1080 SLI vs Titan X Pascal

1080 SLI or Titan X Pascal

  • 2x 1080 in SLI

    Votes: 38 19.0%

  • The Titan!

    Votes: 162 81.0%
  • Total voters
    200
Azrak said:
I'm not playing Primal. My games queue is a bit old, so I'm playing the original FC4. Why would OCing the CPU help? The GPU was already at 100% usage. Having a faster CPU throw data to the GPU at a faster rate won't help, will it?
The Guru3D charts show that they used Very High settings. I'm using Ultra and then setting the other 5 options (Shadows, AO, Godrays, Fur, AA) even higher per [H]'s description of them on this page Game Settings - Far Cry 4 Video Card Performance Review . Literally the highest graphical settings the game offers on Nvidia cards.
Click to expand...

Sorry did not realize they were different games, I am not sure then, the only review I could find with Far Cry 4 is the one below. It states maximum settings, but there is no detail. The FPS is over 100 though at 1440P. Its possible the game is just not as optimized as the newer titles and requires more brute force to run.

OC3D :: Review :: Nvidia GTX1080 Founders Edition Review :: Far Cry 4
 
raidflex said:
I would OC your CPU to at least 4.2GHz. I have a 5820K @ 4.5GHz which may make the difference. I don't have far cry primal but if you look at the benchmark below they were getting 80FPS on average with a resolution that was pretty close to the same as your monitor.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 review
Click to expand...

I would go a step further and replace the 3820 with a xeon E5-1650 or at least a 3930k. They are similar cpus but the 1650 supports pcie 3.0 and has other minor bonuses plus they can apparently be had for cheaper on ebay.

Intel Xeon e5-1650 3.2Ghz3.8Ghz 12MB L3 Sandy Bridge-EP LGA2011 sr0kz i7-3930k
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
I just made my choice yesterday and went with 2 GTX 1080 MSI Gaming X cards. They are BEASTS!! I have ran SLI exclusively since the technology first debuted waaaaaay back. It has never given me an issue....I can't understand why people are saying it's "poised to get worse...." This is patently FALSE. SLI has only gotten better over the years. Maybe in 1 or 2 games have I had to disable it, which was due to poor developer integration. In every game that I play exclusively it works flawlessly and exceeds expectations.
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
raidflex said:
Would he be able to OC this CPU though? The low clock speed would be a bottleneck in games that do not use many cores efficiently.
Click to expand...

Yes, its nearly identical to the 3930k and OC's the same. Most E5-16xx cpus are unlocked for example the E5-1620 is very similar to your current 3820 but is also pcie 3.0 and carries the extra xeon features.
 
ssnyder28 said:
Yes, its nearly identical to the 3930k and OC's the same. Most E5-16xx cpus are unlocked for example the E5-1620 is very similar to your current 3820 but is also pcie 3.0 and carries the extra xeon features.
Click to expand...

Nice, did not know that those Xeon's were unlocked.
 
Sprayingmango said:
I just made my choice yesterday and went with 2 GTX 1080 MSI Gaming X cards. They are BEASTS!! I have ran SLI exclusively since the technology first debuted waaaaaay back. It has never given me an issue....I can't understand why people are saying it's "poised to get worse...." This is patently FALSE. SLI has only gotten better over the years. Maybe in 1 or 2 games have I had to disable it, which was due to poor developer integration. In every game that I play exclusively it works flawlessly and exceeds expectations.
Click to expand...
I've got the same exact cards, and they are very nice. I've also had really good luck with SLI. Most every game I try has some benefit (more or less) and only a couple don't help.

There was only one game I played, Watch_Dogs, where performance was worse with SLI enabled. But that was probably bad programming from the developers and not the fault of SLI.
 
I voted for 1080 sli, because um... well...

gltD0AB.jpg

Using an old asus 3 way bridge until I order one of those new and improved, extra whitening, low sodium, removes all stains HB bridges...
 
