980ti SLI or One Gtx 1080ti?

Dankdab · Mar 15, 2017

which will give you better performance? not worrying about price, just wondering.

I can't find any benchmarks for these two cards competing.

Chugalug_ · Mar 15, 2017

A 1080ti will give you significantly better performance and more stable frame rates, as SLI scaling is dodgy.
Wait for aftermarket 1080 tis to release.

Supahos · Mar 15, 2017

Depends on the title. One of the very few that SLI scales well the 980tis will win... Some new titles offer zero SLI support so the second card won't offer any increased performance. I'd always choose 1 fast card over two slower ones. Even more so now that less and less games support sli.

VincentP · Mar 15, 2017

980 Ti in SLI will give higher frame rates providing it is well supported by your motherboard and the specific application or game you are running.
1080 Ti will give much more reliable performance.

atomicWAR · Mar 15, 2017

Its hard to tell as you mentioned there are no benchmarks to back things up one way or another but if I had to guess one GTX 1080 Ti would be better then 2 GTX 980 Ti's when SLI is supported. The same was true for 2 GTX 980s vs 1 GTX 1080 so with the increase in performance between the GTX 1080 and 1080 Ti increasing from last gen's increase from GTX 980 to 980 Ti (35% for the 1080 to the Ti and 25% for the GTX 980 to the Ti).

CRO5513Y · Mar 15, 2017

1x GTX 1080 Ti without a doubt. If you need benchmarks there are plenty around the internet for 1x 1080 Ti vs 1x 980 Ti, but very little comparing 2x 980 TI. Although they would all only be 1080 Ti Founder's Editions. I'd wait for the aftermarket 1080 Ti to come out and grab one of them, a problem with SLI is the scaling can cause issues in many games and in some it's just not supported at all. You also get double the VRAM on the 1080 Ti even tho you probably won't use more than 6GB on the 980 Ti most the time. (VRAM does not combine when running more than 1 card). Hope this help

*Edit* Wow so many answers within 2 minutes haha, there were no answers yet when i started my response

Dankdab · Mar 15, 2017

I actually bought an asus strix gtx 1080 a week before anyone knew when the 1080ti was announced. So I'm a bit depressed about that. How much longer do you guys think this 1080 has until an upgrade is needed? I would've bought another card but I got a mb that didnt have sli support. (Asus PRIME z270k) But since now you guys are saying SLI isn't worth it anymore since scaling is Inconsistent. Made me feel a bit better about my purchase.

CRO5513Y · Mar 15, 2017

Dankdab :

SLI isn't necessarily worse than it ever was, it's probably only getting better in reality in terms of support and bandwidth, the thing everyone agrees on tho is that it's better in most cases to get 1 much better card over say 2 weaker cards. Which is comparable to this situation.

Your GTX 1080 STRIX should still be a great card, for anything under 4K it's a beast still don't let the 1080 Ti reel you in

. Are you unsatisfied with its performance? If not i'd stick with it until next gen which should bring AMD back into the high end (Vega) but either way the issue with upgrading now would be the loss of value on your GTX 1080 since the 1080 Ti launch it would be sell for much less then what you probably just got it for. Hope this helps

atomicWAR · Mar 15, 2017

I use SLI myself. Scaling is fairly consistent IF SLI is supported. SLi does have short comings is all and that is what people are trying to warn you about. If a game doesn't support it then your stuck with a single card, wasting the others power. Personally I find for the most part, games that need 2 cards to run at max settings, filtering and AA tend to support SLI while those that don't need 2 cards don't support it. Kind of obvious as to why support is not there. However this is not 100%. If your willing to deal with the short comings of SLI it is great but if not then it is a waste. Also generally speaking you should only get SLI if at the time you buy your GPU there is no other higher performing GPU, save the Titan GPUs as they are ridiculous in price. Regardless your motherboard does not support SLI so your stuck with single card set ups. I think you'll be good until volta launchs next year unless you can feel the pinch in games now. Only you can decide if selling your GTX 1080 so you can bu a GTX 1080Ti is worth it.

Chugalug_ · Mar 16, 2017

Yeah, that's my peeve with SLI, support isn't consistent even across AAA titles. (see Hitman 2016)
Pretty much if you're not running high end cards like 980ti/1070 + its a pointless investment, hence why Nvidia disabled it on the 1050/1060 this generation.

DieselDawgBeast · Mar 16, 2017

I have two msi 980 ti gaming 6G's in SLI and the only two games i have that don't utilize SLi are DOOM and wolfenstein the new order. A single 980ti smashes doom on ultra in 4k/nightmare settings so problem solved there. Wolfenstein is terribly optimized, but it still runs great on ultra in 4k. I have had zero issues with my setup as far as power, heat, and reliability. I'm running a 6900k with 24GB 3000MHz ram. Guys, SLi not being supported with "alot" of games and having "issues" as you call them are a thing of the past. We aren't talking about two 8800 ultras in SLi anymore. My setup owns every game in 4k with eye candy maxxed out and i will tell you, i won't be upgrading to the 1080ti or 1080ti sli because there is absolutely no need. If you game at 100hz or 144hz, then 1080ti SLi might be the way to go in 4k+, but i game on a 55" samsung JU6500 @ 60hz and it is perfect in everyway and i have never had a single issue with SLi. I can run battlefront in 5K with supersampling at 50+ FPS! Also, i am running a corsair RM850X. For everybody saying an SLi setup uses too much power, they really don't at all. Linus can confirm this too. I don't get anywhere near my 850 watts or my maxes on my rails. I have two samsung 850 pro ssd's and 3 mechanical drives with a corsair H80V2, etc. etc. If you know what you are doing with your build, heat isn't an issue either. My top card never gets over 83C which is perfectly fine. Don't buy into the "sli is unreliable" mess guys. It's perfectly awesome. I GUARANTEE you that two aftermarket 980ti's in SLi will outperform an aftermarket 1080ti. 1080ti SLi will smash them, but not a single. i'll be waiting until the next GEN, maybe two.

