dual 780 or single 780ti?

[GamerDude]

Off topic a little, but I find it really weird that some ask the question the the TS asked, it's akin to those asking, "Single R9 290X or 2x R9 290?". The R9 290, like the GTX780 is already a high end card and it, like the GTX780, isn't far behind their respective elder siblings in terms of performance. It strikes me as strange that such a question is asked in the first place, TS must really over-estimate how powerful the GTX780 Ti.....two GTX780 in SLi would spank a single GTX780 Ti silly.

[coen113]

You do know that 590 is LITERALLY two 580's in SLI? The SLI bridge (although it may not physically exist) is just inside of the card.

 

THEY WILL LITERALLY HAVE THE SAME STABILITY, IT'S STILL TWO CARDS IN SLI. How does a physical SLI bridge make a difference? 

i think, no matter how hard we try, we will never make sense to him, lets just call quits

[Buckley]

You have one 780, just grab another one

[FTW_Perverse]

I understand the 590, 690, Mars 760, and Titan Z are all SLI cards yes. But Linus does not run SLI now. That's my point. Until he does in his personal rig, I take his personal recommendation as sticking with a Single High End GPU option. You just feel like arguing to argue. SLI generally has some stability issues with certain games and applications not optimized for it. Eliminates the potential issues to get a single GPU with high end performance.

[FTW_Perverse]

You do know that 590 is LITERALLY two 580's in SLI? The SLI bridge (although it may not physically exist) is just inside of the card.

THEY WILL LITERALLY HAVE THE SAME STABILITY, IT'S STILL TWO CARDS IN SLI. How does a physical SLI bridge make a difference?

Can you share a pic of a 590, 690, etc with a physical bridge like you would see between two single GPUs?

[DoubleY]

Can you share a pic of a 590, 690, etc with a physical bridge like you would see between two single GPUs?

Uhhh what? They don't have a physical bridge.

[DoubleY]

I understand the 590, 690, Mars 760, and Titan Z are all SLI cards yes. But Linus does not run SLI now. That's my point. Until he does in his personal rig, I take his personal recommendation as sticking with a Single High End GPU option. You just feel like arguing to argue. SLI generally has some stability issues with certain games and applications not optimized for it. Eliminates the potential issues to get a single GPU with high end performance.

What? He did have a 590, but he got rid of it because it didn't allow for Nvidia Shield Streaming. Otherwise he would still have it. He didn't switch because he didn't like SLI, it's because he had to. 

[FTW_Perverse]

What? He did have a 590, but he got rid of it because it didn't allow for Nvidia Shield Streaming. Otherwise he would still have it. He didn't switch because he didn't like SLI, it's because he had to.

He still has mentioned stability issues with SLI he doesn't like. It just gave him more reason to justify moving away from it.

[FTW_Perverse]

Uhhh what? They don't have a physical bridge.

Yeah I know. You initially made it sound like they did... Which is not true. I wanted you to prove it... Nevermind. The single PCB takes care of the SLI bridge function.

[FTW_Perverse]

You're the reason it was brought up, YOU brought up his words, not anyone else.

quit tryna point fingers at my buddy @helping

Point a finger? I just quoted his response as a reference to my comment. Didn't blame him or accuse him of anything.

[Foxxer]

Hey guys, I'm getting carried away here. Chill lol.

[Faa]

I don't get why people think SLI is bad etc honestly I'm running two 780's in SLI now and lets say it's the best experience I ever had with SLI or CF. You wouldn't even notice the system was running in SLI, I monitored the frame times with 1 vs 2 cards literally no difference. The only issue you'd have is more noise or your room heats up quicker and maybe some old games would flicker due to no SLI support and you only have to do a minor change; open nvcp > 3d settings > app > select single-gpu and then it will work flawlessly.

Also watch out with 2 780's, won't be a great story that you max out a single 780 but in SLI you can't get them above 50% getting literally the same fps due to a cpu bottleneck. I hate this like fuck, how are we expected to know that our cpu wouldn't take advantage of SLI when no reviewers can make proper reviews? I'm mostly cpu limited in most games and there's no reason to have SLI enabled. Maybe the OP should list what games he plays, could give him an idea if SLI is worth it or not.
 

 

Uhhh what? They don't have a physical bridge.

They do, a plx chip. You can't call it a bridge but it bridges the gpu's, you can call it physical if you like

590's plx chip wasnt that great, running hot, limiting OC potential etc but the 690 got that fixed.

[FTW_Perverse]

 

I don't get why people think SLI is bad etc honestly I'm running two 780's in SLI now and lets say it's the best experience I ever had with SLI or CF. You wouldn't even notice the system was running in SLI, I monitored the frame times with 1 vs 2 cards literally no difference. The only issue you'd have is more noise or your room heats up quicker and maybe some old games would flicker due to no SLI support and you only have to do a minor change; open nvcp > 3d settings > app > select single-gpu and then it will work flawlessly.

Also watch out with 2 780's, won't be a great story that you max out a single 780 but in SLI you can't get them above 50% getting literally the same fps due to a cpu bottleneck. I hate this like fuck, how are we expected to know that our cpu wouldn't take advantage of SLI when no reviewers can make proper reviews? I'm mostly cpu limited in most games and there's no reason to have SLI enabled. Maybe the OP should list what games he plays, could give him an idea if SLI is worth it or not.

