2-way SLI worth it?

[TomSerious]

Hello all.

 

I just got my 1080 Ti.

 

Now I am considering a second 1080 Ti (FE).

 

Is it worth it? (Cost does not matter)

 

Thanks!

[RadiatingLight]

depends if the games you are going to play scale well with SLI, and if you really need the extra power, and the headache that goes along with it.

[DudeWazap]

If you're going to be doing 4k gaming or have a GSync monitor and want to stay at 144Hz then I would probably sli.

 

I also just ordered my 1080ti and will more than likely sli it later.

[reniat]

SLI is almost never a good move in terms of perf/price or efficiency (though there are exceptions). If you want to spend way more $$$ than you need to, and spend more effort to set things up in some games, and flat out not get any value from one of your cards in some games, then go for it.

 

That said, I'm waiting for the chance to purchase 2x 1080tis as soon as EVGA makes them available for preorder again. I actually love SLI, and am willing to take all of the above for the extra power and aesthetics of SLI. SLI is just badass, but you need to be aware of the potential downsides. Most games work okay with sli, and the ones that dont you can disable it very easily, but it should still be in the back of your mind when making your purchasing decisions. 

[App4that]

2 1080ti can actually hurt your performance in some games as the CPU becomes such a bottleneck you're bouncing off the rev limiter. At 4k or higher it's not as bad, but I'd wait until CPU's catch up to SLI the 1080ti. 

[Frankenburger]

The 1080Ti's are pretty good in SLI if you do some high resolution gaming, such as 4k or triple monitor. It's not uncommon for them to hit a CPU bottleneck. If you're considering SLI, I strongly recommend that you enable DSR to get the most out of the two cards.

 

It's not a direct reference, but to give you a rough idea of SLI scaling, here's a decent summary of SLI scaling on 2x vanilla 1080's https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080_SLI/20.html

[othertomperson]

Absolutely. That said, one 1080 Ti is for the most part going to max out almost everything at 4K. If you do have two of them you are going to want to turn AA off and replace it with 6K DSR or something.

 

1 hour ago, RadiatingLight said:

depends if the games you are going to play scale well with SLI, and if you really need the extra power, and the headache that goes along with it.

People keep saying this but have never been able to articulate in what way it's meant to be a headache.

[App4that]

6 minutes ago, Frankenburger said:

The 1080Ti's are pretty good in SLI if you do some high resolution gaming, such as 4k or triple monitor. It's not uncommon for them to hit a CPU bottleneck. If you're considering SLI, I strongly recommend that you enable DSR to get the most out of the two cards.

 

It's not a direct reference, but to give you a rough idea of SLI scaling, here's a decent summary of SLI scaling on 2x vanilla 1080's https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080_SLI/20.html

If they have a GSYNC monitor, DSR and SLI don't mix. I know the official word is they fixed it, but they didn't. You get horrible latency. 

[Frankenburger]

2 minutes ago, App4that said:

If they have a GSYNC monitor, DSR and SLI don't mix. I know the official word is they fixed it, but they didn't. You get horrible latency. 

I have a RoG Swift and been using it with a SLI config since they fixed DSR last year, and not noticed much in the way of latency. Regardless, using custom resolutions to downsample and/or driver level supersampling is still an option.

[App4that]

1 minute ago, Frankenburger said:

I have a RoG Swift and been using it with a SLI config since they fixed DSR last year, and not noticed much in the way of latency. Regardless, using custom resolutions to downsample and/or driver level supersampling is still an option.

I've tried it in every game I can think of, where my 2 980ti will run 4k. Each and every one of them introduces problems. Either GSYNC gets disabled, there's control latency, or horrible hitching.

 

Glad it's working for you, but no one I know shares your luck. That makes it worth a PSA.

[Frankenburger]

14 minutes ago, App4that said:

I've tried it in every game I can think of, where my 2 980ti will run 4k. Each and every one of them introduces problems. Either GSYNC gets disabled, there's control latency, or horrible hitching.

 

Glad it's working for you, but no one I know shares your luck. That makes it worth a PSA.

