To sli or not to sli that is the question!

[newbie]

Definitely a single GPU card. I upgraded to a 2nd 680 awhile ago and regret it. In my favourite games I get shit usage from both GPUs and that's with a 4770K at 4.4ghz. If I didn't get a 2nd 680, I would have gotten either a Titan or 780.

You could always sell them man ;)

[newbie]

Like everyone, I won't recommend SLI

And like some people, I would recommend the GTX770

For your budget you can have some very good non reference cards with 4GB of VRAM and factory overclock on Newegg

[Gauzl]

You could always sell them man ;)

Nah I'm just going to wait for the 800 series which will hopefully be maxwell

[FluffyNuggets]

Definitely a single GPU card. I upgraded to a 2nd 680 awhile ago and regret it. In my favourite games I get shit usage from both GPUs and that's with a 4770K at 4.4ghz. If I didn't get a 2nd 680, I would have gotten either a Titan or 780.

Tell me you didn't add a second 680 for 1080p @60hz?

 

If you aren't running VSYNC then you should be getting full usage out of both cards. 

 

I dunno, telling somebody not to SLI because you did something wrong isn't right. 

 

Honestly, if people are having all kinds of issues with SLI then it's something on their end. The only problems I've had with SLI is it doesn't work in some games and other games have a terrible driver for it. When a game has a good driver then there's absolutely nothing wrong with SLI. I can play BF3, Tomb Raider, Starcraft 2, Far Cry 3, Borderlands 2, XCOM, Alan Wake, pretty much every game I currently have installed with zero SLI issues. However, there's a few where either there isn't a driver or the game is just a POS to begin with, like Metro Last Light. 

 

People talking about all this micro stutter and crashing and whatever else is just nonsense. I'm sure older cards had issues with microstutter but I've had zero issues with my 670's. As far as crashing goes, I can put money on it that it's something to do with their power supply not cutting it. 

 

Now what you shouldn't do is get two weak cards because if a game doesn't support SLI your stuck with a single weak card. For instance, you'd be better of with SLI 770's then SLI'd 660's. Instead of the 660's your better off getting a single 780! 

 

Sorry for the long ramble. 

[jscho]

I'd definately go the single 770. My 680 can run Borderlands 2 in surround (5760x1080) completely maxed out, smoother than I originally had thought too (still yet to give it a good smash in a high load area). 

 

The 770, with its insane memory clock, should beast games at 1200p.

 

If you really want the sex appeal of SLI, grab another 770 down the line. I, myself, might grab another 680 for even better surround gaming performance.  :lol:

[Gauzl]

Tell me you didn't add a second 680 for 1080p @60hz?

If you aren't running VSYNC then you should be getting full usage out of both cards.

I dunno, telling somebody not to SLI because you did something wrong isn't right.

What makes you think I did something wrong? I have a 120hz monitor and v sync off so that answers your question. You can't say that you get full usage out of both of your cards unless your playing atleast crysis 3 otherwise its safe to say your lying or don't know what you're talking about.

[newbie]

Nah I'm just going to wait for the 800 series which will hopefully be maxwell

It's gonna take a looping time

Hope you won't rage ;)

[FluffyNuggets]

What makes you think I did something wrong? I have a 120hz monitor and v sync off so that answers your question. You can't say that you get full usage out of both of your cards unless your playing atleast crysis 3 otherwise its safe to say your lying or don't know what you're talking about.

Nope, I get full usage out of all the games I listed. It's something on your end that's causing low GPU usage. 

 

You can even go on YouTube and find videos of people using SLI and they are getting full usage out of both cards. 

 

Do you get full usage when benchmarking?

[mikeyyve]

While SLI and crossfire are getting better drivers to boost performance in games there will still be times where you run into compatibility issues so if you choose to get into dual GPU configurations be prepared to tweak your settings and research issues you may run into.  In my opinion though, you should go with the best single graphics card you can afford with your budget(in this case a 770). If down the road you find you are not getting the performance you want or you start playing at some much higher resolution then look into getting a card to put in SLI.

[Gauzl]

Nope, I get full usage out of all the games I listed. It's something on your end that's causing low GPU usage.

You can even go on YouTube and find videos of people using SLI and they are getting full usage out of both cards.

Do you get full usage when benchmarking?

Iv tried a benchmarking demo and get full usage but its it that and crysis 3 I get full usage on. On BF3 I only get up to 60% out of both cards and no more then that. Every other game iv played has been the same or worse.