^^SLI works with the end of the bridge hanging off like that? That's like an antenna for signal pickup.
That poor top card won't be getting much air. Small motherboard form factor, I know, but man... how are your temps?
Here's mine:
IMG_3683_crop-1024.jpg
 
Just swapped my 2x 1080's for a single Pitan X. No ragrets! Asides from the expected benefits (i.e. less noise, heat, power consumption), I am now able to play DOOM at 1600P (highest settings, SMAA (1TX) without any stuttering or frame skips. With a single 1080 (despite having all the performance on paper to eat DOOM for breakfast), I still experienced slowdowns on more graphically intensive levels, such as the foundry or I AM VEGA.
 
dchobaby said:
Just swapped my 2x 1080's for a single Pitan X. No ragrets! Asides from the expected benefits (i.e. less noise, heat, power consumption), I am now able to play DOOM at 1600P (highest settings, SMAA (1TX) without any stuttering or frame skips. With a single 1080 (despite having all the performance on paper to eat DOOM for breakfast), I still experienced slowdowns on more graphically intensive levels, such as the foundry or I AM VEGA.
Click to expand...

Congrats! I've not had any issues with Doom completely maxed running 3x1080P Surround using Vulkan. Buttery smooth even without SLI support. I was thinking of moving to a single Titan XP but I'll stick with the 1080s for now, it's not like I'm experiencing any performance issues though Deus Ex is looking daunting. Hopefully DX 12 will have good mGPU support.
 
heatlesssun said:
Congrats! I've not had any issues with Doom completely maxed running 3x1080P Surround using Vulkan. Buttery smooth even without SLI support. I was thinking of moving to a single Titan XP but I'll stick with the 1080s for now, it's not like I'm experiencing any performance issues though Deus Ex is looking daunting. Hopefully DX 12 will have good mGPU support.
Click to expand...

Thanks, and I'm glad the 1080's are working out for you at that resolution! As a long time SLI user, I sure as well hope that DX12 will support SLI!
 
dchobaby said:
Thanks, and I'm glad the 1080's are working out for you at that resolution! As a long time SLI user, I sure as well hope that DX12 will support SLI!
Click to expand...

A single card is really the best way to go overall but then there's times when you do get good mGPU, though that really is very much more miss than hit these days.
 
Titan XP now water cooled using the EKWB waterblock and backplate. Temps are great! 27C idle, 49C max temp when benchmarking Unigine Heaven 4.0 for over an hour @ 4K/UHD with all settings maxed and 8x AA. Temps during regular 'real world' gaming hover in the mid 30s to low 40s (depending on the game).

Configuration: Corsair 540 Carbide case, Swiftech MCP 655 PWM pump/res combo, 2 x 120mm rad (top), 3 x120mm rad (front), CPU and mobo VRM & chipset blocks in loop with GPU -- Intel 3930K @ 4.5Ghz 1.41V, Titan XP GPU @ 2088Mhz and GDDR5X @ 11200Mhz :D

Let me know if you have any questions!
 

Attachments

  • Pic 1a.jpg
    Pic 1a.jpg
    318.2 KB · Views: 81
Last edited:
Does your Titan do the usual jojoing up and down in clock speeds under load from power limits when overclocking?

I'm like having that issue with 2 fe 1080s. I also have 2 10i0 hybrid ftw cards and the clocks are smooth and I'm wondering if it's from greater power delivery with it using dual 8 pins connectors or just the better cooling.. I'm thinking greater power.

Just asking cause I have all the ek blocks and stuff to cool the fe cards but feel I'll be returning it in favor of more stable clocks with the evga hybrid ftw card.
 
eclypse said:
Does your Titan do the usual jojoing up and down in clock speeds under load from power limits when overclocking?

I'm like having that issue with 2 fe 1080s. I also have 2 10i0 hybrid ftw cards and the clocks are smooth and I'm wondering if it's from greater power delivery with it using dual 8 pins connectors or just the better cooling.. I'm thinking greater power.

Just asking cause I have all the ek blocks and stuff to cool the fe cards but feel I'll be returning it in favor of more stable clocks with the evga hybrid ftw card.
Click to expand...

No issues whatsoever when watercooled. Rock solid overclock speeds with GPU @ 2088Mhz and memory at 11200Mhz all day long. Did it 'yo-yo' on clock speeds with the stock cooler? Yes, definitely.

