Convince me not to SLi 1080 Ti

Should I SLi 1080 Ti

  • Yes, FOR SCIENCE!

    Votes: 16 20.5%

  • Yes, BECAUSE YOU CAN!

    Votes: 27 34.6%

  • No, SLi SUCKS!

    Votes: 9 11.5%

  • No, SLi IS NOT SUPPORTED AND DYING!

    Votes: 26 33.3%
  • Total voters
    78
skiddierow said:
SLI served me mostly well for 2+ years.

Saw the writing on the wall though when I preordered Deus EX, and noticed the game looked objectively worse in SLI because of the broken TAA.
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I used the VooDoo 2 12MB SLI setup when that was new. I've had SLI since the 6800GT PCIe days and have always run two or three cards ever since.
 
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I had the Quantum3D Obsidian X24 a long time ago and then got away from SLI for a while, then got SLI 7900GTs (both of which died separately over a couple month span and were RMAed to BFG before they went belly up), then I had the 690 GTX, and now I have SLI 1080s. I also want to get SLI 1080Ti's but I'm not convinced it's worth it given the way things are going. But it seems worth it to upgrade for 35% boost for just one card. Like KickAssCop I am going through the same thought processes.
 
I'm in the same boat as all of you.

I've upgraded SLI each time 580--> 1080.

Given the rapidly diminishing applications/importance of SLI even for high res high fps gaming, I feel like the 1080 TI will finally be the card I drop back down to 1 for.
 
Savoy said:
I'm doing it. 4k60 needs more than one card its as simple as that for me. I would not be happy with the fps I would see from one. We aren't there yet pure and simple. Maybe Volta will put USD over the top but not this gen. So I'm in for two and I'm hoping going forward SLI gets supported decently. Overall my experience with SLI has been pretty good albeit sometimes frustrating but overall I don't regret it.
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The magority of newer games either don't support SLI at all or the support is really bad not wrth the money for the headache.
 
Since ur considering 1080ti SLI i guess money isnt an issue and in that case i say do it , 1 1080ti will not be enough in all games at 4k/60 , look at TitanXP and ull get a close estimate at what ull be getting with the Ti .

Now after i tried 3dvision on my 4k Oled usind EDID override i just cant go back to normal gaming , u have to see it to believe how immersive it is ( using community mods for 3d ) , so if that is something ur interested in maybe in the future , ur gonna need at least 1080Ti SLI for 3d at 4k to get that 50/60fps , i m using 980ti sli @1400/8000 and getting around 30fps in visually impressive games .
 
More info. I play at 1440P 165 Hz GSync. Need FPS higher than 100. SLi 1080s served me well but recent games just made me sad. So considering going single card.

Also this support group sucks. More responses asking me to go SLi lol.
 
Mutil gpu support has gone down the drain. I would never convince anyone to go two cards and hope new games support multi gpu. No guarantee there.
 
KickAssCop said:
More info. I play at 1440P 165 Hz GSync. Need FPS higher than 100. SLi 1080s served me well but recent games just made me sad. So considering going single card.

Also this support group sucks. More responses asking me to go SLi lol.
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A 1080Ti is roughly 30% faster before being OC. I imagine a single card should do it. That being said you can always buy the second card if one does not cut it.
 
Man this is so depressing, i was really hoping the the 1080 Ti would be the single card solution for 4k ultra gaming. Good thing my doctor prescribed a good dosage of SLI to fix my issues.
 
50Cal said:
Man this is so depressing, i was really hoping the the 1080 Ti would be the single card solution for 4k ultra gaming. Good thing my doctor prescribed a good dosage of SLI to fix my issues.
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For the most part it is. But if you absolutely must never dip below 60 fps or want 100 fps at 4K (when the displays to do that come around) then you are going to be waiting for Volta or whatever comes after that.

I don't see myself going SLI again. Was happy moving from 2x970 -> 1x980 Ti and not having to deal with the hassle of buggy or non-existent SLI.
 
Do you guys think 1080Ti SLi (water cooled and OC'd to max) would be too much for 1440p 144hz gaming (of course 144fps not required but getting higher than 60 maybe closer to 90 or a 100 preferred)

I'm tempted to replace my 980ti SLi @ 1500mhz with 1 card for now if 1080ti could give me similar high fps experience.
 
