Does SLI really give problems

[aXnMaN]

I have a MSI GTX660ti 2gb PE card, and i am thinking about getting a second one.

But when talking with some friends about going the SLI way, they said NOOO dont do it, there is so many problems with it and bla bla bla :-)

But is it really that bad, or would it be better for me to sell my 660ti, and get a 680 with 4gb ram????

Right now i have two monitors and only game on one of them, and mostly games like Battlefield 3 and others games like that, but in the future im considering buying a third monitor.

[Dave :)]

I much prefer single card solutions as they generally give you less headache concerning micro stutter, driver stability, increased power consumption, increased heat output etc. SLI 660ti will probably give you better FPS; however, you can't be sure it will work / perform similarly in all games.

[TechFan@ic]

There are some issues with multi-GPU setups, one being micro-stutter, which essentially can make games look less "smooth" by messing with the consistency of frame times.

This can be overcome by using Adaptive V-Sync on Nvidia cards & Dynamic V-Sync on AMD cards.

Another issue is drivers and scaling, while using a multi GPU setup you will face 3 types of games.

1- A game that fully supports SLI & offers great scaling (70%+ more performance with a second card).

2- A game that supports SLI but the scaling isn't that great (30-40% with a second card).

3- A game that doesn't support SLI at all and performance would not scale at all, become worse or the game would just refuse to start while SLI is enabled.

#1 is the most common , #2 is less common & #3 is even less common. None the less you will have driver or scalability issues from time to time especially with less popular games.

You also have to deal with markedly higher power consumption and heat output.

That's why we in general here in the LTT community would recommend single GPU solutions over multi GPU solutions whenever possible.

Now to your question, no I don't believe that selling your 660 Ti and getting a 680 would be that big of an upgrade to be perfectly honest, the GTX 660 Ti is already a pretty good little card.

So all things considered you might be better off waiting until you actually buy the third monitor and see what new GPUs might be available then .

I don't think that you will need more than 1 660 ti to play most games on the highest settings on a single 1920x1080 monitor with respectable frame rates.

[aXnMaN]

what you are saying is pretty much the same as my friends did :-D

so think i might have to go for a 680 then :-D

[aXnMaN]

DAMN so it is true what they say out on the street...........

The people on this forum are really really fast too answer questions and give good advice :-D

Thanks guys :-)

[josh_05]

Another 660ti would just nearly guarantee you 60 FPS running at max settings with MSAA in most of the latest games. I had 2 660ti's and i can say they do very well in SLI. I had no dramas with micro stutter or anything, and you get slightly better image quality running SLI because of the way SLI renders, its only slightly but still noticeable. I guess though if your going a third monitor and planning on 5760x1080 gaming i would recommend the 680 4gig as 2 gig of VRAM for that resolution will not be enough soon no matter how quick the RAM is. 2 660ti's would be quicker in most current titles than one 680 gb at the moment but the 2 gig of VRAM at that res will become a problem soon i think.

[RazerFreak]

A heads up too, when he talks about performance loses in games, now a days games generally support SLI and Crossfire so you most likely won't get "3- A game that doesn't support SLI at all and performance would not scale at all, become worse or the game would just refuse to start while SLI is enabled." only in older games you would find problems like Diablo II, Halo ect. So really it's more so a gain to have the two cards because most games will support it now a days and you will get good scaling. But yeah like whats been said the upgrade to the 680 would most likely be need if you where going to have the extra monitor.

[Transfusiionz]

For me, it was no where near as bad as anyone says. I had absolutely no problems with SLI.

I was using two 680's though, so mileage may vary.

You won't get perfect double performance, but it should be able to keep up with a 680.

[TechFan@ic]

Another 660ti would just nearly guarantee you 60 FPS running at max settings with MSAA in most of the latest games. I had 2 660ti's and i can say they do very well in SLI. I had no dramas with micro stutter or anything, and you get slightly better image quality running SLI because of the way SLI renders, its only slightly but still noticeable. I guess though if your going a third monitor and planning on 5760x1080 gaming i would recommend the 680 4gig as 2 gig of VRAM for that resolution will not be enough soon no matter how quick the RAM is. 2 660ti's would be quicker in most current titles than one 680 gb at the moment but the 2 gig of VRAM at that res will become a problem soon i think.

I'm sorry, but where did you hear that you get better image quality in SLI ?

Image quality has nothing to do with single or multi GPU setups, the only difference is in performance.

[TechFan@ic]

For me, it was no where near as bad as anyone says. I had absolutely no problems with SLI.