As for your decision to use true water cooling vs. Hybrid cooling, I will tell you now that I would use true water cooling with a full water block any day over the Hybrid solution. Reason being is that not all of the components on the GPU are cooled properly with a Hybrid solution. Case in point, take a look at the pic attached of a bare Titan XP before the waterblock was installed. You see that several components would not be properly cooled with the Hybrid solution. This is also the reason why memory overclocks on Hybrids are not that great in comparison to a true water cooled solution. I hope this information helps you make a more informed decision ;-)
 

Attachments

  • Titan XP naked pic1a.png
    Titan XP naked pic1a.png
    1.3 MB · Views: 81
  • Titan XP waterblock pic1a.jpg
    Titan XP waterblock pic1a.jpg
    383 KB · Views: 106
KickAssCop said:
SLi ofcourse. These just showed up.

8dSCBVy.jpg
Click to expand...
Let us know how the installation and initial testing go. Be forewarned, those are air cooled, so temps will be high inside the same case. I have read several hardware reviews stating SLI does not scale well at all in the new DX12 games. Let us know if it's true!
 
Game I play need SLi.

Witcher 3
Fallout 4
Deus Ex MD (even though small boost)
Mad Max
ROTTR

Also I am on Windows 7. My Windows 10 doesn't get any use right now except Forza 6 apex.
 
KickAssCop said:
Game I play need SLi.

Witcher 3
Fallout 4
Deus Ex MD (even though small boost)
Mad Max
ROTTR

Also I am on Windows 7. My Windows 10 doesn't get any use right now except Forza 6 apex.
Click to expand...

What resolution are you playing these games? What kind of monitor do you have?
 
KickAssCop said:
Yes 1440p and 165 Hz. Need those frames.
Click to expand...
Understood. I own a wide variety of monitors and definitely like being able to attain the highest frame rates possible (depending upon their specifications):

Acer XB271HU --> WQHD 165Hz G-Sync
Acer XB321HK --> 4K/UHD 60Hz G-Sync
Acer X34 --> UQHD 100Hz G-Sync

Maybe I should invest in Acer stock? lol
 
5150Joker said:
One faster card is always better than two slower ones.
Click to expand...
Not always the case.
For one, you get 5120cuda cores vs 3584 with a Titan XP. Second you obviously get much better fps with SLi 1080 than with a single Titan XP.
And this is all for the same price.

If you do any rendering at all, sli 1080 would be a no brainer, due to having way more cuda cores.

Most AAA titles support SLI, so unless you play a lot of indie games you are probably fine going with sli 1080's.

One thing I would be concerned about however is microstutter, which appears to be more of a problem for Nvidia SLI than AMD Crossfire cards. I heard this is due to AMD using the Pcie lanes rather than nvidia's HB bridge but im not sure?
Think link shows some pretty heavy microstutter using sli 1080:
But some people report no microstutter while others report lots, so Its hard to really say, might be a cpu bottleneck for some, or another issue altogether.

" poised to be complete shit with DX12 requiring the developer to enable it"

Well....yeah of course the dev has to enable it. They had to enable it in dx 11 too....and Mantle, or any API for that matter. Why would dx12 be any different?
 
Trandana, I completely disagree with your summation. SLI is inferior to a single card solution no matter what. And things will only get worse for SLI as time goes on. Nvidia has already given up 3-way and 4-way SLI support and regular SLI support is inconsistent at best. Single card solutions will always be superior. There are no scaling issues to worry about, microstutter is non-existent, space and power limitations are non-applicable, and games don't have to be optimized for SLI scaling. And let's not forget that no natively produced DX12 game supports SLI very well at all, which leads to make one wonder why. And you make the worst assumption thinking that higher FPS means a better gaming experience. That assumption is dead wrong. I know first hand that my sIngle Titan XP card provides much smoother gameplay vs. my GTX980Ti SLI configuration. Also, my Titan XP consistently delivers a higher minimum frame rate in games vs. the GTX980Ti cards. Several former owners of GTX1080 SLI have stated the same and have since converted to a single Titan XP. Yes, I could have easily bought two GTX1080 cards, but knew that it was the wrong decision. I knew all too well all of the limitations of SLI as I have been running SLI in my main gaming systems for over 10 years now. No more. I am the proud owner of a single highly overclocked watercooled Titan XP and it is truly an amazing gaming experience.
 