Nirad9er said:
Do you guys think 1080Ti SLi (water cooled and OC'd to max) would be too much for 1440p 144hz gaming (of course 144fps not required but getting higher than 60 maybe closer to 90 or a 100 preferred)

I'm tempted to replace my 980ti SLi @ 1500mhz with 1 card for now if 1080ti could give me similar high fps experience.
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Probably overkill, a single watercooled 1080ti overclocked is probably good enough
 
Nirad9er said:
Do you guys think 1080Ti SLi (water cooled and OC'd to max) would be too much for 1440p 144hz gaming (of course 144fps not required but getting higher than 60 maybe closer to 90 or a 100 preferred)

I'm tempted to replace my 980ti SLi @ 1500mhz with 1 card for now if 1080ti could give me similar high fps experience.
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I went from a pair of water cooled and OC'd to max 980Ti's to a water cooled and OC'ed to the max Titan X Pascal. At 4K, the SLI'ed 980Ti's were a bit stronger as to max FPS (around 10% more FPS), but the Titan does a better job as to holding and staying away from the minimum framerate. But dropping the resolution down from 4K to 1440p, the Titan can easily hold 90-100 FPS in just about everything, so judging from the fact that Nvidia stated that the 1080Ti is slightly faster than a stock Titan X, I'd say that one 1080Ti that's watercooled and OC'ed to the max should be plenty for gaming at 1440P. Two isn't necessary unless you jump to 4K gaming or just want to apply lots of overkill to the problem. :D
 
Supercharged_Z06 said:
I went from a pair of water cooled and OC'd to max 980Ti's to a water cooled and OC'ed to the max Titan X Pascal. At 4K, the SLI'ed 980Ti's were a bit stronger as to max FPS (around 10% more FPS), but the Titan does a better job as to holding and staying away from the minimum framerate. But dropping the resolution down from 4K to 1440p, the Titan can easily hold 90-100 FPS in just about everything, so judging from the fact that Nvidia stated that the 1080Ti is slightly faster than a stock Titan X, I'd say that one 1080Ti that's watercooled and OC'ed to the max should be plenty for gaming at 1440P. Two isn't necessary unless you jump to 4K gaming or just want to apply lots of overkill to the problem. :D
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That's some good into for me...I'm going from a pair of 980Ti's to a single 1080Ti at 3440x1440...
 
Volta. I want Volta....Maybe.

Skipping over every other generation is what I prefer. Hopefully, it coincides with better 4k screens and a clearer picture of what attention devs will give to multi GPU's in dx12/11.

It seems like that nvidia and amd will have to go in deeep with devs on site if multi GPU's is going to be feasible at all going forward.
 
Bandalo said:
That's some good into for me...I'm going from a pair of 980Ti's to a single 1080Ti at 3440x1440...
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To be honest, performance wise you aren't going to see much improvement stepping up to the single card. (At least when it comes to games where SLI support is good). You will see a nice big fat bump though in games that don't support SLI and especially in VR if you have that. You'll also see nice improvements as to heat/noise output and in less power usage. But in games that support SLI well, going from a pair of 980Ti's to a single 1080Ti will honestly feel more like a side-grade rather than an upgrade.
 
Supercharged_Z06 said:
To be honest, performance wise you aren't going to see much improvement stepping up to the single card. (At least when it comes to games where SLI support is good). You will see a nice big fat bump though in games that don't support SLI and especially in VR if you have that. You'll also see nice improvements as to heat/noise output and in less power usage. But in games that support SLI well, going from a pair of 980Ti's to a single 1080Ti will honestly feel more like a side-grade rather than an upgrade.
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I wasn't expecting much of an improvement in the SLI-support games. I was expecting a vast improvement in non-SLI support games. JC3 and Mad Max both gave me a lot of SLI-related headaches and have kinda turned me off to SLI. I figure I can still get some cash for the 980Tis, and not really lose any performance, it's a win-win.
 
KickAssCop said:
More info. I play at 1440P 165 Hz GSync. Need FPS higher than 100. SLi 1080s served me well but recent games just made me sad. So considering going single card.

Also this support group sucks. More responses asking me to go SLi lol.
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you seem like you are one of the big boys here.... the BIG BOYS go top self... we don't play with single cards
 
Problem is big boys are playing with single cards in reality since game support is not there lol.
 