I was using two 680's though, so mileage may vary.

You won't get perfect double performance, but it should be able to keep up with a 680.

Just the other day, a member was complaining about issues with his 680s in SLI actually.

So it may differ from person to person depending on the level of tech savvy-ness of the individual in question.

[Transfusiionz]

For me, it was no where near as bad as anyone says. I had absolutely no problems with SLI.

I was using two 680's though, so mileage may vary.

You won't get perfect double performance, but it should be able to keep up with a 680.

Well, in that case I'd say it probably differs by the individual card. I didn't have any problems with my two 680's, or my two 580 classified's when I had them, orwhen I had my Alienware M18x laptop. That had dual 580m's and that didn't have any problems either.

(Yes, I bought an Alienware laptop.. It was a little over two years ago, and I hadn't built my first computer yet)

So it probably differs by card and I've just gotten lucky..

[TechFan@ic]

For me, it was no where near as bad as anyone says. I had absolutely no problems with SLI.

I was using two 680's though, so mileage may vary.

You won't get perfect double performance, but it should be able to keep up with a 680.

Yes, he might have had a bad card or two.

[Art Vandelay]

I am running GTX 480 SLI, and I don't find that microstutter is a significant problem. I think I can feel it a bit in Planetside 2, but that game has a pretty serious case of ArmA 2 disorder.

I also haven't had any real driver issues.

The only real issue is when games don't support it very well.

[josh_05]

Another 660ti would just nearly guarantee you 60 FPS running at max settings with MSAA in most of the latest games. I had 2 660ti's and i can say they do very well in SLI. I had no dramas with micro stutter or anything, and you get slightly better image quality running SLI because of the way SLI renders, its only slightly but still noticeable. I guess though if your going a third monitor and planning on 5760x1080 gaming i would recommend the 680 4gig as 2 gig of VRAM for that resolution will not be enough soon no matter how quick the RAM is. 2 660ti's would be quicker in most current titles than one 680 gb at the moment but the 2 gig of VRAM at that res will become a problem soon i think.

Touche, I thought it was better image quality in general. I read it on an article about SLI on geforce.com but it actually states that when running SLI you can use the settings in NV control panel "SLI AA" which obviously cant be used with a single card configuration. It does provide better image quality over regular AA settings in NV control panel but in saying that, as far as i can remember, Nvidia only recommend using settings in their control panel on games which don't have the particular setting embedded in to the game. Sounds like a bit of a gimmick really as just about every game for quite a few years now has had AA options built in to the game.

[FluffyNuggets]

I've ran SLI on 570's and 670's and both had stuttering. I like how playing on a single card feels but you sacrifice high fps and higher game settings.

[IPCharger]

I would go for it. Micro stutter is a problem for AMD Crossfire cards, not so much for SLI because Nvidia fixed it on a hardware level a few generations back (at least that what some people say). And in regards to scaling, if the game is so old that it doesn't scale well, then it can probably run well on a single gpu.

[FluffyNuggets]

I would go for it. Micro stutter is a problem for AMD Crossfire cards' date=' not so much for SLI because Nvidia fixed it on a hardware level a few generations back (at least that what some people say). And in regards to scaling, if the game is so old that it doesn't scale well, then it can probably run well on a single gpu.[/quote']

My experience with 670's in SLI would beg to differ. I had massive stuttering in games and it was enough for my to return the second card and run only one of them!

[IPCharger]

I would go for it. Micro stutter is a problem for AMD Crossfire cards' date=' not so much for SLI because Nvidia fixed it on a hardware level a few generations back (at least that what some people say). And in regards to scaling, if the game is so old that it doesn't scale well, then it can probably run well on a single gpu.[/quote'] My experience with 670's in SLI would beg to differ. I had massive stuttering in games and it was enough for my to return the second card and run only one of them!

That's wierd. One of the articles said Nvidia fixed the issue at a hardware level a few generations back.

[FluffyNuggets]

I would go for it. Micro stutter is a problem for AMD Crossfire cards' date=' not so much for SLI because Nvidia fixed it on a hardware level a few generations back (at least that what some people say). And in regards to scaling, if the game is so old that it doesn't scale well, then it can probably run well on a single gpu.[/quote'] My experience with 670's in SLI would beg to differ. I had massive stuttering in games and it was enough for my to return the second card and run only one of them!

That's wierd. One of the articles said Nvidia fixed the issue at a hardware level a few generations back.

I noticed the same thing on SLI'd 570's so I'm not sure what they fixed. Granted SLI is still better then Crossfire but the stuttering is still present on both.