Last edited:
Ninjawithagun said:
Trandana, I completely disagree with your summation. SLI is inferior to a single card solution no matter what. And things will only get worse for SLI as time goes on. Nvidia has already given up 3-way and 4-way SLI support and regular SLI support is inconsistent at best. Single card solutions will always be superior. There are no scaling issues to worry about, microstutter is non-existent, space and power limitations are non-applicable, and games don't have to be optimized for SLI scaling. And let's not forget that no natively produced DX12 game supports SLI very well at all, which leads to make one wonder why. And you make the worst assumption thinking that higher FPS means a better gaming experience. That assumption is dead wrong. I know first hand that my sIngle Titan XP card provides much smoother gameplay vs. my GTX980Ti SLI configuration. Also, my Titan XP consistently delivers a higher minimum frame rate in games vs. the GTX980Ti cards. Several former owners of GTX1080 SLI have stated the same and have since converted to a single Titan XP. Yes, I could have easily bought two GTX1080 cards, but knew that it was the wrong decision. I knew all too well all of the limitations of SLI as I have been running SLI in my main gaming systems for over 10 years now. No more. I am the proud owner of a single highly overclocked watercooled Titan XP and it is truly an amazing gaming experience.
Click to expand...

but can you do 4x msaa with very high grass in gta v without dipping below 60 fps? :D
 
dchobaby said:
but can you do 4x msaa with very high grass in gta v without dipping below 60 fps? :D
Click to expand...

Yes, as a matter of fact the Titan XP can, but you evidently can't read. Remember, mine is highly overclocked. And why exactly are you using 4x MSAA when it's not required at 4K UHD? Also, +60FPS does you no good on a 4K monitor that is limited to 60Hz.
 
Ninjawithagun said:
Yes, as a matter of fact the Titan XP can, but you evidently can't read. Remember, mine is highly overclocked. And why exactly are you using 4x MSAA when it's not required at 4K UHD? Also, +60FPS does you no good on a 4K monitor that is limited to 60Hz.
Click to expand...

How does that last sentence make sense? 4k is currently limited to 60hz. Seems like 60fps is all you need?
 
". And let's not forget that no natively produced DX12 game supports SLI very well at all"

DX12 will enable users to combine AMD with Nvidia cards for some hybrid crossfire/SLI action, among other cool things.
A titan xp is the worst price/performance ratio on the market, so in this comparison if you are only looking for gaming performance you would be completely wrong to go with one over two 1080's.
I did more research and the people who get microstutter on 1080 sli are those with A) without HB bridge B) cpu's that can't keep up C) using bad drivers/ sli profile
In fact, using sli 1080's actually REDUCED frame time delivery over using a single card. Check here for the data: GeForce GTX 1080 2-way SLI review

" I know first hand that my sIngle Titan XP card provides much smoother gameplay vs. my GTX980Ti SLI configuration. Also, my Titan XP consistently delivers a higher minimum frame rate in games vs. the GTX980Ti cards. Several former owners of GTX1080 SLI have stated the same and have since converted to a single Titan XP"
K thats bs and you know it mate. First of all we are talking about 1080sli vs titan xp NOT 980ti. Of course a Titan xp is better than twin 980ti's its a completely new generation... Do not let your bias get the better of you
As for former 1080 sli users stating titan xp has better frame rate than 1080sli, lol that can be proven wrong easily with benchmarks: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/BcdYzsFLXds/maxresdefault.jpg



Now some argument can be made for getting a titan xp for workstation stuff, especially if you plan to buy another titan later, HOWEVER, two SLI 1080's are FAR better than a single Titan XP for rendering or other workstation stuff. Why? way more cuda cores and rendering scaling is excellent, unlike gaming scaling.
Those who buy a Titan XP are generally game developers who transition between development and testing quickly on the same computer. But buying it solely for gaming, or solely for workstation use is very stupid, because it gets outperformed in gaming easily, the high price/performance cost, does not have double precision, and there are much better
workstation setups for the money (including simply using twin 1080s like I mentioned)

Also you argument saying there is little SLI support is incorrect, out of my AAA 20 games I play every single one utilizes SLI. The few games I have encountered that do not use SLI out of the box I have made work by manually creating an SLI profile.
Now granted, if you play indie games you might not see support, but generally indie games are not as demanding anyway and you can get away with just one card usually.