[FluffyNuggets]

Iv tried a benchmarking demo and get full usage but its it that and crysis 3 I get full usage on. On BF3 I only get up to 60% out of both cards and no more then that. Every other game iv played has been the same or worse.

Hows your temps? It starts to throttle above 70c so that could be why. 

[Gauzl]

Hows your temps? It starts to throttle above 70c so that could be why.

Yes throttling is a likely theory sincemy cards are hitting about 70C, but next week I'm making a water loop for the CPU and GPUs with a 480mm radiator so if they're throttling then it should solve it.

[FluffyNuggets]

Hows your temps? It starts to throttle above 70c so that could be why.

Yes throttling is a likely theory sincemy cards are hitting about 70C, but next week I'm making a water loop for the CPU and GPUs with a 480mm radiator so if they're throttling then it should solve it.

Could always crank the fans to max while gaming and see if you get more usage out of it. Another possibility is the CPU not being up to task. If I disable my overclock I get less GPU usage.

[FluffyNuggets]

Hows your temps? It starts to throttle above 70c so that could be why.

Yes throttling is a likely theory sincemy cards are hitting about 70C, but next week I'm making a water loop for the CPU and GPUs with a 480mm radiator so if they're throttling then it should solve it.

Could always crank the fans to max while gaming and see if you get more usage out of it. Another possibility is the CPU not being up to task. If I disable my overclock I get less GPU usage.

Sorry double post

[MrGidwani]

(Quick thread hijack, sorry but question isn't big enough for own thread) I have a quick question regarding planning of mine: Would anyone recommend doing air-cooled SLi on an mATX board because the cards are so close that they're almost touching and the 1st card's fans have little room for airflow against the 2nd's card PCB. Is this a debunked concern or is it actually not recommended?

[Kuzma]

SLI!

[Lays]

If you're getting 770 SLI I'd steer away from it unless you're getting the 4gb flavor.

 

Otherwise you're going to have WAY to much GPU horsepower and not enough vram to make use of all the horsepower. 

[Gauzl]

Could always crank the fans to max while gaming and see if you get more usage out of it. Another possibility is the CPU not being up to task. If I disable my overclock I get less GPU usage.Sorry double post

I have a 4770K clocked at 4.4ghz which is already water cooled.

[FluffyNuggets]

(Quick thread hijack, sorry but question isn't big enough for own thread) I have a quick question regarding planning of mine: Would anyone recommend doing air-cooled SLi on an mATX board because the cards are so close that they're almost touching and the 1st card's fans have little room for airflow against the 2nd's card PCB. Is this a debunked concern or is it actually not recommended?

You'll run into this issue no matter how big the case is. If you have a good amount of airflow then you'll be fine. If you have a spot at the bottom of the case for a fan then add one if you don't have one already.

No idea what case you have or fans so I can't tell you for sure. If you only have one fan in the front and back then your temps may be pretty bad.

How's your temps on a single card currently? If they are high then I absolutely don't recommend adding a second card.

[MrGidwani]

You'll run into this issue no matter how big the case is. If you have a good amount of airflow then you'll be fine. If you have a spot at the bottom of the case for a fan then add one if you don't have one already. No idea what case you have or fans so I can't tell you for sure. If you only have one fan in the front and back then your temps may be pretty bad. How's your temps on a single card currently? If they are high then I absolutely don't recommend adding a second card.

I have a 300R with 120 and 140 in the front and a 120 in the back and idle around 30-35C and 73C under full load. However, I am thinking of downsizing to an mATX form factor when I get the second card and I'm looking at either the Silverstone TJ08-E or the Corsair 350D (More leaning towards silverstone). That case provides a 180mm air penetrator  in the front and space for a 120 in the back and that's all I believe (May put SP120 in that spot). There may be a way to ghetto mod another 120 so it's directly above the GPU's (motherboard is inverted on Silverstone)

[ALXAndy]

SLI user here.

 

Honestly, some of the utter crap people have uttered in this thread makes me ashamed to be a technology geek !

 

Firstly let's address the issues one by one.

 

Heat. Two GPUS do not mean double the heat. Where's your scientific logic for feck's sake? One card will generally run about 5c warmer than the other. But because you have two, for example, 65c heat sources does not mean 130c. It just means two 65c heat sources. Make sure wherever possible to go for blower fan coolers when running SLI as it will dump the heat out of the back. All you need then is a fan positioned correctly to feed each with cool air and you're sorted.

 

Micro stutter. On Nvidia it's as rare as rocking horse shit. The reason is simple - they adopted SLI from 3DFX over a decade ago. Because of this they tend to know what they're doing and don't bodge it like AMD do. As such, there is hardware in place to aid with micro stutter to make sure it just doesn't happen. I get none with my set up (GTX 670 in SLI) so don't listen to the nay sayers.