KickAssCop said:
Problem is big boys are playing with single cards in reality since game support is not there lol.
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I had the chance at x3 980tis. I dont remember the process of acquiring them, but I had them. Well.... I had x2 in my rig, had my buddy send back my x2 780ti's he borrowed and gave him my 3rd 980ti. I sold the 780ti's and had him pay me the difference to keep the 980ti. I seen my 980ti (singular) was pushing games fine for me @ 1440p 144hz so i lent out my 2nd to another buddy to use. NOW, both of the "remaining" 980tis are sold, im sitting here w/ a backup 660ti and cash in paypal waiting for a single 1080ti. :p

The only, and next, time I would run multiple cards is when I do a multiple monitor build again......that will be when the kids get outta my house, which will be a long while from now! :LOL:

I posted in another thread my sli list, but here goes again - 9800gtx / gtx 280 / 560ti / 670 / 780 / OG Titan / 780 Ti / 980 Ti. (I may have had 460's in SLi also).

Since the present cards are becoming (more than)enough for my games, I have no need for SLi anymore. @1440p 144hz running low/medium settings if needed, the games still run and look amazing.
 
KickAssCop said:
Problem is big boys are playing with single cards in reality since game support is not there lol.
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The bottom line going forward is do you believe dx12 games will have SLI support pushed from Nvidia on devs or not. I hope Nvidia does and I'm betting they will going forward. I don't see them having a choice. How can they not? We already know 4k/vr/high Hz gaming monitors require more than 1 high-end end card at this moment. We also know that probably won't change until Volta, maybe. Then again maybe not since the bar may be raised at that point requiring yet again more power than one card can produce.

For me I'm taking a chance. I play allot of frostbite games for one thing and that engine has very good SLI support and when I come across games that don't I will still have 1 awesome card to power that said game.

If I don't see Nvidia pushing devs fort SLI support before my next GPU upgrade than this will be my last hurrah into SLI and I will be single GPU only from them on out. I hope that doesn't happen since I really love the idea of having all that power on top of blazing frame rates.
 
http://www.techspot.com/review/1195-palit-geforce-gtx-1080-sli/page4.html

"Though we mostly focused on games that support Nvidia’s multi-GPU technology, these also happen to be some of the most popular PC games released as of late. On average SLI enabled 63% more performance -- or 71% if we ignore Ashes of the Singularity. We'd call that a solid score for SLI scaling.

Granted, this may not convince many to spend another $600+ on a second GPU but in a good number of scenarios at 4K, it pushed performance from playable to smooth-as-silk.

Overall, while I'm not generally a big advocate of multi-GPU technology, it does make sense here assuming that you can afford it.
The 4K gaming experience delivered by these cards is the best I have seen yet. For those willing and able to drop four figures on this GPU configuration, you won’t be disappointed with the results."
-----------------------------------------------

http://techbuyersguru.com/4k-gaming...1070-sli-vs-1080-sli-vs-titan-x-pascal?page=4

"All told, both Titan X Pascal and modern-day SLI make playable 4K framerates the rule rather than the exception. But alas, TBG's motto is "bringing tech to light," and sometimes that means shining a harsh light on chasing the limits of technology for technology's sake. As we've shown, you can certainly game at 4K with SLI or the Titan X Pascal, and enthusiasts no doubt consider 4K benchmarks to be the ultimate test of a modern gaming PC's mettle. The problem inherent in this approach is that 4K gaming may in fact not be the end-all-and-be-all of modern PC gaming. That's because 4K monitors are currently limited to 60Hz, and throughout our testing, it was painfully obvious that our overall gaming experience on our 27" 4K monitor wasn't nearly as good as it is on the Acer 27" 1440p 144Hz G-Sync monitor we typically test with. Yes, the added resolution is nice when you're sitting still admiring the scenery, but once the action starts up, the tearing, lag, and just plain sluggishness of a 60Hz monitor rears its ugly head."

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Practically every game I play on the GoTY and top pc games of 2016, 2015 and top pc games of all time lists supports SLI once the dust settled on patches and drivers. The only one I miss it on is forza 3 personally.

If you aren't getting at least 100fps-hz average (~ 70 - 100 - 130+ fps-hz band), you aren't getting any appreciable benefit out of a high hz monitor. DP 1.4 144hz 3440 x 1440 and 3840 x 2160 monitors due out later this year.
Pretty meaningless unless you feed it new, unique frames of action anyway.
We are just getting to the point (since titan pascal) where on the most demanding games a top end single gpu can do 100fps-hz average or so at 2560 x1440, sometimes requiring some features to be turned off in the game settings at that. And that is an average in a sort of vibrating blend +/- 30fps all over the place seconds to seconds so has half of the mix being 70 to 100 or so depending on the game(see example graph). You don't get really appreciable blur reduction and motion definition increases until you are around at least 100fps-hz (fps and hz) average so much below that you are getting no appreciable benefit out of a high hz monitor even if it was 300hz. Some old source games and other simpler games and some isometrics can get well over 200fps average though of course.
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Both unreal engine and work on final fantasy XV are implementing SLI support, and I'm assuming the sequel to shadow of mordor.. so there should be a lot of titles going forward.

