The SLI information guide

[D2ultima]

9 hours ago, SrCarcaca said:

Great Guide!

\/ heuehuehe

Thanks =D

[goaway]

On 28.4.2016 at 7:37 AM, D2ultima said:

Thanks =D

Has any of what you say in your post changed with pascal? Personally interested with sli and dsr (possibly) combined with G-sync. Looking at running two 1070's in sli. BTW do you think that's a good idea at the moment?

[goaway]

1 hour ago, larsi239 said:

Has any of what you say in your post changed with pascal? Personally interested with sli and dsr (possibly) combined with G-sync. Looking at running two 1070's in sli. BTW do you think that's a good idea at the moment?

My bad, it's in your original post...

[D2ultima]

1 hour ago, larsi239 said:

Has any of what you say in your post changed with pascal? Personally interested with sli and dsr (possibly) combined with G-sync. Looking at running two 1070's in sli. BTW do you think that's a good idea at the moment?

I have to update the guide for Pascal, but I want more information about how Pascal works in SLI first. As far as I can see, Pascal is a straight crapshoot. Can't overclock worth a damn if you intend on actually holding the clocks, sometimes barely baseclock holds, depending on the situation, etc. And SLI is a whole other matter, since the same voltage and clock adjustment crap from Maxwell was carried over (though voltage variance is less in Pascal, admittedly). Then them killing off 3-way and 4-way because PCI/e 3.0 x16/x16 with conventional SLI connectors is starting to be needed for games to run well with SLI at 1440p or above, and instead of just running XDMA style cards like AMD does (as more bandwidth is needed) they just use a doubled up bridge that's overclocked, because NVLink is their version of "XDMA" but since it needs proprietary connectors, it won't sell for consumer systems, and since they can't make money off it, they just avoided the problem entirely.

 

But I'll update more in the future.

[Joshe343]

Question! I'm going for dual GTX 1080 Classified's when EVGA finally decides to release them. My motherboard also has a kind of awkward slot setup and only allows for 2-way SLI because of this setup. I want to go with one of EVGA's new HB SLI bridges but I don't know which one I should get with my motherboard because of the awkward spacing. Should be noted that I'm going to use the top two slots for the GPU's, not the bottom two.

 

Motherboard: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/bzNypg/gigabyte-motherboard-gaz170xgaming7

[D2ultima]

12 hours ago, Joshe343 said:

Question! I'm going for dual GTX 1080 Classified's when EVGA finally decides to release them. My motherboard also has a kind of awkward slot setup and only allows for 2-way SLI because of this setup. I want to go with one of EVGA's new HB SLI bridges but I don't know which one I should get with my motherboard because of the awkward spacing. Should be noted that I'm going to use the top two slots for the GPU's, not the bottom two.

 

Motherboard: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/bzNypg/gigabyte-motherboard-gaz170xgaming7

Don't know which bridge to tell you to get; you'd just need to pick one that'll fit your motherboard, really. Alternately, it seems using two normal flexible bridges works as a HB bridge, if you can't get a bridge spaced right. Because the HB bridge is just a band-aid on a lack of bandwidth problem, and in itself is nothing special or innovative.

 

Mind if I ask why you're getting two 1080s?

[Joshe343]

12 hours ago, D2ultima said:

Don't know which bridge to tell you to get; you'd just need to pick one that'll fit your motherboard, really. Alternately, it seems using two normal flexible bridges works as a HB bridge, if you can't get a bridge spaced right. Because the HB bridge is just a band-aid on a lack of bandwidth problem, and in itself is nothing special or innovative.

 

Mind if I ask why you're getting two 1080s?

1. Future proofing

2. Bragging rights

3. SLI is very aesthetically pleasing (for me, at least)

 

However, I've been wondering if NVIDIA was going to talk about a Titan card on the Pascal architecture and it seems as though they may be talking about it at Gamescom so I may end up going with SLI Titan P's. I'll have to see about price, if the board partners are getting to make their own, when the card actually goes on sale and if it's actually worth the money compared to SLI GTX 1080's.

[D2ultima]

7 hours ago, Joshe343 said:

1. Future proofing

2. Bragging rights

3. SLI is very aesthetically pleasing (for me, at least)

 

However, I've been wondering if NVIDIA was going to talk about a Titan card on the Pascal architecture and it seems as though they may be talking about it at Gamescom so I may end up going with SLI Titan P's. I'll have to see about price, if the board partners are getting to make their own, when the card actually goes on sale and if it's actually worth the money compared to SLI GTX 1080's.

Well SLI is constantly declining in usefulness. I wouldn't get a SLI setup unless you KNOW for a fact that you most definitely want that extra power anytime it's available AND you're willing to fiddle with nVidia Inspector for games where it doesn't work well.

 

Titan Pascal will happen, but it's most likely not going to be GP100. GP102 is apparently "consumer" high end pascal, and GP100 is "enterprise" only. From what I've seen, anyway. I'd say grab one and see if you WANT more. And then make sure it'll make sense too, for the games. For example a large part of what I play right now is DS3 (which can barely crack 50% util on each card, which gives me in some cases negative scaling as scaling for that game is under 100% improvement), FFX HD (which I haven't bothered trying to force multi-GPU on, and which is 30fps locked anyway), Viscera Cleanup Detail (which doesn't use it by default) and Elite Dangerous (which locks itself to about 80fps most of the time for some reason and leaves much of my system under-used, like this). So if you were in a similar case right now, then single GPU would be enough for you.

