Not enjoying my new 980 ti SLI

Those 980ti should be perfect to max out that res.

1080ti would be for 4k.. Though 2 would be best.
 
Armenius said:
My first SLI setup was a pair of 8800GTX. I think the games that supported it back then had better scaling in general and it just got worse over time. Around 5-7 years ago major engines like Unreal introduced deferred rendering techniques which require information from the last frame to render the next, which is impossible with AFR. My last SLI setup was a pair of GTX 970 and most of the games I played were using single GPU mode. I never messed around with setting bits because of the visual glitches it often produced. NVIDIA brushing aside the voltage issue was pretty much the last straw for me. I've been buying the single most powerful video card since.
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SLI performing worse over time? That's a sad thought. Guess I'm glad I've been buying single GPUs ever since.

OP, I would be very interested to see your results with an old game that's still taxing like Crysis 1, Metro, or maybe even ARMA.
 
FlawleZ said:
SLI performing worse over time? That's a sad thought. Guess I'm glad I've been buying single GPUs ever since.

OP, I would be very interested to see your results with an old game that's still taxing like Crysis 1, Metro, or maybe even ARMA.
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Not surprising, sli/crossfire is all but dead.
 
Aireoth said:
Not surprising, sli/crossfire is all but dead.
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This just doesn't make sense to me. It seems like just the other day we were seeing reviews of nearly 100% scaling of Crossfire, with SLI performing better too. How or why would this technology regress in performance?
 
FlawleZ said:
This just doesn't make sense to me. It seems like just the other day we were seeing reviews of nearly 100% scaling of Crossfire, with SLI performing better too. How or why would this technology regress in performance?
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I'm not an expert, but I would guess it has to do with it being a niche product with a small demographic coupled with DX12 moving a lot of the GPU performance to the developer side rather than manufacturer.

This to me would mean that nVidia and AMD have less interest in pushing crossfire/sli perfection in their drivers (as evidenced by dropping 3/4 way) and developers having no real interest or incentive to optimize a game for 1% of the computer market. Hell we are lucky when games are optimized for basic computers.
 
I went from SLI 980 TI to a single 1080 TI and while in theory I lost a bit of power, games are much smoother overall now with a single card. I play on triple 1440, which is basically double 4k res.

Even playing Destiny 2 at 7880x1440 I had 0 hitches and the game looks amazing. (the open beta)
 
FlawleZ said:
This just doesn't make sense to me. It seems like just the other day we were seeing reviews of nearly 100% scaling of Crossfire, with SLI performing better too. How or why would this technology regress in performance?
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Well, from the standpoint of GPU manufacturers why sell 2 GPUs for $400 each when you can sell a single one for $800? To me this really is just avoiding product cannibalization. Less warranty support, less driver updates needed and more profit per card.

If anything, the 980TI was the exception to pricing: 780 TI was $699, 980ti was $649, 1080ti back to $699. The difference is now a 1080ti is powerful enough to run 4k at a good rate and so people no longer REQUIRE 2 GPUs to get the performance at higher resolutions.

As far as support goes, I have ALWAYS seen problems with crossfire and problems with SLI. They have always lacked release day/week/month patches and very rarely did they truly scale effectively. I had 6950 (unlocked to 6970s!) crossfire and after dealing with it for like 2+ years I'll moved to a single 980ti. I'll probably never consider crossfire/SLI in the future.
 
multi-gpu is probably dying with DX12, AMD already dropped crossfire in favor to just let game devs handle mGPU support via DX12 going forward. Nvidia being Nvidia will likely continue to support SLI till its no longer feasible but with DX12 moving multi-gpu support up to game devs to implement I don't see anything but AAA titles getting good support for it as other devs will just not waste their time on implementing it unless a gpu maker offers to help them out.
 
I'll keep at it until the tech is official EoL. Enough of the games that I own and have played throughout the years on a regular basis have at least decent SLI support (or can be made to work), but then again, I take the more sensible approach of only doing SLI with the top tier cards so that I'll still have good performance on the off chance it's completely non-functional in a game.
 
veedubfreak said:
Cost? 2 1080 ti is like 1400 bucks bro. I just sold my 2 980 tis for 300 each.
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tenor.gif
 
more gains from SLI @ 1920x1080? buy new 8700k.