 

Support, games not supporting SLI. SLI primarily does not work in the game itself. It's just a rendering technique which allows the two cards to split the work load and render alternate frames. At the very worst scenario you will have to wait a couple of weeks until either EVGA or Nvidia release a driver or profile to make the game scale properly. Of course it's perfectly possible to just enter the Nvidia control panel and tell a specific game or application to just render using a single card. If you have, for example, GTX 760 in SLI then one card will be enough for the most part. Remember -big titles like Crysis 3 will *always* support SLI natively and straight at release. Games that don't are usually crap any way so you can just run them from one card.

 

Less room to upgrade. What a load of horse apples. If you have (and you will because crap boards don't support SLI, given that SLI needs at least 8x 8x to run (unlike Crossfire X which needs 4x per lane) a decent board the spacing and layout will be thus that you can fit in plenty of upgrades. I run triple slot coolers and I still managed to get two cards in in SLI and a Killer NIC. The only other things you could possibly want would be a sound card (which would fit my rig fine if I didn't have triple slot coolers) but they're mostly for audiophiles IMO not gamers. I run HDMI so buying a sound card would be a complete waste of money.

 

So in summation? SLI will offer you a boat load more raw power and muscle than one card. As such your investment will last much longer. Yes yes, you could buy a 770 and add one later but the GPU world moves bloody fast and Nvidia do not continue to make cards when they have passed their sell by date. That means finding a second one (especially a matching one) could prove difficult.

 

SLI FTW.

[Gauzl]

Edit.

[Gauzl]

SLI user here.

Honestly, some of the utter crap people have uttered in this thread makes me ashamed to be a technology geek !

Firstly let's address the issues one by one.

Heat. Two GPUS do not mean double the heat. Where's your scientific logic for feck's sake? One card will generally run about 5c warmer than the other. But because you have two, for example, 65c heat sources does not mean 130c. It just means two 65c heat sources. Make sure wherever possible to go for blower fan coolers when running SLI as it will dump the heat out of the back. All you need then is a fan positioned correctly to feed each with cool air and you're sorted.

Micro stutter. On Nvidia it's as rare as rocking horse shit. The reason is simple - they adopted SLI from 3DFX over a decade ago. Because of this they tend to know what they're doing and don't bodge it like AMD do. As such, there is hardware in place to aid with micro stutter to make sure it just doesn't happen. I get none with my set up (GTX 670 in SLI) so don't listen to the nay sayers.

Support, games not supporting SLI. SLI primarily does not work in the game itself. It's just a rendering technique which allows the two cards to split the work load and render alternate frames. At the very worst scenario you will have to wait a couple of weeks until either EVGA or Nvidia release a driver or profile to make the game scale properly. Of course it's perfectly possible to just enter the Nvidia control panel and tell a specific game or application to just render using a single card. If you have, for example, GTX 760 in SLI then one card will be enough for the most part. Remember -big titles like Crysis 3 will *always* support SLI natively and straight at release. Games that don't are usually crap any way so you can just run them from one card.

Less room to upgrade. What a load of horse apples. If you have (and you will because crap boards don't support SLI, given that SLI needs at least 8x 8x to run (unlike Crossfire X which needs 4x per lane) a decent board the spacing and layout will be thus that you can fit in plenty of upgrades. I run triple slot coolers and I still managed to get two cards in in SLI and a Killer NIC. The only other things you could possibly want would be a sound card (which would fit my rig fine if I didn't have triple slot coolers) but they're mostly for audiophiles IMO not gamers. I run HDMI so buying a sound card would be a complete waste of money.

So in summation? SLI will offer you a boat load more raw power and muscle than one card. As such your investment will last much longer. Yes yes, you could buy a 770 and add one later but the GPU world moves bloody fast and Nvidia do not continue to make cards when they have passed their sell by date. That means finding a second one (especially a matching one) could prove difficult.

SLI FTW.

Can you explain how throttling works?

[JupiteL]

If you're already bought one of the 760, do the SLI. But if it is still a plan then go with 770 or 780 instead for the single card solution.

[Godlygamer23]

Heat. Two GPUS do not mean double the heat.

That is correct. But, you now have two GPUs in your system(assuming two way SLI). You are effectively getting double the heat that is ejected, depending on which cards you're putting in SLI(reference 780 and then a DirectCUII 780, for example). The components are not going to ramp up to 130 degrees C or get twice as hot.