MagicalMidge
2x780TI Gigabyte Ghz Edition Valley benchmark: imgur.com/a/tyJIx#1 
2x970 Reference design: imgur.com/a/tyJIx#4
2x980 Reference design: imgur.com/a/tyJIx#5
2x970 Asus Strix cooler (custom pcb and cooler) imgur.com/a/tyJIx#7
2x980 Asus Strix cooler (custom pcb and cooler) imgur.com/a/tyJIx#8 keep in mind for this one, this is on the x99 platform that has lower clock speeds, so the comparison to the 2x970 isnt fantastically scientific, I am just using the systems I can, while I can.
 
2x980 Evga Super Clocked Editions: i.imgur.com/TViLlUJ.jpg
 
 
I want to start this thread off by saying, I know that A whole bunch of you know this already, I am making this post because I really want to try and help those guys who are not in the business and don't exactly know what the sweet spot is for price to performance.
 
***Quick note*** I know because I am mixing vendor's this isnt exactly lab conditions of testing, but im trying to give examples with the information I have, and the resources I have available to me.
 
Okay, so with graphics cards there is a consumer sweet spot for price to performance, sometimes you can really want to just shove money at a product to say you have the flagship one, honestly the 970/980 is not the place to do this at, I really mean it, not at all.
 
I have a variety of different benchmarks for you, some of 970 sli, some of 980 sli, different coolers, different vendors, please just look at the score the graphics cards get, the min and max frame rates.
 
Some times the 970's in SLI even beat some of the stock 980's SLI...
 
Here is the link to the Imgur folder: imgur.com/a/tyJIx#0
 
I would like to draw your attention to just a few of the main ones:
 
Let's start of basic, let's go back a generation and look at a good 780ti SLI setup, it's the gigabyte ghz editions, high clock speeds, good card all around: imgur.com/a/tyJIx#1 Valley score was 5472, and I will mention it here, this is the HIGHEST score of any of the cards I have in the selection thus far. (now it was running on an overclocked 4790k, running at 4.6) That really shouldnt affect valley scores above about 100 though.
 
So why proceed to the newer cards if the 780ti beats out all the competition? Well, the drivers are new, optimizations need to be made, the 780ti were pretty much the end line 780ti's the max performance was pulled out of them, so it's unlikley we will see any better 780ti's, but we can see the 980's improve with a TI version.
 
You also may be interested in the 900 series cards for the same reason I am, lower noise, lower temps, and lower power. I dont care too much about performance, I only play at 1080, so whatever high end card I get is going to breeze through that.
 
So next in line let's look at the reference 970's: imgur.com/a/tyJIx#4 and the reference 980's: imgur.com/a/tyJIx#5 Okay so as you can see the 970's got a score of 4341, more than 1000 less than the 780 ti's do. The 980's get 4856, so if you look at score wise on valley, it's about 500 more point's for 2 980's than 2 970's, however the price difference you're looking at about £400/$600, now, im not saying valley scores are everything, but they are a good indication of what the cards will perform like in real life gaming use. 
 
If you just take a look at the min/max frame rates of both of those cards, they are pretty much identical.
 
Okay, taking a step away from the reference designs and looking at some benchmarks of the aftermarket coolers and the power houses they should be... Right? No...
 
Keeping it a little more consistent though the 980's get a better/worse CPU depending on how you look at it, our 2 980's actually had to go in an x99 build so you will have to forgive that, (lower clock speed, more cores, should generally equal out for performance) Okay, so the 970's were the Asus Strix design: imgur.com/a/tyJIx#7 as you can see they get a score of 4525, fantastic that's about 200 more than the reference designs. The 980's are the same Asus Strix, however... imgur.com/a/tyJIx#8 they get a miserable 4750, this is less than our reference design's from Gigabyte.
 
Okay now what you're probably into most seen as you're on the EVGA forum, some EVGA SC card result's and the scores, unfortunately I was only able to get 2 of the 980's SC Acx 2.0: i.imgur.com/TViLlUJ.jpg Yes that's right 2 980's got 4099 in Valley, this is the lowest I have ever seen 2 980's get.
 
I love EVGA and they have my brand loyalty, I just really dont know what to say other than, what happened with the 980's? Are you guy's noticing they are not performing all that well? Is it purely software based or are the optimizations of Maxwell cutting corners leading to leakier chips?
 
This post wasnt to dig the evga scores though, it was to show you why you shouldnt buy a 980, or even 2 980's.
 
Conclusion. The Nvidia GTX 980 is a fantastic flagship graphics card, but not for it's price tag. If you are only in it for the performance, you can get basically 2 970's for about £100/$170 more than 1 980. 
 
P.s EVGA Team, if you wan't to send me any 970's to test I would happily oblige. Finding it very difficult to get 2x970's (I even want 2x970 ACX 2.0 in my personal rig, just cant source them) Or even if you're not up for sending me any, I would really appreciate anyone at EVGA or the Community popping 2 of the 970's in a rig, let valley idle for 1 hour (that is what the case was for these images) and then benchmark it and send me the image.
 
P.P.S, waiting for all of the TLDR comments :D
 
 

mcneill467
Sure I'll try when I get home, my firestorm was 19414 if I remember right, graphics score around 27-28k.

Grey_Beard
How many 970's were in the Hall of Fame? I see 0. Maybe I am just blinded by my want of a 980. I feel so bad I ordered 4. Two have arrived and other two are on the way. Man I am I sorry about that.

Sajin
670 vs 680 all over again. 

seta8967

seanrm
OK, a bit of love for the 970.

Those 3DMark Hall of Fame scores usually rely on high-end rigs, aggressive overclocking and additional after-market cooling.
Besides, too much number crunching = less game time.
 
In the real world, my 970 is about 15% slower than a 980.
The $220 I saved buying the 970 will go towards an upgrade in 12 months time when both these cards are history.
And these few short lines will be largely meaningless.
 

Agreed price per performance the 970 is hands down the better performer. But OP said the 970 is bettee in sli vs sli 980s. 980s are hands down better for max perfirmance disregard price.

MagicalMidge
Yes, these tests would be 100% more valid if I ran every card(s) on the same rig, just changing out the gpu's, but that isnt a realistic thing for people to do in there builds at home either. 
 

TheBatman1337
Maybe the 970 is better because the 970 ate 9... 80? I'm pretty sure I am on to something.