You need to have a Titan X to produce comparable benchmarks, otherwise a lot of people won't take them seriously. Also the 6GB of a 980Ti already rule out quite a few popular networks we needed to run.
I was not really in a position to wait much when buying the card, and I didn't want to risk waiting a few weeks to get a used card I bought on a forum, which then comes out being just as expensive in living cost. You also as a startup don't generally have the luxury to risk waiting.
I don't regret the purchase, I more wanted to show the reality of a "hard tech" startup.
You can get the 980 Ti w/ 6GB of ram for $600 and some change. And if that's too much, the 970 w/ 4GB can be found for under $400.
And if even that is too high, you can troll gamer forums for used cards and cut that cost in 1/2.