Admittedly, I don't use DSR with any competitive game. Maybe that's why I don't notice any input lag. But I do use it frequently with GTA V, Skyrim, and Fallout 4 and have no problems. Not even when Fallout 4 didn't support SLI, and needed to be disabled, did I notice a difference in input lag with DSR vs SLI on and off. Maybe I'm just not sensitive to input lag, but my experience with it has been consistent between 2x GTX 980, 2x GTX 1080, and 2x GTX 1080Ti across multiple installs of Windows 10. Also, I frequent the Nvidia subreddit, Overclock.net, and Nvidia's forums and rarely seen people complaining about the issue. Googling "dsr sli latency" doesn't pull up any alarming amounts of results on the issue either.

 

That's not to say the issue doesn't exist, but again, that doesn't mean the user shouldn't attempt to use DSR. If they do find that DSR causes lag, and are on a 1440p display, then they can just disable DSR and create a 3840x2160 60Hz custom resolution in NVCP.

[App4that]

3 minutes ago, Frankenburger said:

Admittedly, I don't use DSR with any competitive game. Maybe that's why I don't notice any input lag. But I do use it frequently with GTA V, Skyrim, and Fallout 4 and have no problems. Not even when Fallout 4 didn't support SLI, and needed to be disabled, did I notice a difference in input lag with DSR vs SLI on and off. Maybe I'm just not sensitive to input lag, but my experience with it has been consistent between 2x GTX 980, 2x GTX 1080, and 2x GTX 1080Ti across multiple installs of Windows 10. Also, I frequent the Nvidia subreddit, Overclock.net, and Nvidia's forums and rarely seen people complaining about the issue. Googling "dsr sli latency" doesn't pull up any alarming amounts of results on the issue either.

 

That's not to say the issue doesn't exist, but again, that doesn't mean the user shouldn't attempt to use DSR. If they do find that DSR causes lag, and are on a 1440p display, then they can just disable DSR and create a 3840x2160 60Hz custom refresh in NVCP.

I have issues in Fallout 4, Skyrim is the worst. Might be a Maxwell to Pascal difference. 

[Frankenburger]

Just now, App4that said:

I have issues in Fallout 4, Skyrim is the worst. Might be a Maxwell to Pascal difference. 

It could also be a per-game issue. If it was an issue strictly with DSR and SLI, then the severity of the input lag should be consistent.

 

I've heard that DSR, in general, can cause issues if the game uses a software mouse input rather than hardware mouse input. Perhaps that's where part of the problem stems from?

[App4that]

Just now, Frankenburger said:

It could also be a per-game issue. If it was an issue strictly with DSR and SLI, then the severity of the input lag should be consistent.

 

I've heard that DSR, in general, can cause issues if the game uses a software mouse input rather than hardware mouse input. Perhaps that's where part of the problem stems from?

Possibly. I've used both AMD and Nvidia's solutions and AMD has the better. Both **** up your desktop icons, which for the OCD is a deal breaker. I keep an eye on it though, and honestly haven't tested with the 378 driver. So might give it a go again for research sake. 

[Frankenburger]

6 minutes ago, App4that said:

Both **** up your desktop icons, which for the OCD is a deal breaker.

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't recommend any form of downsampling for desktop use. Not even using custom resolutions (which, minus refresh limitations, is the best method IMO) yields positive results in the desktop environment.

[Morgan Everett]

2 hours ago, TomSerious said:

Hello all.

 

I just got my 1080 Ti.

 

Now I am considering a second 1080 Ti (FE).

 

Is it worth it? (Cost does not matter)

 

Thanks!

If cost is no factor, then, trivially, of course it's worth it. But I doubt cost doesn't matter to you, unless you're exceptionally wealthy.

[jjohnthedon1]

6 hours ago, App4that said:

2 1080ti can actually hurt your performance in some games as the CPU becomes such a bottleneck you're bouncing off the rev limiter. At 4k or higher it's not as bad, but I'd wait until CPU's catch up to SLI the 1080ti. 

That's wat I was gona say

980ti is kinda the limit at because of cpus

even at 1440p

 

if ur running 4k sure 

[TomSerious]

Just got my second 1080 Ti, thanks all ^^