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Four-way SLI drivers

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  • Drivers
  • SLI
  • Graphics
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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July 15, 2013 6:30:42 PM

Hey guys,
So I was just wondering; I've only been able to find benchmarks for four-way SLI from a year ago or more. How much better now are the four-way SLI drivers than a year ago? Would one actually see a performance gain from dual-SLI to quad-SLI, or is it still the case that it will actually drop your FPS in some games?
Thanks for answering in advance; just curious. Haven't been able to find much, so I figured I'd ask you guys :) 

More about : sli drivers

July 15, 2013 6:36:54 PM

Not at all, Nvidia even on the 700 series quotes 3 way SLI as the maximum that will work. Obviously you can still stick a 4th card in there, but it will have a detrimental effect/no benefit.
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July 15, 2013 6:45:15 PM

cookybiscuit said:
Not at all, Nvidia even on the 700 series quotes 3 way SLI as the maximum that will work. Obviously you can still stick a 4th card in there, but it will have a detrimental effect/no benefit.


With two 690s, would it be possible to do 3x680 GPU chips in SLI, then the fourth dedicated to PhysX, or is that stupid/won't work? Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I have no experience whatsoever in anything above dual-SLI, and not a ton in that either.
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a b \ Driver
July 15, 2013 7:52:15 PM

SLI is always better to use the full graphics power, rather than dedicate one of the GPU's to PhysX.
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July 15, 2013 7:53:56 PM

Thank you! Would you recommend quad-SLI (hypothetically, of course) or is that something that one should for-sure stay away from?
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July 15, 2013 7:58:41 PM

It is only worth doing if you have a reason for it. A 4k display, 3x 1440p monitors or something crazy. Otherwise you'll just be bottlenecked by the CPU.
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a b \ Driver
July 15, 2013 8:17:11 PM

dannyboy2233 said:
Thank you! Would you recommend quad-SLI (hypothetically, of course) or is that something that one should for-sure stay away from?


It also depends on the cards. 4 way Titans seems a bit over the top, but 4 way 760's (assuming they have enough SLI fingers) would seem like a more realistic option. Ultimately, though, it's really not officially supported and as you can see in the review above, sometimes it just doesn't work. Stick to no more than 3 cards.
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July 15, 2013 8:48:59 PM

Also notice all the games tested are big AAA titles, a 3 and 4 way SLI setup probably won't fare so well in smaller games.
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Best solution

July 15, 2013 9:05:54 PM

17seconds said:
dannyboy2233 said:
Thank you! Would you recommend quad-SLI (hypothetically, of course) or is that something that one should for-sure stay away from?


It also depends on the cards. 4 way Titans seems a bit over the top, but 4 way 760's (assuming they have enough SLI fingers) would seem like a more realistic option. Ultimately, though, it's really not officially supported and as you can see in the review above, sometimes it just doesn't work. Stick to no more than 3 cards.


I think if you are going to go realistic, you'd be better off dropping to 2-3x 780's or 770's, rather than going 4x on smaller cards.
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July 15, 2013 9:25:52 PM

bystander said:
17seconds said:
dannyboy2233 said:
Thank you! Would you recommend quad-SLI (hypothetically, of course) or is that something that one should for-sure stay away from?


It also depends on the cards. 4 way Titans seems a bit over the top, but 4 way 760's (assuming they have enough SLI fingers) would seem like a more realistic option. Ultimately, though, it's really not officially supported and as you can see in the review above, sometimes it just doesn't work. Stick to no more than 3 cards.


I think if you are going to go realistic, you'd be better off dropping to 2-3x 780's or 770's, rather than going 4x on smaller cards.


What about something like 1x 690+1x 680? I know that there are some obvious flaws to this (like each card only having 2 GB of VRAM), but is it performance-effective to have a 690 as well as a 680 for PhysX, or would that 680 go practically unused? Or is there a way to run 3/4 680 chips in 2x690s in SLI, and then the fourth one for PhysX?
Sorry if these are stupid questions (which they probably are), but I'd just like to know a bit more about quad-SLI.
Thanks! :) 
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July 15, 2013 9:45:01 PM

You cannot pair a 690 with a 680. SLI requires the same model, even with the 690.
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July 15, 2013 9:48:26 PM

bystander said:
You cannot pair a 690 with a 680. SLI requires the same model, even with the 690.


Isn't it different if the 680 is being used as a PhysX card as opposed to being used in SLI?
And what about in terms of the 2x690 with tri-SLI + PhysX?
Thanks for your help! :) 
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July 15, 2013 9:57:11 PM

Nvidia just does not allow you to mix and match cards, even if the 690 consists of two 680's on a single PCB. Whether they could have made it an option doesn't matter, it just isn't allowed.

I do not know if you can split a 690's into tri-SLI + PhysX or not. It may actually be possible, but I have not heard of it either.
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a b \ Driver
July 15, 2013 10:08:18 PM

You can do 1 GTX 690 with 1 GTX 680 for PhysX. You'd have to be pretty into your PhysX games and playing with intense settings to make it worthwhile, but I would work. Actually, I'd love to have that in my system!
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July 16, 2013 10:57:17 AM

17seconds said:
You can do 1 GTX 690 with 1 GTX 680 for PhysX. You'd have to be pretty into your PhysX games and playing with intense settings to make it worthwhile, but I would work. Actually, I'd love to have that in my system!