With 1080 sli you can play a ton of games at 5k 60hz, but you cant say the same for a single Titan XP.
and 4k 120hz is just around the corner if high refresh rates is your thing.
 
Last edited:
Ninjawithagun said:
Yes, as a matter of fact the Titan XP can, but you evidently can't read. Remember, mine is highly overclocked. And why exactly are you using 4x MSAA when it's not required at 4K UHD? Also, +60FPS does you no good on a 4K monitor that is limited to 60Hz.
Click to expand...

dang guy why are you so mad? do some donuts in a grassy area with the city in the background, kick up some dust, and ill be impressed if your overclock keeps you from dipping below 60 fps. mind you this is with a 5960x at 1600P (i gave up on 4K). i speak from personal experience as i had a titan xp and 2 ghz still wasn't cutting it.
 
Trandana said:
". And let's not forget that no natively produced DX12 game supports SLI very well at all"

DX12 will enable users to combine AMD with Nvidia cards for some hybrid crossfire/SLI action, among other cool things.
A titan xp is the worst price/performance ratio on the market, so in this comparison if you are only looking for gaming performance you would be completely wrong to go with one over two 1080's.
I did more research and the people who get microstutter on 1080 sli are those with A) without HB bridge B) cpu's that can't keep up C) using bad drivers/ sli profile
In fact, using sli 1080's actually REDUCED frame time delivery over using a single card. Check here for the data: GeForce GTX 1080 2-way SLI review

" I know first hand that my sIngle Titan XP card provides much smoother gameplay vs. my GTX980Ti SLI configuration. Also, my Titan XP consistently delivers a higher minimum frame rate in games vs. the GTX980Ti cards. Several former owners of GTX1080 SLI have stated the same and have since converted to a single Titan XP"
K thats bs and you know it mate. First of all we are talking about 1080sli vs titan xp NOT 980ti. Of course a Titan xp is better than twin 980ti's its a completely new generation... Do not let your bias get the better of you
As for former 1080 sli users stating titan xp has better frame rate than 1080sli, lol that can be proven wrong easily with benchmarks: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/BcdYzsFLXds/maxresdefault.jpg



Now some argument can be made for getting a titan xp for workstation stuff, especially if you plan to buy another titan later, HOWEVER, two SLI 1080's are FAR better than a single Titan XP for rendering or other workstation stuff. Why? way more cuda cores and rendering scaling is excellent, unlike gaming scaling.
Those who buy a Titan XP are generally game developers who transition between development and testing quickly on the same computer. But buying it solely for gaming, or solely for workstation use is very stupid, because it gets outperformed in gaming easily, the high price/performance cost, does not have double precision, and there are much better
workstation setups for the money (including simply using twin 1080s like I mentioned)

Also you argument saying there is little SLI support is incorrect, out of my AAA 20 games I play every single one utilizes SLI. The few games I have encountered that do not use SLI out of the box I have made work by manually creating an SLI profile.
Now granted, if you play indie games you might not see support, but generally indie games are not as demanding anyway and you can get away with just one card usually.

With 1080 sli you can play a ton of games at 5k 60hz, but you cant say the same for a single Titan XP.
and 4k 120hz is just around the corner if high refresh rates is your thing.
Click to expand...



Couple of points

1. EMA still has not yet been realised in any games besides AoTS, currently NONE of the other DX12 supporting games support it, so basing off a purchase on a feature that hasn't even been seen, let alone proven themselves, is a bit foolhardy.

Plus, if EMA does take off, that's actually an argument AGAINST 1080 SLI, because if you upgrade, you will inevitably either replace both 1080's or replace at least one of them, and 1080 is less powerful than a Titan XP, which, if AoTS is any indication of how EMA works, would reduce the effectiveness of EMA.

