SLI vs. Single Card

[Jogostar]

Hello Folks!

 

I've been seeing a lot of "SLI or Single Card" threads lately, and since the answer remains the same at 99% of the time, I would like to make one big thread.

 

So you have been asking yourself if you should go for a dual card solution (e.g. dual 770's) or go for a single card (e.g 780).

 

Generaly you should go for the single card solution, because of the heat, expandability and noise.

I personally never saw someone recommend something other.

 

Only case I would recommend going SLI is, if you already own a high end card. (e.g 580/680/780/770)

Or if you can get a 2nd card for really cheap. 

 

So to make it easy.

 

 

Dual Card

• Heat is high
• Noise is high
• Not much expandability
• Some games don't support SLI/CFX (usually irrelevant)
• Microstuttering CAN be a problem (pretty much never these days)
• Anything past 2 cards, doesn't scale well.
• More performance
• Looks good (especially watercooled)
• Games that scale well, can have more than 50% fps increase

 

Single Card

• Less heat
• Less Noise
• Room for expandability
• All games work on single card
• No microstuttering
• Less performance
• Doesn't look as great (some might argue)

 

Let me know in the comments, if I should add something. 

Let's try keeping this on the front page for as long as possible.

 

Thanks.

[kristaps552]

So when you say ''Room for expandability'' you mean SLI or Crossfire?


 

[CoolBeans]

Not all games support SLI

[megadarkwood]

Micro-stuttering is really the biggest problem

[Jogostar]

Not all games support SLI

 

 

Micro-stuttering is really the biggest problem

Thanks, adding it

[das affe]

efficiency is bad on sli/crossfire

[CoolBeans]

Micro-stuttering is really the biggest problem

Micro stuttering is pretty much not a problem anymore on both sides

[Jogostar]

efficiency is bad on sli/crossfire

so you mean price to performance soesn't scale or what?

[N00B_person]

Only get SLI if its really worht your rectangular tender.

[kristaps552]

What if someone already has a for example a 660ti, and he wants to add another one?
It isn't always the case of people buying 2 new gpu's to run in sli or cf, it could be that they just want to expand like you said...

[Jogostar]

What if someone already has a for example a 660ti, and he wants to add another one?

It isn't always the case of people buying 2 new gpu's to run in sli or cf, it could be that they just want to expand like you said...

yeah, but would you rather buy a second 660ti for ~250$ or pay a little more for a 770 and get slmot the same performance/even more performance?

(going with switzerland prices here)

[kristaps552]

yeah, but would you rather buy a second 660ti for ~250$ or pay a little more for a 770 and get slmot the same performance/even more performance?

That just happened to be a bad example, because for some unknown reason 660ti's are incredibly expensive now.

Replace the 660ti with any card that would make sense in this scenario.

[Bonsai99]

so you mean price to performance soesn't scale or what?

Performance scales fine at 2 cards, anything past 2 cards performance scaling falls off a cliff.

[Jogostar]

That just happened to be a bad example, because for some unknown reason 660ti's are incredibly expensive now.

Replace the 660ti with any card that would make sense in this scenario.

yeah 680 kind of woulkd make sense in that case. 

does this sound good

 

"Only think about goinf SLI if you already own a top tier card"

[kristaps552]

yeah 680 kind of woulkd make sense in that case. 

does this sound good

 

"Only think about goinf SLI if you already own a top tier card"

Id replace top tier with high end... so a 680/770/780 7970/280x/290 or something like that.

Also, 660ti used to have crazy value/performance ratios, and if you SLI them, you get crazy performance for 2/3 of the price or something along those lines.

[Jogostar]

So when you say ''Room for expandability'' you mean SLI or Crossfire?

 

I actually meant other PCI slots,

[Jogostar]

Id replace top tier with high end... so a 680/770/780 7970/280x/290 or something like that.

Also, 660ti used to have crazy value/performance ratios, and if you SLI them, you get crazy performance for 2/3 of the price or something along those lines.

SLI 660 Ti is about the performance of a 680/770, for the same price nowadays. ^^

[kristaps552]

I actually meant other PCI slots,

That only applies to some matx boards, because even if you do SLIfire (<means both) you still have one slot... and most people now days do not recommend sound cards, but a fiio e10 or O2. ( WHERE WERE YOU EARLIER WHEN I WAS LOOKING TO UPGRADE MY AUDIO?)

SLI 660 Ti is about the performance of a 680/770, for the same price nowadays. ^^

Well, in SOME games, it's equal to Titan... But there is the 2gb vram and whatnot but still. I'd say it's above 770, but not quite 780 on average.

 

One more thing, SLIfire looks good, especially when watercooled.

 

[das affe]

so you mean price to performance soesn't scale or what?

no, what im mean is the electricity. 

[MrAlexOneill]

The scaling is usually bad on crossfire until recently and sli is good but they both have room to improve in my opinion.

[Swegly]

500 Posts!!!!! Nice thread, I think this will help alot of people

[ViruZ_HUN]

Hello Folks!

 

I've been seeing a lot of "SLI or Single Card" threads lately, and since the answer remains the same at 99% of the time, I would like to make one big thread.

 

So you have been asking yourself if you should go for a dual card solution (e.g. dual 770's) or go for a single card (e.g 780).

 

Generaly you should go for the single card solution, because of the heat, expandability and noise.

I personally never saw someone recommend something other.

Only case I would recommend going SLI is, if you already own a high end card. (e.g 680/780/770)

 

So to make it easy.

 

 

Dual Card

• Heat is high
• Noise is high
• Not much expandability
• Some games don't support SLI/CFX
• Microstuttering CAN be a problem (pretty much never these days)
• Anything past 2 cards, doesn't scale well.

 

Single Card

• Less heat
• Less Noise
• Room for expandability
• All games work on single card
• No microstuttering

 

Let me know in the comments, if I should add something. 

Let's try keeping this on the front page for as long as possible.

 

Thanks.

what´i understand that you ahte SLI/CF and there is absolutely no postitives with it

[ZerueLX11]

Will G-Sync fix micro stutter or is that something different?

[kristaps552]

what´i understand that you ahte SLI/CF and there is absolutely no postitives with it

Well, I mentioned some, but he hasn't added it...

Also, Linus has a video about it...

 

[helping]

I'm getting annoyed at hearing some games don't support SLI/CFX

 

 

this is so beyond irrelevant, please someone enlighten me as to why that matters with logic and reason.