OP *s f**. three games do support SLI. massive gains! MASSIVE!!!


try 8x MSAA or DSR from nvidia panel.
 
Zepher said:
Last time I installed Windows on my 2 main rigs was back in 2009. Both machines have gone through major hardware changes over the past 8 years.
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Yeah, last time I did a clean wipe was summer of 2013.

It really is a modern miracle..

The days of formatting every six months are LONG gone.
 
I upgrade 980 ti sli to a single 1080 ti and I think I'm much happier with the single card solution. My 980 ti's would run to like 80C whereas my 1080 ti maxes out at ~73C on intense gaming.
 
First off you went SLI on old tech.

Secondly, in the 10 series they remedied microstutter with High Bandwidth Bridges. I am not sure and I believe the 980ti doesn't support HB bridging.

Lastly, A single 1070 is probably faster than your two 980's. I used to own a 980ti and sold it.

I now have dual 1080ti and they are wonderful. I don't awlays run them in SLI, sometimes disable it altogether but it takes like 15-30 seconds to re-enable on the driver level when I need to so no biggie.

Some games are amazing with SLI others... meh its nice having the options.

My cards never surpass 55c but I am fully watercooled using Asus Poseidon cards.
 
I appreciate everyone's input. Thanks for the advice and experience. I was able to sell my 980ti for a decent amount and picked up a 1080ti hydrocopper.

Not looking forward to draining my loop and uninstalling and reinstalling,
 
Recipe7 said:
I appreciate everyone's input. Thanks for the advice and experience. I was able to sell my 980ti for a decent amount and picked up a 1080ti hydrocopper.

Not looking forward to draining my loop and uninstalling and reinstalling,
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Yeah, but I am certain you are looking forward to trouble free gaming, once it is all said and done. :)
 
Recipe7 said:
I appreciate everyone's input. Thanks for the advice and experience. I was able to sell my 980ti for a decent amount and picked up a 1080ti hydrocopper.

Not looking forward to draining my loop and uninstalling and reinstalling,
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One should drain there fluid once a year anyhow. Usually I try to time an upgrade at the same time to kill 2 birds at once.

I need to drain my lines with my 2 1080s. Would love to upgrade to 1080ti sli but the speed bump don't really seem worth the hassle.

Try and hold off till next summer when something new hits I guess.

Sure I could see off my 2 1080s for $1000+ and another $100 at least for the blocks and snag a single 1080ti and have plenty left over but when I'm gaming at 4k and the games I play use sli mostly.. it's tuff to take a loss. So it would end up costing me more to snag 2 cards and water cooling blocks.
 
Eh, I've never fully drained my system. But then again there's enough silver in the system that nothing grows. All my fittings are silver plated.
 
veedubfreak said:
Eh, I've never fully drained my system. But then again there's enough silver in the system that nothing grows. All my fittings are silver plated.
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I used to use that .999 Sterling silver/distilled water years ago and it didn't work. Always used it.. till I found the black painted brass fittings looked seriously bad. No idea why.. prob super high water flow with the 6 pumps in the sydtem.. mostly the elbows showed this problem.. bitspower fittings.. never buy painted fittings again.

Still the water didnt come out clean.. stuff was growing. Just had the silver in the rez was prob the reason.
 
ManofGod said:
Yeah, but I am certain you are looking forward to trouble free gaming, once it is all said and done. :)
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Exactly.

veedubfreak said:
Eh, I've never fully drained my system. But then again there's enough silver in the system that nothing grows. All my fittings are silver plated.
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Ya i wont fully drain it. Its just a hassle either way. The 1080ti will be here next tuesday but i need to prep the sold 980ti for tomorrow. I will have to probably cut new tubing to make the connection from the single 980ti to my res since i will need to access my pc still.
 
eclypse said:
I used to use that .999 Sterling silver/distilled water years ago and it didn't work. Always used it.. till I found the black painted brass fittings looked seriously bad. No idea why.. prob super high water flow with the 6 pumps in the sydtem.. mostly the elbows showed this problem.. bitspower fittings.. never buy painted fittings again.

Still the water didnt come out clean.. stuff was growing. Just had the silver in the rez was prob the reason.
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Jesus, 6 pumps? I run 2. All fittings are either silver plated or just brass/nickel plated.
 
veedubfreak said:
Jesus, 6 pumps? I run 2. All fittings are either silver plated or just brass/nickel plated.
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6 quiet pumps for a dead silent rig..

