Does SLI Helps in Gaming?

bp8401363 · Mar 25, 2015

As we know the Hyperthreading concept Cant fit in current gen Games and may be next gen games.

But I want to know the SLI Concept,Yes I know that SLI requires SLI Supported Motherboard, Graphics Card,etc.

I just want to know are Current Games and the Next gen Games will need SLI or not.
Will they utilize it well?or I m better off with the Single High end Graphic Card?

Your Answers will affect my decision whether I should go for an expensive motherboard, a 750W PSU,etc (If SLI doesnt help I m better offf with cheap mobo and 550 w PSU which will save me more money.)

Last thing to concern is that I m not looking to improove my score in benchmarks nor I care about FPS in Games.
I just want to make sure running games at high settings without any stuttering or performance drop.

Thank you.

ahnilated · Mar 25, 2015

Hyperthreading/multiple cores works in a number of current games as does SLI. There are reviews here on games that show SLI can get you from 30 fps to 50+ fps depending on the resolution you are playing at. Which resolution are you playing at so we know if your video card of choice will give you 50 fps or more?

Justin Millard · Mar 25, 2015

Short answer is nobody knows.

To be safe buy yourself a good graphics card that gives you the performance you need without SLI or crossfire. Usually big name games get programmed to take advantage of SLI a few months after release, but SLI performance is dependent on whether or not the game is programmed to take advantage of two graphics cards. Some games do not get any performance boost out of SLI or Crossfire.

Also SLI/Crosfire does not boost performance very much unless you have a high end card. GTX 770 and R9 28X get an ok boost out of SLI/Crossfire, but a GTX 960 only gets a small performance boost.

What I do with my builds is save money on the motherboard and power supply (although its still worth getting 600-650w power supply if you want a GTX 980 or R9 290) and just buy a single graphics card with the performance I need, then just upgrade that single graphics card three-four years later.

Three years after you buy your current graphics card a new one for the same price will perform better than two of your old graphics cards in SLI anyway. I figure its better to upgrade the graphics card every three-four years rather than bother with SLI or Crossfire.

bp8401363 · Mar 25, 2015

ahnilated :

GTX 970 will be my Graphics Card and I will play it only at 1080p not more and not less than that.

filippi · Mar 25, 2015

First of all, the Hyperthreading concept CAN fit in current gen. This is why Haswell i3 (2 physical cores) usually is a better option than FX-6300 in a gaming build.

SLI is great. The problem is usually when time comes for a SLI upgrade people will tell you to just buy the new technology.

For instante GTX770 is great for SLI. Really. However anyone that bought a GTX770 2 years ago and come back now asking about upgrade will see that most opinions (all opinions ?) are for a GTX970 upgrade.

You should buy the best GPU you could buy right now. And a CPU that can handle this GPU. And a quality PSU.

Anything else is optional.

bp8401363 · Mar 25, 2015

Can an SLI Setup Degrades Performance of a Game comparing to single card?

Justin Millard · Mar 25, 2015

GTX 970 will be a great graphics card for the next three years and no games are coming out in the next twelve months that need more than a GTX 970 for 60FPS 1080p gameplay. You should be fine to keep using that GTX 970 without needing SLI.
I would only suggest SLI if you were gaming across two 1080p monitors or wanted to try 4K.

Justin Millard · Mar 25, 2015

Its rare that SLI causes any issues that degrade the game, but if it does it is easy to disable SLI without removing the graphics card. Usually if a game doesn't work with SLI it just uses the first graphics card and the other card idles.

bp8401363 · Mar 25, 2015

Justin Millard :

You have said GTX 970 will last upto 3years.
so what about GTX 980?How much year will it last?(Just for the info)
I also want to know Can I play Shadow of Mordor at 1080p with all settings maxed out in GTX 970(Processor will be i5 4690k)

Justin Millard · Mar 25, 2015

The GTX 970 can do that easily. It is a good GPU that can easily last four years of high end gaming usage if you want it to.
Four example the GTX 570 lasted four years as a high end graphics card quite nicely and I expect the 970 to do even better.
The GTX 980 is probably overkill for 1080p gaming.

ctguy1955 · Mar 28, 2015

Justin Millard :

I have two 4 gig evga 680's that are at least 3 years old now, and when Ive done
benchmark tests, my rig beat out single titans. I am not sure how much my
4790K helped in that test. Im running three monitors and use all three in 5760 x 1080
and for BF4 or DCS World, its really great. I was glad to hear that the new
direct x 12 will support my older cards.

It would cost me 300 bucks to wc my two cards, as I would not just
have to buy the WC blocks, but also a third rad. Just dont know if its
really worth it.

UPDATE: for 140 bucks, I was able to get two used Koolance VID-NX680 (101251) WC Blocks
and 4 new fans and a 240 Rad !!!! The blocks did not come with screws and Im having a hard
time finding out what I need. I think each block needs 8 M2.5mm but im not sure.

Also my two gpu's have back plates, so I dont know if stock screws are going to work?

I dont want to take GPU's out until I have all the parts. I did order a CNT-VDA2

Justin Millard · Mar 28, 2015

Price/performance is more important for me as I have poor income.
Although I am starting to warm to SLI and Crossfire.

This benchmark shows 670 vs 980.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dECLHlzm1QE

Although 680 is a lot better than 670 so if its a narrow win to the GTX 980 in any of this then the 980 is a clear winner.

Minimum frame rate seems to be noticably better on single cards. Dual cards seems able to push higher max frame rate.

Another factor I have not taken into account is Virtual Reality. A GPU for each screen (each eye) seems to get very good results.

I guess it doesn't cost much more for a motherboard that has SLI. If you want it you may as well get it as an option, then you have the option of buying a second GTX 970 when they drop in price.

