Frustrating time with GTX 1080 SLI and Witcher 3 - thinking of switching to NVIDIA TItan X

mrsatvat9999 · Aug 17, 2016

Anybody have benchmarks of GTX 1080 SLI vs NVIDIA Titan X, specifically for Witcher 3 or Warcraft?

Any idea of which would be better/same?

Would Titan X give me 60FPS in 4k?

geofelt · Aug 17, 2016

You will win fps benchmarks with sli.
But, some games do not support dual gpu;
Don't know about your two games.
Then, there are potential playability issues
Such as stuttering or screen tearing.
A single good card will play better.
Today, there is nothing better than the Titan X PASCAL(not to be confused with the original titan x)
Benchmarks I have seen shows it to be very competent at fast action 4k gaming.
I would not think you would have any problem getting 60fps at 4k.
I might think you could do that even with a single GTX1080.
Go ahead and buy your 4k monitor first and see how you do.

That is what I did when I was using a GTX780.
The new 4k monitor did not get a smooth 60fps.
A GTX980ti replacement gave me a nice steady 60fps in civ 4/5 and skyrim.

sshortguy1 · Aug 21, 2016

I seen videos on youtube using 2 gtx 1080s in sli and the pascal titan x and the reviews pointed towards the gtx 1080s in sli , the 2 dominated the titan x, like when I had a gtx 1080 , my performance wasn't as good as I expected so went to gtx 1070s in sli and it dominated the gtx 1080 same way as the gtx 1080s in sli will do the same with the new titan x

burgessanthony · Aug 21, 2016

Yes, 2x1080 will of course be faster on paper and possibly in real world, but that depends on game of course and sli support.

The titan xp is terrible value for money as well but will give you the best single gpu experience right now. I'd be tempted to wait for 1080ti

king3pj · Aug 21, 2016

I know from experience that the Witcher 3 has very good SLI scaling. I used to have SLI 970s paired with my 1440p monitor. I now have a GTX 1070 because the 3.5GB of fast VRAM on the 970s was causing stuttering for me in some games even when my core usage was not being maxed out. Some other games didn't support SLI at all so they suffered.

The Witcher 3 was one of the few games that performed better for my on me SLI 970 setup than it does on a single 1070. If Witcher 3 in 4K is your main priority I have no doubt that SLI 1080s will work better than a Titan X Pascal.

In other games your mileage may vary. Even in those cases where SLI doesn't work a single 1080 will do pretty well for most games in 4K with the right mix of settings.

I doubt the other game you mentioned, WoW, supports SLI because none of the other Blizzard games I play do besides Overwatch. I can't imagine a single 1080 struggling with WoW even at 4K though.

renz496 · Aug 21, 2016

with WoW the issue could be CPU. MMO often suffer from CPU especially in crowded area. take Guild Wars 2 for example they say you need 2600K OCed to 4.8Ghz just to maintain 30FPS in World vs World event.

Boskrr · Aug 22, 2016

Also hairworks is a huge FPS hit on The Witcher 3, even if you have an Nvidia card. On my GTX 980 it hits me for 20fps just turning it on. It's honestly not worth it IMO as it doesn't make the game look that much better, and you'd probably do better to turn it off.

That said, I pull 60fps in towns (80+ in the open world) without hairworks on my 980 @ 1080p. So you should be able to get 60fps@4K with two 1080's without any issue.

If you're going to get the monitor no matter what, you would be silly to buy the GPU first without knowing if you actually need to "upgrade" (not an upgrade anyway IMO). Take geofelt's advice and buy the monitor first and see how it goes.

bystander · Aug 22, 2016

renz496 :

WoW is no different.

kansaw · Aug 22, 2016

Witcher 3 on a 4k display with ultra settings chokes even rx480 crossfire down to 30 - 60fps. Staying above 60fps will take some serious power. Agree with 1080ti sli solution.

https://youtu.be/NIQH2sINQ6o

Boskrr · Aug 22, 2016

kansaw :

This is normal and expected. An RX 480 does not even touch the performance of a GTX 1080. Even AMD themselves touted it as a cheap competitor to the GTX 970, it's hardly a factor to consider when talking about current top-of-the-market cards.

There have been multiple testers playing Witcher 3 @ 4k and reporting that with post-process Anti-aliasing turned off, and hairworks off, they have no trouble maintaining that steady 60.