;) was a once in a lifetime build that prob cost me in the 14k range. Huge mountain mods ascension case with 4 large rads, quad radeon 7970 cards, 31 typhoon fans and an ass load of water fittings, huge cylinder rez and 2 triple pump blocks.

That was all hell to take apart and list for sale.. along with the triple 144hz 1080 monitors and huge heavy ass triple monitor mount.. I had to make a box for that thing just to ship it haha.

Spend 2+ months planning and building it and never using it.. :/ how it goes.. the fun is the build.

Sold it all to buy high end home audio system.
 
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eclypse said:
I used to use that .999 Sterling silver/distilled water years ago and it didn't work. Always used it.. till I found the black painted brass fittings looked seriously bad. No idea why.. prob super high water flow with the 6 pumps in the sydtem.. mostly the elbows showed this problem.. bitspower fittings.. never buy painted fittings again.

Still the water didnt come out clean.. stuff was growing. Just had the silver in the rez was prob the reason.
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6 pumps in the system? Jesus H christmas, what the heck for! ?
 
KazeoHin said:
6 pumps in the system? Jesus H christmas, what the heck for! ?
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Cause I liked the look of them and had plenty of space to kill.

6 weak pumps that are quiet combined for extreme flow to push threw 3x 360/1 480 rads and quad video/cpu/full motherboard water blocks. 2x tripple pump block tops.

Maybe I'll just hunt for a few pics later on.

Yes extreme top of the line build..

And no my water lines never moved/danced when I turned it on haha
 
Recipe7 said:
Please post a pic of that setup, i'd love to see it.
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https://hardforum.com/threads/my-7970-quad-fire-build.1672524/

Found the old thread on here for it.. dont show much of the case but the specs are there. Had a link in there for the system on evga's forums but the thread is list on there..

Still need to hunt for pics on my pc and post them.

Wana see a crazy pc part out sale??? Lol god crazy to look back at it now.

https://hardforum.com/threads/fs-my-huge-dream-pc-build-part-out.1765554/ click on this pics to see more. Don't miss the water fittings pic!
 
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Heres the pc pics.. First ones are early back in 2010. Case was used for 2 years and has had 3 upgrades as seen in the following photos. Note.. started out with 3 Nvidia 480s and 2 months later jumped to Quad 580s. Then to Quad Fire 7970s.. then I tore it all apart and sold it and left PC gaming for a few years.





































You wana see something crazy I built back in 2006?? take a look haha Post Your Workstations 2017​
 
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tangoseal said:
Lastly, A single 1070 is probably faster than your two 980's. I used to own a 980ti and sold it.
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What, a single 1070 is faster than SLI 980s? That simply isn't true. And if we assume you meant 980 Tis in SLI since that's what this thread is about, then that statement is even more wrong.

You say you owned a single 980 ti, sorry but that gives you no experience to have an informed opinion on 980 TI SLI.

Or maybe you meant 1080 TI but somehow managed to type 1070, which in that case it was just a typo so forget what I just said.

But either way I just felt that claim definitely needed to be pointed out because it's just wrong, so someone else doesn't come in here and get bad advice. :)
 
koomba said:
What, a single 1070 is faster than SLI 980s? That simply isn't true. And if we assume you meant 980 Tis in SLI since that's what this thread is about, then that statement is even more wrong.

You say you owned a single 980 ti, sorry but that gives you no experience to have an informed opinion on 980 TI SLI.

Or maybe you meant 1080 TI but somehow managed to type 1070, which in that case it was just a typo so forget what I just said.

But either way I just felt that claim definitely needed to be pointed out because it's just wrong, so someone else doesn't come in here and get bad advice. :)
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I was gona say it but whatever.. the 980ti and 1070 are close to the same performance.. I remember back when everyone asking if it's worth it to upgrade and most said no.

No way a 1070 is just as fast as 980ti sli.
 
Recipe7 said:
I recently did my first loop build, and was successful.

After resting my poor fingers with trying to get the damn fittings on, I decided to bench and play some games with my 980 tis in SLI.

I was bummed to find out that Superpostion is not supported for SLI, and nearly all the games I've played (bf1, witcher 3, gta 5) are not seeing any gains, and I am getting stuttering. What's worse is that each 980 ti that I have is stable at 1500mhz, but I can't overclock both in SLI past 1400mhz.