Chillio · Mar 24, 2017

CRO5513Y :

Rofl, 980ti SLI shits all over the Titan XP. The 1080ti is identical to the Titan XP, 1-2 FPS more or less. With the Titan XP benchmarks already out and compared against 980ti SLI, we already know which setup is far more superior. Save your money and wait for the next gen, 1080ti is a rebrand Titan XP with less the performance component.

Also, the majority of games out right now are supported with SLI, haven't come across issues with SLI at all, I don't understand why "people" complain that their shitty experience is due to SLI, always trying to find something to blame and complain about when they have little to no knowledge about computer technologies.

Chugalug_ · Mar 25, 2017

The 1080ti is a slightly cut down version of the Titan XP with actual better performance by a few percent due to the additional clock speeds. SLI support and scaling are inconsistent and vary across the board, skewing performance metrics.
Combine this with the occasional stutter experienced with SLI ( I use two 1080s in SLI, I know), and the 1080ti is the clear winner, even though 980ti SLi will beat it in pure average FPS in benchmarks. There are a lot of games that outright don't use SLI at all. See (Hitman 2016-2017)
"I don't understand why "people" complain that their shitty experience is due to SLI, always trying to find something to blame and complain about when they have little to no knowledge about computer technologies."
You say this, but you present no statistics or evidence to back your claims, make attacks towards other people and have no previous posts on this account.
Unless you've experienced 980ti or any SLI for that matter, your claims are extremely unfounded given you haven't provided any evidence.

tito3032 · May 21, 2017

CRO5513Y :

1x GTX 1080 Ti without a doubt. If you need benchmarks there are plenty around the internet for 1x 1080 Ti vs 1x 980 Ti, but very little comparing 2x 980 TI. Although they would all only be 1080 Ti Founder's Editions. I'd wait for the aftermarket 1080 Ti to come out and grab one of them, a problem with SLI is the scaling can cause issues in many games and in some it's just not supported at all. You also get double the VRAM on the 1080 Ti even tho you probably won't use more than 6GB on the 980 Ti most the time. (VRAM does not combine when running more than 1 card). Hope this help

*Edit* Wow so many answers within 2 minutes haha, there were no answers yet when i started my response

tito3032 · May 21, 2017

same here

bjarnson7777 · Aug 24, 2017

DieselDawgBeast :

I have two msi 980 ti gaming 6G's in SLI and the only two games i have that don't utilize SLi are DOOM and wolfenstein the new order. A single 980ti smashes doom on ultra in 4k/nightmare settings so problem solved there. Wolfenstein is terribly optimized, but it still runs great on ultra in 4k. I have had zero issues with my setup as far as power, heat, and reliability. I'm running a 6900k with 24GB 3000MHz ram. Guys, SLi not being supported with "alot" of games and having "issues" as you call them are a thing of the past. We aren't talking about two 8800 ultras in SLi anymore. My setup owns every game in 4k with eye candy maxxed out and i will tell you, i won't be upgrading to the 1080ti or 1080ti sli because there is absolutely no need. If you game at 100hz or 144hz, then 1080ti SLi might be the way to go in 4k+, but i game on a 55" samsung JU6500 @ 60hz and it is perfect in everyway and i have never had a single issue with SLi. I can run battlefront in 5K with supersampling at 50+ FPS! Also, i am running a corsair RM850X. For everybody saying an SLi setup uses too much power, they really don't at all. Linus can confirm this too. I don't get anywhere near my 850 watts or my maxes on my rails. I have two samsung 850 pro ssd's and 3 mechanical drives with a corsair H80V2, etc. etc. If you know what you are doing with your build, heat isn't an issue either. My top card never gets over 83C which is perfectly fine. Don't buy into the "sli is unreliable" mess guys. It's perfectly awesome. I GUARANTEE you that two aftermarket 980ti's in SLi will outperform an aftermarket 1080ti. 1080ti SLi will smash them, but not a single. i'll be waiting until the next GEN, maybe two.

bjarnson7777 · Aug 24, 2017

I'm with DieselDawgBeast on this one. I run a Ryzen 1600 @ 4ghz , 16gb 2933mhz ram, and two MSi 980 ti's 6G's in SLI. Even Hitman 2016 loves it. I game at 1080p 144hz, and Hitman maxed out averages 90+ fps, and when i want to play on my 4k tv 60hz, i average 55+ fps at max settings. I have no complaints with the SLI, and how it works in my games. I bench mark just for kicks and giggles, and have only one reasons so far for upgrading. My Ryzen sits around 70watts under load, and my 980 ti's sit around 190watts under load, however the card on top can get a little toasty 85', so i have to set a new fan profile for the 980 Ti's, but other than that, nothing. i can even overclock them to 1500mhz, and they work around 80' with the better fan profile. No reason to upgrade, and i can give you all the stats you want on how my setup has been running, and what games i have benchmarked, or even what benchmarks I have used with the results, or even just some good ol plain 3dmark scores.

With that being said, i have the two 980 ti's right now, and if i did not have them already, i would personally prefer one gpu over two. Don't get me wrong, i do not regret running with two 980 ti's, but if i didn't have them i would go with one 1080 ti or even the water cooled vega frontier.

dilton22 · Sep 26, 2017

Have 2 asus matrix 980ti and there is not a single game i can't run at max. Probably overkill but i love it.

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