad I guess. Hopefully DCS 2.0 can improve on the scaling.