2. Smoothness of 1 single GPU compared to SLI doesn't compare FPS between the two. You can't 'see' smoothness of a game from fps data, or even on a video. The post you quoted is saying about smoothness, while you countered with FPS, which one does not always equal to another.

3. You are saying Titan XP has the worst price to performance ratio of all GPU's, but that would depend on which GPU you are coming from. When you buy a GPU, you are not buying every fps the GPU churns out, you are actually buying the fps increase between the new and old GPU (EG if your GPU was playing a game on 30 fps, and your new GPU plays it on 50, you are paying for the 20 extra, not the whole 50, since you already have 30), so the actual price to perf between 1080 and Titan XP differ greatly depending on what GPU you already own.

4. You use your game suite to say whether or not SLI support is increasing, which is inherently incorrect, since not everyone has the same game library as you. I know off the top of my head, 3 games at least, do not support support SLI, one of which is Witcher 3 (latest update removed SLI profile), and a single 1080 is certainly NOT going to drive TW3 at 4k, to even being able to max out 1440p ('max out' here has the meaning of turning up all in-game graphics options to maximum and maintain a 60fps minimum, 1080 only manages 60fps average). Across all your games, not all games will utilise to the same degree, so whether SLI is better or not is game dependent.

Even in the article you quoted, if you checked the entire review, you will see that not all games scale SLI efficiently. Some do, others don't. In quite a number of games from Guru 3D's test suite, some of the games they tested on 1080 SLI has their FPS close to Titan XP, which would make Titan XP the better choice in those games as you remove any possibility of detecting SLI related microstutters, if any.

If you game dedicately on 4k or even 5k, 1080 SLI makes more sense, since games scale better on that resolution (See Thief), but it's MUCH more dependent on games to support SLI. If you happen to get a game that don't support SLI, then you are SoL.

Of course, everyone can say "then I won't play games that don't support SLI", which I say, fair enough, but some of us like games to dictate our hardware, not the other way round (playing games based on SLI support is letting hardware dictate your games).

For 1080p, neither 1080 SLI nor Titan XP makes sense, 1080 is about the most one should go. For 1440p, it's a total wash between 1080 SLI and Titan XP, given *my* game suite, Titan XP is a better choice since I have a number of games that don't like SLI, TW3 being THE major one. This, coupled with the fact that SLI scaling on 1440p is generally worse than on 4k, has me waiting on Titan XP being actually on sale where I live (nVidia has not started selling them here). 1080 doesn't cut it for me at 1440p, but 1080 SLI at 1440p is actually pretty close to Titan XP, which makes 1080 SLI a very shoddy purchase (general rule is, if the fps is similar between single GPU and SLI, SLI is a bad choice, at any fps).

TL;DR version

1. EMA is still currently a pipe dream, no games shows what EMA can or cannot do, what we do know from AoTS is that 1080 will be worse at EMA than Titan XP will be.

2. Smoothness cannot be seen from fps, or even videos because they don't record at the fps your GPU makes. FPS is a number, smoothness is an experience. Experience > numbers, unless if your only goal is E-Peen

3. Price/perf ratio depends on the DIFFERENCE between your current GPU and the GPU you are buying. You are not paying for all the performance of a GPU, you are paying for the performance INCREASE, which price/perf_increase depends HEAVILY on your current GPU. If P/P is all you need to base your purchase, then why are Maxwell Titan X's not jumping to 1070? 1070's P/P is MUCH higher than their Maxwell Titan X's. It's because the DIFFERENCE between Titan X and 1070, not the WHOLE of 1070.

4. Your game suite =/= the person next room, his games may or not may not support SLI. Some people like their games deciding their hardware, not the other way round.
 
Without checking I'm thinking titanfall 2, battlefield 1 and the new cod will use sli so I'm good. Doom is the only one I think don't support sli but it's so easy to push no big deal.

I own tw3.. I have it installed. Bought it cause of the hearing about it so much.. seems cool but I'm more into fps games.. too many coming up for a lengthy game like that.

I like to max my games out with everything on at 1440 and get well over 144 fps.

1080 sli fits the bill.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top