 

I mean at the end of the day it's your money, and all my job is is to make sure you know what you're getting into. But that's my recommendation right now. Devs have decided to make many games AFR-unfriendly for NO ACTUAL BENEFIT, and use technology that requires data from previous frames often. This kind of tech, one example being TAA, absolutely hammers the bandwidth connection between cards, and nVidia's response was to axe 3-way and 4-way SLI and put a band-aid on the problem because they can't sell the actual solution for more money in the consumer market. And neither nVidia nor AMD is pushing developers to improve multi-GPU, so it's in a nice downward spiral now, one that DirectX 12 (and vulkan), despite all the potential benefits of it, cannot save.

[Chavalier]

Hello everyone! I'd liek to ask for a little help.

The story is: I have a GTX 480 and I got an offer for another GTX 480 for really really low price but the problem is, that the card is a bit faulty. The famous horizontal lines-problem. 
So the question is, can I still use them in SLI if I use the good card for video output, without any problem?
(Please don't tell me to sell the cards and buy a better one etc, I want to experiment.)
Thanks!

[D2ultima]

7 hours ago, Chavalier said:

Hello everyone! I'd liek to ask for a little help.

The story is: I have a GTX 480 and I got an offer for another GTX 480 for really really low price but the problem is, that the card is a bit faulty. The famous horizontal lines-problem. 
So the question is, can I still use them in SLI if I use the good card for video output, without any problem?
(Please don't tell me to sell the cards and buy a better one etc, I want to experiment.)
Thanks!

Couldn't answer this. As far as I know as soon as one card is bad it should cause problems. But if the display output itself is what's bad and not the card's core/memory/power phases/VRMs/etc? Then it might very well work.

[Bhav]

On 09/04/2016 at 2:23 PM, DildorTheDecent said:

Advantage: Multi GPU looks baller. 

 

Disadvantage: Cabling can be a PITA.

 

Cabling is easy:

 

 

PITA is a broken motherboard, but I'm finally getting a replacement soon.

 

#SLI Gaming master race.

[DildorTheDecent]

10 hours ago, Bhav said:

Cabling is easy:

PITA is a broken motherboard, but I'm finally getting a replacement soon.

#SLI Gaming master race.

Maybe it's easy with dual 8 pin cards. 

 

But with dual 8 pin + 6 pin cards it can get pretty nasty. Since my PSU is basically full of cables rn. 

[Bhav]

9 minutes ago, DildorTheDecent said:

Maybe it's easy with dual 8 pin cards. 

 

But with dual 8 pin + 6 pin cards it can get pretty nasty. Since my PSU is basically full of cables rn. 

I'm using 6+2 pin akasa braided extension cables. They are the cheapest, but don't have the cleanest wiring where the wire goes into the pins.

[DildorTheDecent]

8 minutes ago, Bhav said:

I'm using 6+2 pin akasa braided extension cables. They are the cheapest, but don't have the cleanest wiring where the wire goes into the pins.

I wouldn't want to deal with extensions personally. 

 

Might a new PSU with a full replacement cable set in some sort of colour scheme. Would be easier than extensions imo. 

[Modus]

Does Doom support SLI?

[D2ultima]

23 minutes ago, Modus said:

Does Doom support SLI?

Yes and no. You basically need PCI/e 3.0 x16/x16 and a LED bridge, and you can force it on for DOOM if you're gonna play around 1080p without nightmare shadows. Otherwise you'll get ridiculous FPS drops and possibly negative scaling, depending on your graphical settings.

[Newuser]

Which HB SLI bridge do I need to get for an ASUS Maximus VIII HERO mobo?

[D2ultima]

47 minutes ago, Newuser said:

Which HB SLI bridge do I need to get for an ASUS Maximus VIII HERO mobo?

I'm not sure. You'd probably have to contact ASUS for that.

[borrkalle]

what cards can i use in two way sli with an msi 960 4gb

[D2ultima]

5 hours ago, borrkalle said:

what cards can i use in two way sli with an msi 960 4gb

Any other 960 4GB.

[D2ultima]

Pretty large overhaul tonight. Finally stopped being lazy and just did it.

[Dark]

Nice write up.

If there's anything I can help with in regards to pascal SLI, let me know.  I have a pair of 1080's for another week or so before pascal titans arrive.

[D2ultima]

4 hours ago, Dark said:

Nice write up.

If there's anything I can help with in regards to pascal SLI, let me know.  I have a pair of 1080's for another week or so before pascal titans arrive.

Sure. If I think about anything, I'll let you know.

[Bloodbath91n]

Thanks for the post and all the good info. Currently have a gtx 970 considering sli or possibly just upgrading to the 1070 and this post was a big help in getting some additional info on pros and cons of sli

[opwinrcgpwoghva]

I plan on using a two way gtx 750ti, and i have an i7 6700 3.4ghz. Will I have gpu limited?