Hello all- 
 
I have been experiencing very severe stuttering in the majority of my games recently. It started when I purchased 2 EVGA 970s to run in SLI. I had tried many things to fix the stuttering issues, but decided to upgrade to dual 980s in SLI instead (to possibly fix the problem + would be better for 1440P gaming). Anyway, I am still experience some very bad stuttering in my games. I am very new to SLI, and maybe what I am experiencing is something normal to SLI users? It is usually a slight "hitch" when gaming, often when moving the camera around in game. Sometimes is included with an FPS drop, but often times I am keeping a high FPS even with this hitching or micro stutter. It can happen as often as every few seconds which really has been driving me away from gaming recently. Here are the list of games that I play that I have noticed it in (list is Most severe to least severe in terms of the stuttering): Evolve, Far Cry 4, Dying Light, Crysis 3, Smite, Arma 3, Guild Wars 2, World of Warcraft, Battlefield 4. In addition, here is a list of things that I have tried so far in hopes of resolving the issue, but with no luck:
-Reset all overclocking
-Swap out old RAM for new RAM
-Change RAM slots on Motherboard
-Tried playing games installed on SSD / HDD (no difference)
-Remove all USB deviced (besides primary mouse / keyboard)
-Unplug secondary monitor
-Disable all programs running in the background
-Re install windows
-Try different SLI bridges
-Swap video cards (970 SLI for 980 SLI)
-Swap the 980's in their PCI-E slots 
-Update motherboard drivers
-Update nvidia drivers (also tried previous drivers)
-Tried both windows 7 and windows 8.1
-Tried different monitors*
-Monitor my graphics card usages & voltages / CPU usages
 
Do note that when disabling SLI mode, the stuttering seems to go away. Or at least mostly go away. Is anyone else struggling with this issue? I have invested a pretty serious amount of money into my computer to try and get smooth, high res gameplay. Pretty disappointed in its performance so far. Hoping to get some good feedback! Thanks in advance. Here are my system specs:
 
Motherboard: MSI Z87 GD 65
Processor: I7 4770k clocked at 3.5 ghz (stock)
Graphics cards: EVGA GTX 980 ACX 2.0 X 2 (04G-P4-2981-KR) 
RAM: 16 GB Kingston HyperX Fury
SSD: Samsung 840 EVO Series 250GB
HDD: Western Digital 1TB Sata III 7200 RPM
Power Supply: EVGA Supernova 850 B2 Power Supply
OS: Windows 7
Primary Monitor: Asus Rog Swift PG278Q (Gsync 1440P) (Display Port connectivity)
Secondary Monitor: Benq GW2760S (DVI connectivity)
 
 
 

yes, i should have mentioned that. I've tweaked with a few settings in Nvidia control panel including setting power to max performance

I'm not entirely sure , but I could have swore I read about this problem plaguing only SLI users while using a GSYNC monitor  (like the  ROG Swift) ..etc.....?
 
**** looks like there is quite a bit of volume for me to go through on it -  Here is a link to the Nvidia foums.
 
https://forums.geforce.co...entsearch/gsync%20sli/

I read somewhere to try turning your sli bridge upside down

Thank you everyone for the replys!
Rh0ne - I haven't looked into that yet, I'll check that out tonight and report back.
 
aka_STEVE_b - I've heard a few complaints about unsmooth gameplay with SLI running a gsync monitor. Though I was having the same issues with my previous 1080p 60hz monitor DVI (non gsync).
 
rsxownes - I don't use a wireless mouse, or any wireless accessories for my comp.
 
Randoo1212 - Yeah I've heard that too actually, I've tried many different 2 way sli bridges (and positioned them differently on the cards) with the same result.
 
CSPlayer089- Thanks for the feedback, good to know. Wish I had your luck!! Haha
 
Thanks again everyone

Have you tried using each 980 independently to see if they both are performing as they should? Could be one bad card?

maybe one card has a bad sli finger on the board. But ya would need another card to test it out. 

Randoo1212
maybe one card has a bad sli finger on the board. But ya would need another card to test it out. 

Thanks for the tip, though that'd imply that 2 of the 4 cards I tested have bad fingers. I used to run 970 sli with the same problem

2x980s
ROG Swift.
 
No issues... Gsync holds 144FPS on most all the games you are playing. (I play all those but WoW or Evolve or GW2 without a single issue.)
 
how bad is it really? maybe you just have really fast, sensitive eyes?
 
maybe bad SLi Bridge?

Try setting your Mouse's polling rate to 1000 or higher if available.  But 1000 is good.  The default polling rate is typically 250 - 500 which can cause issue's with the ROG Swift and possibly other gsync display's.

EVGATech_Erik
If you had a flexible bridge that was long enough, you could try using the bridge to connect the fingers in a diagonal.  If that doesn't do it, you also have the option of setting your PCIe slots manually to Gen3 instead of Auto but that is dependent on the motherboard BIOS and having those options available to ajust.

I do have a flex bridge I shall try that for kicks. I set them to Gen 3, I noticed another option for Pci latency timer? What should that be at? It's at 32 right now, can go up to 248. Thx for the tips everyone!