I have not gone SLI since my 670s some odd years ago. I knew SLI wasn't perfect, but damn it has been a horrible experience thus far with my 980 tis.

I reinstalled the latest drivers and did some research on SLI profiles. I was able to get SLI to work for the most part, but at the cost of stuttering in all games, and flickering in Witcher 3.

Am I missing something? I am on the verge of reformatting my PC and starting from scratch as I have been using my SSD for quite a while now. Will a fresh install of Windows 10 help me out?

I see that a 1080ti is pretty much 980 ti SLI... should I just go the single card route to avoid the hassle I'm experiencing now?
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I cannot comment on Windows 10 being a problem but depending on a game, SLI still works and offers a sizable boost. Witcher 3 definitely supports it and I think GTAV does too. If you did a clean driver reinstall and SLI is enabled in the driver, I'd do a Windows reinstall. Maybe clone the drive to a spare or install fresh Windows to a spare for testing. It is true that many games no longer support SLI which IMO is a damn shame with the push for 4K and VR. Some VR games support SLI but it is all dependent on what you play. Certainly getting a 1080 ti would offer a much better experience since having a powerful single card is always better but you will be paying a lot on top of your 980 ti's which are not really worth all that much anymore. Depending on whether or not you're willing to spend, it's probably best to reinstall Windows if has to be and stick to existing setup. If you want best experience or VR/4K then perhaps 1080 ti is a better option. With my SLI I only had serious issues with Deus Ex Making Divided which kept crashing and it's known for SLI issues as well as Quantum Break which also is known for serious SLI visual artifacts and issues (this is with Windows 7 x64 though).
 
koomba said:
What, a single 1070 is faster than SLI 980s? That simply isn't true. And if we assume you meant 980 Tis in SLI since that's what this thread is about, then that statement is even more wrong.

You say you owned a single 980 ti, sorry but that gives you no experience to have an informed opinion on 980 TI SLI.

Or maybe you meant 1080 TI but somehow managed to type 1070, which in that case it was just a typo so forget what I just said.

But either way I just felt that claim definitely needed to be pointed out because it's just wrong, so someone else doesn't come in here and get bad advice. :)
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I meant 1080 but my cell phone is an idiot
 
ManofGod said:
You will ultimately be happier that way, in my opinion. When I was running 2 x furies, when it worked, it worked great. However, new games, especially DX12, Vulkan and Microsoft Store games did not support Crossfire at all. Now I am on one Vega 56 and it works much better overall.
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You haven’t had that Vega long enough to know it’ll be better than your pair of Furies. I’ll be interested to see if your opinion holds. My Vegas were nothing but problems, but I had excellent results with the pair of Fury X in Crossfire. I didn’t have to take the Fury X out of Crossfire for over six months. It just worked and even if it didn’t see performance increases, at least I didn’t play anything that saw a performance hit because crossfire was enabled. I couldn’t say that with my Vegas at all. I was always tuning Crossfire on and off. And the single card experience was buggy as all get out too. grrrrr.

I agree on SLI though -- My pair of 1080ti feel laggy compared to just a single. I think I'm dealing with microstutter with the two cards, that you don't see with a single. And that I didn't see at all with freesync enabled and the pair of Fury X in crossfire.

What a sad state multi gpu is in at the present.
 
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Archaea said:
You haven’t had that Vega long enough to know it’ll be better than your pair of Furies. I’ll be interested to see if your opinion holds. My Vegas were nothing but problems, but I had excellent results with the pair of Fury X in Crossfire. I didn’t have to take the Fury X out of Crossfire for over six months. It just worked and even if it didn’t see performance increases I didn’t play anything that saw a performance hit. I couldn’t say that with my Vegas at all. I was always tuning Crossfire on and off. And the single card experience was buggy as all get out too.

I agree on SLI. My pair of 1080ti feel laggy compared to just a single.

What a said state multi gpu is in at the present.
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I think things will be really good in SLI in Destiny 2 in a few days. Im awaiting that haha excited.
 
Question.... does 980ti suppprt HB bridge? That might be OPs problem.

Btw lots of games suppprt SLI. You just need some beef in the cpu dept. To feed those gpus.
 
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