What sort of performance benefit would one actually see with a dedicated 680 to PhysX?
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a b \ Driver
July 16, 2013 1:37:42 PM

dannyboy2233 said:
17seconds said:
You can do 1 GTX 690 with 1 GTX 680 for PhysX. You'd have to be pretty into your PhysX games and playing with intense settings to make it worthwhile, but I would work. Actually, I'd love to have that in my system!

What sort of performance benefit would one actually see with a dedicated 680 to PhysX?

http://www.physxinfo.com/
...usually rounds up most of the benchmarks involving PhysX for various games. The performance benefit varies depending on the game and individual setup, but I like to quote a +25% performance advantage as a ballpark general rule of thumb.
http://physxinfo.com/articles/

Playing something like the upcoming Witcher 3 in high resolution with very high settings and full GPU-accelerated PhysX would make your idea not so hairbrained at all. In fact, that might even be considered a recommended setup under those circumstances.

In Metro LL, you can see that turning on PhysX with a single GTX 680 incurs an 18% performance impact. So, with a good dedicated PhysX card, I would expect up to an 18% FPS improvement.




And then, low and behold, exactly the scenario in question, a GTX 690 with a GTX 680 PPU (PhysX Processing Unit) on Borderlands 2. Hard to see the improvement, but doesn't seem like much. Surprisingly a GTX 650 Ti seems to make a better PhysX card than the GTX 680, likely due to higher clock speeds.
http://1pcent.com/?p=169

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July 16, 2013 5:15:53 PM

17seconds said:
dannyboy2233 said:
17seconds said:
You can do 1 GTX 690 with 1 GTX 680 for PhysX. You'd have to be pretty into your PhysX games and playing with intense settings to make it worthwhile, but I would work. Actually, I'd love to have that in my system!

What sort of performance benefit would one actually see with a dedicated 680 to PhysX?

http://www.physxinfo.com/
...usually rounds up most of the benchmarks involving PhysX for various games. The performance benefit varies depending on the game and individual setup, but I like to quote a +25% performance advantage as a ballpark general rule of thumb.
http://physxinfo.com/articles/

Playing something like the upcoming Witcher 3 in high resolution with very high settings and full GPU-accelerated PhysX would make your idea not so hairbrained at all. In fact, that might even be considered a recommended setup under those circumstances.

In Metro LL, you can see that turning on PhysX with a single GTX 680 incurs an 18% performance impact. So, with a good dedicated PhysX card, I would expect up to an 18% FPS improvement.




And then, low and behold, exactly the scenario in question, a GTX 690 with a GTX 680 PPU (PhysX Processing Unit) on Borderlands 2. Hard to see the improvement, but doesn't seem like much. Surprisingly a GTX 650 Ti seems to make a better PhysX card than the GTX 680, likely due to higher clock speeds.
http://1pcent.com/?p=169



Thanks. But I looked at the graphc of PhysX for MLL, and it seemed like the FPS was higher without PhysX than it was with it. It also said that with CPU PhysX there was only something like 10 FPS, making me think that I'm reading the graph wrong.
If you could help me with that, that'd be great. Thanks! :) 
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July 16, 2013 5:15:54 PM

17seconds said:
dannyboy2233 said:
17seconds said:
You can do 1 GTX 690 with 1 GTX 680 for PhysX. You'd have to be pretty into your PhysX games and playing with intense settings to make it worthwhile, but I would work. Actually, I'd love to have that in my system!

What sort of performance benefit would one actually see with a dedicated 680 to PhysX?

http://www.physxinfo.com/
...usually rounds up most of the benchmarks involving PhysX for various games. The performance benefit varies depending on the game and individual setup, but I like to quote a +25% performance advantage as a ballpark general rule of thumb.
http://physxinfo.com/articles/

Playing something like the upcoming Witcher 3 in high resolution with very high settings and full GPU-accelerated PhysX would make your idea not so hairbrained at all. In fact, that might even be considered a recommended setup under those circumstances.

In Metro LL, you can see that turning on PhysX with a single GTX 680 incurs an 18% performance impact. So, with a good dedicated PhysX card, I would expect up to an 18% FPS improvement.




And then, low and behold, exactly the scenario in question, a GTX 690 with a GTX 680 PPU (PhysX Processing Unit) on Borderlands 2. Hard to see the improvement, but doesn't seem like much. Surprisingly a GTX 650 Ti seems to make a better PhysX card than the GTX 680, likely due to higher clock speeds.
http://1pcent.com/?p=169



Thanks. But I looked at the graphc of PhysX for MLL, and it seemed like the FPS was higher without PhysX than it was with it. It also said that with CPU PhysX there was only something like 10 FPS, making me think that I'm reading the graph wrong.
If you could help me with that, that'd be great. Thanks! :) 
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