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Thunderdolt
Gawd
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2018
- Messages
- 1,015
My anecdotal experience says to go with a single 2080Ti. To give you an idea of where I'm coming from, check the two builds in my sig.
While putting together the big build and getting impatient waiting on parts, I temporarily pulled the Titan Xps from the smaller build and dropped in a single 2080Ti with the stock cooler and on stock settings. What I've found in most games so far is that, at 4K, the single 2080Ti noticeably out performs the Titan pair in non-SLI games (ie, most UE4 games like PUBG). Maybe it's "only" 30% in some titles, but that's still a massive jump in immersion and playability, and there are other titles where the jump is even larger. In games which support SLI (ie, Destiny 2), the single 2080 Ti matches the performance of the Titan pair but often does it with better looking frames. This is because, even with an SLI title, there is some overhead and inefficiency in trying to execute SLI.
Also keep in mind that my experience above is with a completely stock 2080 Ti compared to a pair of wet Titan Xps. The Titan are at stock clocks but with TDP maxed (120% I think?), and the 2080 Ti ends up thermal throttling due to the insufficient stock cooling.
Another benefit to the 2080 Ti is NVLink. This is a big step up from SLI and may come into play 2 years from now when you're looking to upgrade again. At that point, the boost from NVLink might make the less expensive multi-gpu approach much more effective.
In terms of the headaches from SLI, I haven't experienced any. Pretty much the only issue I've run into is that when motherboards say they support SLI in all slots, they're flat out lying. This meant the Titan build was limited to being a 2 GPU rig if I wanted SLI. Aside from that, everything that was supposed to work worked and I didn't run into any issues with driver updates, etc.
While putting together the big build and getting impatient waiting on parts, I temporarily pulled the Titan Xps from the smaller build and dropped in a single 2080Ti with the stock cooler and on stock settings. What I've found in most games so far is that, at 4K, the single 2080Ti noticeably out performs the Titan pair in non-SLI games (ie, most UE4 games like PUBG). Maybe it's "only" 30% in some titles, but that's still a massive jump in immersion and playability, and there are other titles where the jump is even larger. In games which support SLI (ie, Destiny 2), the single 2080 Ti matches the performance of the Titan pair but often does it with better looking frames. This is because, even with an SLI title, there is some overhead and inefficiency in trying to execute SLI.
Also keep in mind that my experience above is with a completely stock 2080 Ti compared to a pair of wet Titan Xps. The Titan are at stock clocks but with TDP maxed (120% I think?), and the 2080 Ti ends up thermal throttling due to the insufficient stock cooling.
Another benefit to the 2080 Ti is NVLink. This is a big step up from SLI and may come into play 2 years from now when you're looking to upgrade again. At that point, the boost from NVLink might make the less expensive multi-gpu approach much more effective.
In terms of the headaches from SLI, I haven't experienced any. Pretty much the only issue I've run into is that when motherboards say they support SLI in all slots, they're flat out lying. This meant the Titan build was limited to being a 2 GPU rig if I wanted SLI. Aside from that, everything that was supposed to work worked and I didn't run into any issues with driver updates, etc.