JUICEhunter · Mar 29, 2015

New builds should always start with the best single GPU possible even if you are buying a motherboard that does or does not have SLI. With that in mind you have to ask yourself, are you going to buy one 970 now and one in two years? Or could you picture yourself selling your 970 after two years and buying a GPU like 980ti or something better in a single card form.

renz496 · Mar 29, 2015

bp8401363 :

performance wise the answer is yes. given that the game have SLI profiles. but while multi gpu setups can provide very strong raw power it does come with something extra that people don't like

. micro stutter for example is one of the problem that often associate with multi gpu setups. but as both CF and SLI already quite mature as it is it seems it is not a problem anymore since both AMD and nvidia have improve their multi gpu technology a lot. but it does exist it some games from time to time which both company will address in driver updates. also CF/SLI support broken on newer driver is not that uncommon either. in short SLI/CF is not for someone that everything will work out from day one. when i got my 660s i'd expect there will be trouble in every game. but when it really works the performance advantage really worth it. back in 2013 i got my second 660 just to have fun with SLI setup itself but right now i'm really glad that i take that second card

.

if you're only playing on a single 1080p monitors cards like 970 have plenty of performance right now.

renz496 · Mar 29, 2015

Justin Millard :

not really. you just need to ask people that actually have multi gpu setups.

Justin Millard :

for people that want thing that's just work that is the best way to go.

Justin Millard :

for big games SLI profile usually are there on launch day. in fact some SLI profile are ready in the drivers a few months ahead of game release. take mass effect 3 for example. nvidia have SLI profile in drivers 3 months ahead of game launch. although i can't say the same about AMD.

Justin Millard :

game engine usually are not made to take advantage of multi gpu system. even Epic Games made their new UE4 much more less friendly towards multi gpu setup than their previous UE3 although SLI can still working with UE4 as shown in Daylight. SLI/CF actually is initiative from GPU maker themselves to address performance that cannot be achieved by a single card. but they did enable the tech to work down to their low end card. only a few years back that nvidia stop supporting SLI on their entry level card although they still keep it for their mid range cards.

Justin Millard :

as an owner to GTX660 SLI i disagree on that. the performance boost might not as big as high end card but the second card still provide noticeable performance boost. also in the past there are good reason to SLI/CF midrange gpu.

Justin Millard · Mar 29, 2015

How regular is your SLI support for games? I mainly see the bad side and stay away.
Are you getting at least 60% better frame rates?

Are all the big name games you play allowing guaranteed use of SLI?
From my perspective SLI performance seems to get tricky to guarantee and is very dependent on developer support and trying to get the best driver.

So in your opinion it works well from the get go? I seem to get the stories where its a few months of patching and new drivers until SLI is stable for a few games I know. Dead Rising 3 was an example of lots of trouble with SLI for a long time. I'm guessing its consistent with unoptimized PC ports though.

I was referencing the GTX 960 in that SLI comparison. It has limited bandwidth, but its main bottleneck is not having 3GB of VRAM in my opinion. SLI doesn't fix that, although a 4GB version would be interesting to test in SLI.

Although I still think I would rather a single GTX 970 than running 2xGTX 960.

renz496 · Mar 30, 2015

How regular is your SLI support for games? I mainly see the bad side and stay away.
Are you getting at least 60% better frame rates?

i never really pay attention to it but most of the demanding games that i played have SLI support. in shadow or mordor for example with single gpu i will get average in the mid 40s. with SLI enable i can get mid 80s. personally i never really did care much about scaling. what's more important to me was getting constant 60FPS with v-sync enabled because i don't like tearing. even MMO games such as GW2 and Archage have proper SLI support. although in GW2 case the issue is more about how the game handle CPU so nvidia can't do much about it. the only game that of i have SLI support broken for a few times was Planetside 2 because of game update.

Are all the big name games you play allowing guaranteed use of SLI?
From my perspective SLI performance seems to get tricky to guarantee and is very dependent on developer support and trying to get the best driver.

usually they are. be it proper or broken in some way. problem with multi gpu setup was it was initiative that comes from GPU maker not game dev or game engine. it is funny when you see game engine was built to take advantage of multi core CPU but it was the opposite for GPU. and some game engine like id tech 5 was out right hate multi gpu setup. so instead of very dependent on developer you can said it is almost 100% dependent on gpu maker itself. game dev just make it work with their game because there are push from nvidia and AMD. but without that push they don't even care about multi gpu.

So in your opinion it works well from the get go? I seem to get the stories where its a few months of patching and new drivers until SLI is stable for a few games I know. Dead Rising 3 was an example of lots of trouble with SLI for a long time. I'm guessing its consistent with unoptimized PC ports though.

yes and no. i mean some games will have excellent SLI support from day one and some others will have problem like Dying Light.

I was referencing the GTX 960 in that SLI comparison. It has limited bandwidth, but its main bottleneck is not having 3GB of VRAM in my opinion. SLI doesn't fix that, although a 4GB version would be interesting to test in SLI.

personally i don't recommend 960 SLI setup. in the past there are some reasons why going with multi gpu setup with mid range gpu as an attractive solution but 960 doesn't have those. the 2GB VRAM on the 960 might be a bit concerning but i think the bandwidth are fine. just look at 960 performance vs 680. 680 have more bandwidth and wider memory interface but the performance difference between 960 and 680 is still about the same even at 4k

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_960_STRIX_OC/29.html

Although I still think I would rather a single GTX 970 than running 2xGTX 960

no doubt that a single 970 is better than 960SLI despite in some games 960SLI can be faster than a single 970.

Justin Millard · Mar 30, 2015

Thanks for your response! I was very interested in hearing it.
You taught me a few things too.

Does SLI Helps in Gaming?

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