4 way SLI Maxwell Titan X or 2 way SLI GTX Titan XP

[Adi Avraham]

I was curious about some SLI configs, I know that the new pascal architecture doesn't support more than 2 way SLI and that made me curious about the performance of the older Titan X. is a 4 way SLI Titan XM (X-Maxwell) config better than a 2 way SLI Titan XP config? Also by performance, I mean performance on games that have good support for 4 way SLI and assume there are no bottle-necks by the CPU or anything. Thanks in advance for any answers I get

 

[atomicWAR]

Even in excellent scaling games for 4-way (which are few)...the titan x (pascal) in dual should more times then not out perform 4-way Maxwell titan. Now one thing to note is you can actually use 4way SLI for pascal cards. It's just not officially supported. You have to get an enthusiast key from nvidia to unlock it and you have to use the old SLI bridges (whether flexible, rigid or LED bridges) to make the SLI connection

 

[Adi Avraham]

Even in excellent scaling games for 4-way (which are few)...the titan x (pascal) in dual should more times then not out perform 4-way Maxwell titan. Now one thing to note is you can actually use 4way SLI for pascal cards. It's just not officially supported. You have to get an enthusiast key from nvidia to unlock it and you have to use the old SLI bridges (whether flexible, rigid or LED bridges) to make the SLI connection

Thanks for the quick answer, Also it does kind of make sense as pascal is already so much faster than maxwell but I honestly thought that the Titan XM would win but I guess the XP won because of its big speed boost. Also 2 way SLI probably has better support. And didn't nvidia stop the enthusiast key thing?

 

[ikaz]

FYI, Nvidia removed the enthusiast key and basically made it so you can't use more than 2 way unless its on special application list by Nvidia.

http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/GeForce-GTX-1080-and-1070-3-Way-and-4-Way-SLI-will-not-be-enabled-games

so unless you want to run benchmarks no point in 3/4 way.

 

[atomicWAR]

FYI, Nvidia removed the enthusiast key and basically made it so you can't use more than 2 way unless its on special application list by Nvidia.

http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/GeForce-GTX-1080-and-1070-3-Way-and-4-Way-SLI-will-not-be-enabled-games

so unless you want to run benchmarks no point in 3/4 way.

news to me...thank you. can't catch everything online in this day and age. So something worth considering when upgrading.

 

[Adi Avraham]

FYI, Nvidia removed the enthusiast key and basically made it so you can't use more than 2 way unless its on special application list by Nvidia.

http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/GeForce-GTX-1080-and-1070-3-Way-and-4-Way-SLI-will-not-be-enabled-games

so unless you want to run benchmarks no point in 3/4 way.

Thats what I thought. But I guess a 2 way XP config is still better than a 4 way XM config.

 

[ikaz]

yeah the only reason why people went tri-sli/tri-cf was to smooth out the frame from back in the days (like what 3 years or so ago).

 

[atomicWAR]

yeah the only reason why people went tri-sli/tri-cf was to smooth out the frame from back in the days (like what 3 years or so ago).

That and minimum frame rate were boosted a fair notch. Though it was a little further back as far as fairly "main stream among SLI/CF owners". And I was one of those people but starting with fermi and above (for nvidia at least) tri-sli started becoming less attractive. Scaling faltered and frame latency was particularly an issue for CF owners when scaling to three and four cards. now-a-days IF you go SLI, dual tends to offer the best experience.

 

[bystander]

With many AAA titles going to DX12 now, SLI profiles are not needed for multi-GPU support. The THG GTX 1060 review, which doesn't support SLI at all, actually does multi-GPU scaling in at least the one DX12 title they tested. That said, 3-4 way SLI would not be something I'd want to rely for dev support, as many dev's simply do not bother to support multi-GPU in DX12 these days. In the past, with DX11 and prior, SLI/CF support came from Nvidia and AMD, but with DX12 and Vulkan, we now have to rely on the dev's.

 

[xixou]

FYI, Nvidia removed the enthusiast key and basically made it so you can't use more than 2 way unless its on special application list by Nvidia.

http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/GeForce-GTX-1080-and-1070-3-Way-and-4-Way-SLI-will-not-be-enabled-games

so unless you want to run benchmarks no point in 3/4 way.

It is possible to enavle it again, look at youtube how