This person has his 1080's slightly overclocked, and reports getting 80+ FPS: https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/4m2tr0/the_witcher_3_gtx_1080_sli_oc_benchmark_4k_60fps/

rcald2000 · Aug 22, 2016

+mrsatvat9999 Here is a comparison video created by a YouTuber that I'm subscribed to:

DudeRandom84: Titan X Pascal Overclocked Vs GTX 1080 SLI Stock 4K The Witcher 3 Frame Rate Comparison
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWtqGNmWS3Y

Addendum: If you're not achieving 60 FPS @ 4K resolution with two 1080's in SLI, then I'd like to know if you uninstalled / reinstalled the Nvidia drivers when you upgraded from one GPU to two. Also, you should check the GPU temps in SLI configuration with GPU-Z (gpu zed), HWMonitor or some other utility. Chances are the top card is hotter, and might be served by putting a PCIe slot between then, which would necessitate a longer bridge. Also, would you mind restating your specs including your power supply manufacturer and model #?

I don't personally own GTX 1080s, nor do have any friend's that do. So I don't know if this YouTuber's experience is accurate or not.

geofelt · Aug 22, 2016

A nice comparison.
I noticed higher fps with sli, but both looked good enough to me.
Interesting that the sli version needed higher cpu utilization to get the job done.

With a higher density image, @4k, high levels of aa is not as necessary.
That is one of the more demanding settings for any graphics card.

Boskrr · Aug 22, 2016

rcald2000 :

People in the comments of this video talking about microstutter remind me of another good point:
When doing SLI GTX 1080's, you should absolutely get a "High-Bandwidth" SLI Bridge. It will help a LOT with potential SLI stuttering.

I have a friend with a Predator X34 monitor (ultrawide 1440p @ 100hz) and SLI'd 1080's + HB Bridge. I will ask him tonight if he actually maintains 100fps on that setup, and if so that should pretty much settle that you won't have any issues.
EDIT: He said he has Hairworks off and very, VERY rarely dips below 100fps.

rcald2000 · Aug 22, 2016

+geofelt I noticed that about the utilization as well. I also found that very interesting. I wish Pascal graphics card were powerful enough to display 4K @ 60+ FPS with 4x SDR enabled. But that's not reality yet. Matter-of-fact I seriously doubt Nvidia Volta will achieve that.

sshortguy1 · Aug 28, 2016

burgessanthony :

that will be your best bet , waiting for the gtx 1080 ti

sshortguy1 · Aug 28, 2016

Boskrr :

so is msaa fxaa etc in the options menu , I ended up eeing that in a lot of my games and turned it off and seen a major increase in performance

sshortguy1 · Aug 28, 2016

geofelt :

I had a 4k monitor with a single gtx 1080 I was getting around upper 40s to 60 across a lot of my new games but wanted more fps and switched to a 1440p 165 hz monitor and went with 2 gtx 1070s in SLI and seen a big difference between the 1080 and the 2 1070s

rcald2000 · Aug 28, 2016

+sshortguy1 What are some of the games that you play, which support SLI? I have that Acer monitor and I'm consider investing in the GTX 1070.

sshortguy1 · Aug 28, 2016

gta 5, rise of the tomb raider and the older 1 watchdogs wolfenstein sniper elite 3 hitman, just as a few as mentioned , the only way I go by is to go by the frame rates in the games rise of the tomb raider not so well as the frame rates are a little higher in the 70s area gta 5 i'm getting around 80-100 fps hitman i'm getting around the upper 80s watchdogs around 100-125 fps , but there's a big difference between 1 gtx 1070 and 2 gtx 1070s in SLI , my monitor i'm using now is a asus pg279q 165 hz , those are not cheap

sshortguy1 · Aug 28, 2016

rcald2000 :

being honest if you still have the 2 gtx 980 tis you'll be better off staying with them unless u can sell them , I had a gtx 980 ti ftw edition and didn't see a big jump between the gtx 1080 and the gtx 980 ti . the only reason I switched was b/c I bought the extended warrantee and returned it for a gtx 1080 f.e and went to 2 gtx 1070s for the power , if you have w 10 it might not work as well for SLI and seen a lot of issues with w 10 , i'm on w 8 and not going to go to w 10 b/c I went through too much issues that can't be corrected

rcald2000 · Aug 28, 2016

Gotcha. I'm on Windows 7 Professional. I don't like Windows 10 either. I've consider swapping my 980 Ti's just because I can sell them used on Ebay for the same cost as buying a pair of 1070's on NewEgg. 1070's have lower power usage, and slightly higher performance (at least in synthetic benchmarks). Only place where 1070's lose to the 980 Ti, is in memory bandwidth, which is helpful for loading textures quickly. I really wish the 1080 Ti was on the market right now.

Lately I've been playing GTA 5, Rust, Ark, and The Forest.

Frustrating time with GTX 1080 SLI and Witcher 3 - thinking of switching to NVIDIA TItan X

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