With unreal engine going for HDR and sli support there should be a lot of games in the future that support SLI just on that engine alone.

Also
http://www.tweaktown.com/news/56156/final-fantasy-xv-pc-tech-test-uses-dual-gtx-1080s-sli/index.html


Another SLI game list from top games (incomplete list)

The Witcher 2, 3
Dishonored 1, 2
Half-Life games
Portal 2
Orange Box ganes
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (assuming the sequel "Shadow of War" will too)
The Elder Scrolls V:Skyrim
Borderlands 2 games
Mass Effect games
Fallout Games
Far Cry Games
Metro Games
S.T.A.L.K.E.R games
Overwatch
DOOM 2016
Alien Isolation

Path of Exile
World of Warcraft
Guild Wars 2
The Elder Scrolls Online
Diablo III
Torchlight games
Tomb Raider Games
Bioshock Games
Assassin's creed games
Grand Theft Auto Games
Star Wars games
Civilization games
Quake games
Doom games
Homeworld2 -(some SLI problems at 4k remaster release, then patched and fixed among other gameplay bugs)
Thief games
Resident Evil Games
Evolve
Starcraft 2
Doom 3
Dirt Rally

Metal Gear solid V
Hitman
Crysis
Batman Ark
Battlefield games
Call of Duty games (incl Black Ops 2)
Dark souls games
Dota 2
Pillars of Eternity
Wasteland
Grid
Saint's Row
Watch Dogs 2
Shadow Warrior 2
Max Payne
The Talos Principle
Dying Light

titanfall 2: Use TF1 SLI profile + forum config fix. some flickering looking at sun in multiplayer

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/973578/sli/titanfall-2-sli-profile/3/

Battlefield 1: SLI fixes and general gameplay fixes from DICE and drivers Dec 6, 2016

Some reports of occasional flickering remain in forums for some people

"at the start of round for 2 - 3 seconds, occasionally in chat menu in round, slight flickering of numbers and words at end of round screens.Situation is much better than before the December patch.." - suspect overlays - some recommend using dx11 rather than dx 12

-many others report no sli problems after patch and driver updates


edit:
http://www.tweaktown.com/news/56156/final-fantasy-xv-pc-tech-test-uses-dual-gtx-1080s-sli/index.html
Click to expand...
 
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From the looks of it, a single 1080ti is good for 2560 x 1440 at 120hz+, near the current gen games' graphics ceilings, getting 100fps-hz average on some games and even over 130fps-hz average on others. I'm probably looking at single 1080ti gpu for now at 2560 x 1440, 144hz g-sync on my swift. If I get that asus 4k FALD HDR 144hz g-sync end of the year (or whenever it comes out) like I am planning to, I'll be looking at adding another 1080ti at that point.

elvn said:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/03/nvidia-gtx-1080-ti-review/2/


Metro Last Light 1440p dx11
Titan pascal 123fps avg/ 86min
GTX 1080ti 129fps avg/91 min

Battlefield 1 1440p Dx11
Titan pascal 118fps/90
GTX 1080ti 134fps/96 < edit: fixed
gtx 1080 98fps/74

Crysis 3 1440p dx11
Titan pascal 91fps/77
GTX 1080ti 98fps/72
gtx 1080 73fps / 54

Ashes of the Singularity 1440p
Titan pascal 88fps/83
GTX 1080ti 95fps/ 87
gtx 1080 62/62

Gears of War 4. 1440p Dx12
Titan pascal 108/91
GTX 1080ti 107/90
gtx 1080 95ps /80

Resident Evil 7: biohazard 1440p, Very high quality, FXAA+TAA
Titan pascal 136fps/121
GTX 1080ti 138fps/121
gtx 1080 109fps / 97
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Some games scale really poorly in SLI... Tomb Raider, Watch Dogs 2, Deus Ex for example. Seems like most Ubisoft games perform poorly in SLI. I'd be surprised if 1080ti in SLI can even do 60 fps@4k in Watch Dogs 2 and the new Deus Ex maxed out. The games don't even look that great in my honest opinion.

On the flip side anything using Frostbyte engine seems to scale nicely. I'm hoping Mass Effect Andromeda supports SLI and scales well. That's the main reason I went SLI plus I like the look of 2 cards in a system.
 
