Dual Video Cards but not SLI

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rleulink

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Sep 3, 2014
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It seems to be possible to run dual video cards without enabling SLI. However, could anyone comment about the cons and pros for running dual video cards without SLI?
 
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If you run SLI, the cards will act like one, on the other hand if you run multi card without SLI, you can use each card separatelly for a specific task. Running SLI or not really depends on your goal, for gaming you probably want SLI, though some games are not compatible with it. I personally don't use SLI, because my rig is for professional purposes, and the applications I use can take advantage of each card individually. Also if you are in the rendering/editing business (or anything that uses GPU processing), you can use one card just for the monitor(s), and the other card(s) exclusively for your GPU intensive task.
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Rapajez

Rapajez

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Yes, it's actually the default setting I believe, and works fine. Why would anyone want to do this? What is your goal?

The point of SLI is to get (about) twice the performance of 1 card. If you're not using SLI, you just have one card doing nothing while the other card is gaming.
 
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Luca Rood

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If you run SLI, the cards will act like one, on the other hand if you run multi card without SLI, you can use each card separatelly for a specific task. Running SLI or not really depends on your goal, for gaming you probably want SLI, though some games are not compatible with it. I personally don't use SLI, because my rig is for professional purposes, and the applications I use can take advantage of each card individually. Also if you are in the rendering/editing business (or anything that uses GPU processing), you can use one card just for the monitor(s), and the other card(s) exclusively for your GPU intensive task.
 
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Rapajez

Rapajez

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Along those lines, if you just need to display to a lot of monitors, keep in mind most modern GPUs will support 3 monitors on one card.
 
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k1114

k1114

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You can only use each card for a different task if the software let's you choose which is the case for many pro software but not for the majority of what normal people use.
 
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rleulink

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I would like to understand something - I still have not decided if I want to pay for SLI or just a single card.
I normally run software like MATLAB, SIMULINK, Adobe Lightroom, AUTO CAD (2D drafting not 3D) and I play video game.
 
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k1114

k1114

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Parallel Computing Toolbox can use multiple although sli makes no difference as you have to assign a worker to each gpu regardless. Lightroom and autocad only use 1. Typically a single card is recommended in the majority of situations, even for gaming rigs.
 
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Luca Rood

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I second that, you are probably better of with a single gpu, as both SLI and non SLI multi-gpu require support of the application you are using.
 
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rleulink

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Thanks - I will be better off with a single GTX 970. I do not want to buy something that I never need and use extra cash for making my wife happy (aka: gifts and flowers)
 
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