Does SLI really makes sense when there's better GPU available?

[Princess Luna]

It's just a matter that has always bothered me a little, I fully understand SLI on the highest end cards like the GTX 1080 and Titan XP when you want to go full performance possible but when it comes to lower end cards for example the GTX 950 does it really make sense buy another one for SLI instead of just going with a higher end GPU like the GTX 1060 which will cost you basically the same?

Could you tell me if there's really benefit from choosing to SLI/Crossfire lower end cards instead of just going straight with a single higher end card for more or less the same cost?

[samcool55]

Single GPU solutions are always a better option than a similar price/performance SLI setup.

 

The only difference usually is the "potential" power an SLI setup has, it can usually outperform the single-gpu solution but because that also depends on good drivers and good support by the game, it's very rare the SLI solution actually gives a better experience than the single-gpu setup even tho on paper it's perfectly capable of outperforming it.

[Trav_X]

Buy the best card you can when you are building your PC. Then, when you want to upgrade your GPU setup, consider two options based on this question: Can I make DECENT money from seeking my used?

 

1. If you can, then sell it and then use the money you get from the sale and the money you were spending on upgrading to get a better single GPU.

 

2. If you can't get a decent amount of money for the card, then buy a second one if you want performance gains.

[Misanthrope]

If you have the second from the best GPU, there's no other way to get better performance than the best card available and two of the best card can be far too expensive i.e.

 

Titan X Pascal is the best card, however if you want even more performance SLI 1080s is a better idea than Titan SLI since the price difference becomes quite more and the performance per dollar curve basically screws you over.

 

Before the Titan X Pascal came out the same was true for 1070 SLI which was the next best thing to a 1080, etc.

[Mick Naughty]

If one card can't support your wants/needs then you sli. Well it's why I do it anyway. 

[jjohnthedon1]

Sli !!

[tvolk131]

SLI is such a pain and needs software support in addition to hardware, so the price/performance needs to be much MUCH lower than a single GPU solution for it to be worth it at all in my opinion.

[SLAYR]

Lots of lower end gpu don't have support, and nvidia is moving away from SLI currently only the 1070/1080/Titan X have sli support.

 

But if you have a multi-gpu card, and in the future if you wanted more performance you could just add a 2nd card, a bit easier then dealing with getting a new card.