SLI, how does it work?

Solution
sli used to work when the nvidia x70 cards were a lot cheaper then then the x80 cards. people used to buy two x70 for 1/2 price of one x80 card a few years ago. the two x70 used to have higher frame rates for less money. today with gpu and cpu vendors dropping new gpu about every 12 months it not worth buying two gpu to sli as one gpu will be faster.

luckymatt42

Upstanding
May 23, 2018
446
1
360
Very long story short, SLI enables two graphics cards to act like one big graphics card (oversimplified, but good enough for now...). NOTE that not all games or applications support this configuration...if they don't specifically support it, the game or app will essentially ignore the second card. There are SOME games and apps that support it, but the number seems to be decreasing.

As for the monitors...remember that in SLI, two cards act like one card. In that case, both of your monitors should go into the same card. You CAN plug them into their own gpu, but then it won't be true SLI.
 

Rogue Leader

It's a trap!
Moderator


To answer the question, SLI very basically splits the workload between the two GPUs having each one take turns rendering one frame you see on the screen. This allows them to virtually almost double their processing power, though in practice its 80% at best, most of the time more like 50-60%.

As for your monitors both should be plugged into the primary adapter.

Finally SLI is on its way out, not every game supports it, its buggy, and you need a monster PSU to power the two GPUs. You are FAR better off with a single good GPU.
 
sli used to work when the nvidia x70 cards were a lot cheaper then then the x80 cards. people used to buy two x70 for 1/2 price of one x80 card a few years ago. the two x70 used to have higher frame rates for less money. today with gpu and cpu vendors dropping new gpu about every 12 months it not worth buying two gpu to sli as one gpu will be faster.
 
Solution

SonnyNXiong

Prominent
Aug 6, 2017
120
0
710


What if i plugged 2 hdmi into my monitors then 2 each per monitor into each gpu?
 

Rogue Leader

It's a trap!
Moderator


That literally does nothing. Where would you get such an idea?
 

SonnyNXiong

Prominent
Aug 6, 2017
120
0
710


one can wonder