 

 

They do, a plx chip. You can't call it a bridge but it bridges the gpu's, you can call it physical if you like

590's plx chip wasnt that great, running hot, limiting OC potential etc but the 690 got that fixed.

 

 

I agree with you to a point,  I have 2 - 660ti's in SLI and as of now the performance is pretty flawless.  But it didn't used to be.  Older drivers never seemed to work quite right.  The latest drivers are working great and most games run very smooth.  

 

But to your comment, you kinda just contradicted yourself with the SLI is so great EXCEPT the bottleneck you are experiencing.  So if you are experiencing this bottleneck, how can you say it's the best experience?  Until you get that corrected, you have to admit that SLI has its faults... but I suppose most hardware does to some degree.  

 

What CPU do you have?

[Faa]

I agree with you to a point,  I have 2 - 660ti's in SLI and as of now the performance is pretty flawless.  But it didn't used to be.  Older drivers never seemed to work quite right.  The latest drivers are working great and most games run very smooth.  

 

But to your comment, you kinda just contradicted yourself with the SLI is so great EXCEPT the bottleneck you are experiencing.  So if you are experiencing this bottleneck, how can you say it's the best experience?  Until you get that corrected, you have to admit that SLI has its faults... but I suppose most hardware does to some degree.  

 

What CPU do you have?

Not sure why you accuse SLI being in fault when cpu's are just literally slow as fuck. To give you a better idea I have literally the same exact experience running a single card at 99% or two cards at 50/50% in SLI except I'm not getting twice as much fps due to cpu limitations and thats mainly why a 2nd card costs can't be always justified. A CPU bottleneck is a total different story than how smooth/stable or how well the latencies are in SLI.

People adding a 2nd gpu when they were freaking cpu limited with a single card already wonder why they haven't seen any improvements. Before you add a 2nd, make sure you maximize your card to 90-99% if you don't forget a 2nd card or else you just split the load and get the same fps (got screenshots to point this out). 

Tricky part is, even if you get 99% apparently on a single, you add a 2nd you didnt gain a fuck you just moved from 99% with 50fps to 50/50% with 50fps and your 500$ you spent literally was wasted. Thats something you never can predict, thats why I'm calling it tricky and this review points this out. AMD did manage to push a single 7970 to 99% sadly it didn't take any advantage of CF and Intel did. They tried to make it more cpu bound by adding a 2nd card to simulate some multiplayer scenario's where youre mostly cpu limited - instead of running in multiplayer games this is a better way.

Also 3930K.

[FTW_Perverse]

Just to solidify a general point in this video posted TODAY, Linus states around 2:45 min that " I generally recommend a single high-end card vs. 2 mid-range cards"

 

 

Not bashing SLI.  I love SLI when it works.  But I agree with Linus.  A single high-end GPU is the solution I prefer if starting from scratch on a brand-new build.  In the OP's case, adding another 780 makes the most sense in terms of cost and performance gain.  

 

Not sure why Faa is having the 50/50 issue with that CPU.  I would think that CPU would be OK to run 780s in SLI.  

[Unclescar]

Just to solidify a general point in this video posted TODAY, Linus states around 2:45 min that " I generally recommend a single high-end card vs. 2 mid-range cards"

 

 

Not bashing SLI.  I love SLI when it works.  But I agree with Linus.  A single high-end GPU is the solution I prefer if starting from scratch on a brand-new build.  In the OP's case, adding another 780 makes the most sense in terms of cost and performance gain.  

 

Not sure why Faa is having the 50/50 issue with that CPU.  I would think that CPU would be OK to run 780s in SLI.  

 the thing is, the 780 isn't a mid-range card. 

The OP's question is one very high end card, or two slightly less high ends cards.

since you already have a 780, and I assume a good CPU, then put your money towards a second 780. you'll be getting higher FPS than your monitor's refresh rate pretty often (if you have a 60hz monitor), which you would literally have no difference between a 780 SLI setup and a 780 TI sli setup.

780ti SLI = 780 SLI > 780ti > 780.

[FTW_Perverse]

 the thing is, the 780 isn't a mid-range card. 

The OP's question is one very high end card, or two slightly less high ends cards.

since you already have a 780, and I assume a good CPU, then put your money towards a second 780. you'll be getting higher FPS than your monitor's refresh rate pretty often (if you have a 60hz monitor), which you would literally have no difference between a 780 SLI setup and a 780 TI sli setup.

780ti SLI = 780 SLI > 780ti > 780.

 

Yes, which is why I said "  In the OP's case, adding another 780 makes the most sense in terms of cost and performance gain. "

 

I just wanted to reiterate the general recommendation from Linus.  Of course there are exceptions depending on the circumstance.

[Unclescar]

Yes, which is why I said "  In the OP's case, adding another 780 makes the most sense in terms of cost and performance gain. "

 

I just wanted to reiterate the general recommendation from Linus.  Of course there are exceptions depending on the circumstance.

I apologize for the misconception, but I was agreeing with you.

There have been people saying that the 780ti will be better because it's the fastest single card in his options, but even if he got a second ti later for SLI, by the time that he gets to the point where he'd notice a difference between 780 SLI and 780ti SLI, he'd prolly be replacing his GPUs anyway, which means there is zero reason to get a 780ti when you have a 780 and can get a second one for SLI.