Master_shake_ said:
GOW 4 has zero multi gpu support

gw4_1920.png


titanfall 2 as well

t2_1920.png


cod no sli either

%D1%81od_1920.png


forza 3 nope

f3_1920_h.png


and RE7 none

re7_1920.png


so no you shouldn't but i totally would cause i like all my slots populated.

(y)
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No matter how many games are shown that have no support at all or that have bugs or have poor scaling there will always be people on here living in a fantasy land talking about how great SLI is. The laughable excuses that some people make are mind-boggling.
 
misterbobby said:
No matter how many games are shown that have no support at all or that have bugs or have poor scaling there will always be people on here living in a fantasy land talking about how great SLI is. The laughable excuses that some people make are mind-boggling.
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i'm super pissed about the death of multi-gpu.

i've been sli-ing since 8800's
 
I'm in the same boat now. I ended up with 2 orders for the 1080ti because I was in a mad rush to purchase this morning and wanted to make sure there was no BS.

Figured I would just sell the second one, but now it looks like both will arrive on Monday and I'm kind of interested to see how things will work. Worst case, I can still sell the second one, but it's kind of fun living on edge.
 
psy81 said:
Some games scale really poorly in SLI... Tomb Raider, Watch Dogs 2, Deus Ex for example.
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This is somewhat true in general, but the games you mentioned actually DO get a nice boost in SLI.

See this review: https://us.hardware.info/reviews/72...me-price-gtx-1080-ti-slinperformance-per-game

Rise of the Tomb Raider is the best example of multi-GPU done right. They are using the new DX12 explicit mGPU resulting in 92% gain (I doubt it could get much better than this). If developers code for multi-GPU they can do wonders. DXMD also has DX12 mGPU and has around 50% gain I believe (maybe moreso now after the new Nvidia driver).

Of course, that review also shows a bunch of games where SLI actually resulted in worse performance. Also, only look at the 4K numbers, there is no reason to SLI 1080 tis below 4K.
 
I've got a simple question I guess.

In general, is it fair to say that this year's reigning card (in single) will beat out last year's reigning card in SLI?

I am trying to decide whether to SLI 1080Ti or not. If I don't then I would look to upgrade every cycle (assuming funds allow).

Based on a quick search on Google this seems to be the case but I wanted to get the opinions of the [H] massive. So, what do you guys think?

FWIW, I game at 4k.
 
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Planning on buying into 4k 144hz on a dp 1.4 FALD HDR g-sync monitor by end of year so I'll probably do sli in order to achieve 100fps-hz average or better at that resolution. Then I'd skip at least until the next Ti after that which probably won't be until near or into 2019 I'm guessing.

A single 1080ti is a strong performer for high fps-hz average of 100 or even into the 130's average at 2560x1440 on a high hz monitor on the majority of current demanding games, some with over the top settings disabled out of necessity though, and with a few exceptions.
 
cybereality Just had a look at that, some strange results. Also, I note that in some tests they don't show the SLI results. I need to dig deeper in a minute to understand (literally only looked at the graphs).

The question is, why wouldn't 1080Ti scaling work as well as 1080 scaling? Driver issues? Bottleneck?

EDIT: Ah, I see now...the games where there is little to no scaling are DX12 and Vulkan. Make sense that we see that then, because (AFAIK) those platforms don't support SLI at driver level - it has to be coded for in-game.

However, in the other titles we do see some scaling but it's not great. For example (all at 4k highest settings):

FC Primal - c. 25%
GTA V - c. 56%
PCars - c. 55%
R6S - c. MINUS 4%
RotTR - c. 92%!!! AND that's a DX12 title
Division - c. 46%
WD2 - c. 63%

So on average - around 47% scaling - though Tomb Raider throws skews it. If TR is discounted, more like 40%.

That's not to be scoffed at, especially give we don;t know when Volta will come and even more so we don't know when Volta Ti will come (as a replacement for 1080Ti).
 
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I think a 50% gain is pretty good. This is enough to bring almost all the games to above 60fps at Ultra 4K, which is all that is needed. Certainly, if you want the best, there is no other option right now.
 
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For all the bitching people do about SLI it's usually worked pretty well for me over the years. I've had very little trouble with it after the first generation or two of NVIDIA SLI capable graphics cards.
 
don't do it...when Volta GTX 2080 comes out you're going to regret it

then when Volta comes out you're going to regret it because Volta2 will be on the horizon...point being you should buy when you want and not think about the future
 
I have SLI Titan X (Pascal) and I dont regret it. Heck, I even have an 1080 in another system for the wife. If you going to game at 4K you need it..
 
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