directx 12 multi GPU and SLI

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yonafshi

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hi y'all

from what I've read DX 12 is expected to allow multi GPU with SLI off. implicit in that is SLI MOBO. my question is, will it also allow the advantage of multi GPU in non-SLI boards, such as PC and workstations with multiple x16 slots and power? has this been tested if so, will there be a difference in performance?

looking forward to your impute.
Yoni
 
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Supernova1138
Boards without SLI support tend to lack PCI-E lane splitters and only allow multi GPU setups with an x16 x4 lane configuration, which would be a major bottleneck for the second card and likely cause reduced performance. In theory you do not need a board with SLI support to use DirectX 12 multi-adapter, but in practice it would be a good idea to have one to ensure neither card is being starved for PCI-E bandwidth. If you find a board that is not SLI certified but does offer x8 x8 PCI-E connectivity, it should work well.
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JackNaylorPE

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SLI was a wondrous thing up thru the 9xx series ... twin x70s (or even x60s / x50s) simply blew the x80 outta the water for the same or less money. With the 10xx series it's much less attractive. This could be due to several things:

a) GPU performance jumped 50%+ generation to generation, CPU performance has barely budged in 6 years ... have we finally been "bottlenecked" ?

b) nVidia lost tons of money from peeps buying two lesser cards instead of the flagship as they make more money on the top tier cards. With no competition from AMD, might they be nerfing SLI performance ? After all what cards would be impacted by great 1070 performance ? ... only the 1080. We should see when new AMD cards come out.

c) DX12 is a brand new API and will take many more months for the driver teams to full understand how best to make use of it.

From my PoV, I don't pay much attention to what any new API / technology is "gonna do" . I been disappointed far too many times .... Remember "Mantle is gonna change everything" ? ... how about "HBM is gonna change everything " ?

In short, I think we have to make decisions on what we can test ... and not on what someone promises as those promises never quite seem to be fulfilled.
 
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JackNaylorPE

JackNaylorPE

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There are in fact several DX12 games, and over time, DX12 will become more prominent; some don't work very well. But remember, with a 3 - 5 year development cycle, before you upgrade that card you bought today, most games will be DX12.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1060_Gaming_X/16.html
The game uses an in-house game engine by IO Interactive that is one of the first to leverage DirectX 12. The game's DirectX 12 implementation, however, is too riddled with bugs to be integrated into our test bench for now. In this test, we're testing the game [Hitman] in DirectX 11 mode, which is still reasonably taxing on high-end GPUs.
Click to expand...

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1060_Gaming_X/19.html
Based on an advanced Crystal Dynamics Engine, the game [Rise of the Tomb Raider] takes advantage of DirectX 11 and DirectX 12. We are using DirectX 12 for our testing.
Click to expand...

Here's a list of games with DX12 support

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DirectX_12_support


 
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OneFIshSunfish

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I believe he meant DX12 with SLI support.
 
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Supernova1138

Supernova1138

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I believe there are actually two games that do support Explicit Multi-Adapter in DirectX 12, and those are Hitman (2016) and Ashes of the Singularity. I wouldn't bank on this particular feature becoming widespread quickly, it's lots of extra work for the game developer, and most developers probably won't put the time and resources into a feature that only a small subset of the PC audience uses. Ashes and Hitman only really have the feature because AMD threw money at the developers to showcase DirectX 12.
 
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yonafshi

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Sep 30, 2016
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thank you all very much for your interest.

as far as I can tell most replies refer to the software level. practically speaking you're right in questioning the application of the solution, which games support it etc.

my question is more in principal and it's relating the hardware aspect - specifically the MOBO: which ever games this does works or will work, with which ever card - does the MOBO have to be SLI or is it enough having a multi x16 slots board and strong enough PSU? has the existing DX 12 multi GPU solution ever been tested on a non SLI board. maybe what I'm asking is impossible - that's what i wanna know

I'm curious on a general level but i ask because I have a T7610 which supports SLI only for 2 types of quadro (which i don't intend on getting). i want to know if this solution MIGHT work on it in the future.

Yoni
 
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Supernova1138

Supernova1138

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Boards without SLI support tend to lack PCI-E lane splitters and only allow multi GPU setups with an x16 x4 lane configuration, which would be a major bottleneck for the second card and likely cause reduced performance. In theory you do not need a board with SLI support to use DirectX 12 multi-adapter, but in practice it would be a good idea to have one to ensure neither card is being starved for PCI-E bandwidth. If you find a board that is not SLI certified but does offer x8 x8 PCI-E connectivity, it should work well.
 
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