Upgrading from 660ti SLI

[cmptech]

Is it worth upgrading to an RX 580 or GTX 1060 from my 660ti two way SLI? How much of a performance gain am I expecting. I couldn't find any side by side comparison of the two set-ups. My only reference are the GTX 1060 (6GB) 3DMark Firestrike Graphics Scores. My rig had a score of 12219, and GTX 1060 (6GB) scores were around 19000. I couldn't find any RX 580 graphics scores, or RX480 single card graphics scores (all results were at least 2 GPU set-ups). RX 580 and GTX 1060 (6GB) are close in price from where I live in with RX 580 slightly cheaper.

 

Here is my system specs by the way

GPU: Zotac GTX 660ti AMP! (2x)

CPU: i5-2400 (I managed to get the turbo to 3.8GHz via Baseclock overclocking)

RAM: 16GB (8x2) G Skill

Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-M Pro

OS: Windows 10

OS Drive: 120GB Samsung 840 EVO

 

Edit:

I have a 1080p 16:9 Monitor but I might upgrade to a 1080p 21:9 monitor. The 29UM58 from LG seems affordable

 

 

[Guest]

Defitnely worth it, SLI doesn't have good scaling nowadays. The RX 580 should suit you well.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, cmptech said:

Is it worth upgrading to an RX 580 or GTX 1060 from my 660ti two way SLI?

Absolutely. To start with, there are still very few games that support SLI and fewer who do it well. 

 

1 hour ago, cmptech said:

I couldn't find any side by side comparison of the two set-ups.

There aren't really any direct comparisons of the two setups, however using Anandtech¹ bench page I think I can get you a rough estimate of performance.

:WARNING - MUCH GUESS WORK AHEAD:

The comparison is between a single 660, which was the closest I could find to a 660ti, compared to a single RX 580. As you can see the difference is between ~2.3x to 3.5x the performance of a single 660. The 660 is approx 10% faster and SLI scales up to about 60-80% (in a best case scenario²) of the performance of two cards (I'll take an generous average of about 70%).

We can attempt to extrapolate some figures based on this example. Lets take the Witcher 3 and attempt to get a ball pack figure. A single 660 does 20.5fps. A 660ti should do 21.6fps. Taking a SLI of 70% then the average fps should be about ~36.72. The RX 580 alone will get 55.3fps. The difference here is about 50% faster in favor of the 580.

Taking a more specific example, Dirt Rally³ at 1080p Ultra a single 660ti FPS is ~47.85 and when in SLI ~ 70.34. The RX 580 alone will get 99.8fps. Therefore the difference is about 41% in favor of the 580.

Based on that I'd say you could see anywhere around 2.2-3.5x the performance in single card games, and up to 50% greater performance in SLI titles, when using a RX 580. 
 

:GUESS WORK ENDS:
 

However, there are other differences that that means the 580 commands a totally dominating lead; Power, Heat and Noise

Being on a much newer architecture and process node helps heat and power greatly. The RX 580 has a higher power draw than the 660 (324W vs 242W in Crysis 3 & the same draw in furmark), however with two cards running the 660ti SLI will draw upto 484W or 50% more power than the RX 580. This means more heat, noise and power is required. The 580 is much more efficient per watt. As far as noise is concerned, the reference cards are at 38.9db vs 36.8db (660 vs 580) the difference of which will rise significantly as you add a second card to the 660 setup. 
 

Then there is SLI and Minimum frame rates.

 

The minimum frame rates are significantly higher on a single RX 580 vs a 660 (44fps vs 14fps). Gameplay will be much more smooth on the RX 580.

The 580 also has much larger VRAM available on tap (up to 8GB) compared to the 660. Making it easily capable of greater than 1080p gaming, or skyrim with mods. 

The other nail in the coffin is that SLI can introduce micro-stutter or other anomalies on poorly implemented titles. This affects minimum frame rates and the overall experience (even if you get 60fps average but are then are dropping to 14fps for a significant portion, this is a poor experience). And once again SLI is not universally supported. 

TL;DR - RX 580 is a great card and you'll see huge benefits in game which do not support SLI and very healthy uplifts in games that do.

EDIT: While I did use the RX 580 in my example, the difference between the RX 580 and the GTX 1060 is fairly minimal and both cards would be great upgrades. Other differences between the specific cards may sway you one way or the other. i.e. efficiency, ram, game specific performance, drivers and software etc.

Sauce 1; http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1778?vs=1868

 

Sauce 2; http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-sli-faq,4079.html#p1

 

Note 3: Overclock3d.net suggest Dirt Rally at 1080p on a GTX1080 scales to 47%.

https://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/msi_gtx1080_gaming_x_sli_review/7

[SlipperyPete]

46 minutes ago, cmptech said:

Edit:

I have a 1080p 16:9 Monitor but I might upgrade to a 1080p 21:9 monitor. The 29UM58 from LG seems affordable

a tad off topic but i am currently using this monitor and i love it. ultra wide is the way to go. matte panel, great colors, good IO (2 HDMI)

love this monitor still and movies, games and multitasking still are amazing. the wonder hasn't worn off yet (1.5 years strong)

[stealth80]

14 minutes ago, VanguardScar said:

Absolutely. To start with, there are still very few games that support SLI and fewer who do it well. 

 

 

Just no - Almost every game supports SLI to some degree, only just Casue 3 offered zero support me in 18 months or so with my 970 SLI set up. Yes scaling isn't perfect, but you can expect around 60% generally which isn't bad, especially considering that SLI is an option to squeeze more FPS out of your rig.

 

2x 660ti were better than a 7970, so say a 280X would be roughly equal so ye either card would be a good upgrade

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, stealth80 said:

Just no - Almost every game supports SLI to some degree, only just Casue 3 offered zero support me in 18 months or so with my 970 SLI set up. Yes scaling isn't perfect, but you can expect around 60% generally which isn't bad, especially considering that SLI is an option to squeeze more FPS out of your rig.

I disagree on a technicality. Nvidia officially lists 366 games with SLI support on their own website, from 2016-2002. Which is a significant number of games, and there appears to be, on first blush, a significant number of AAA titles in there. However steam reports that from 2004-2016 their platform alone launched 11,181 games. That means that if every game nvidia lists with SLI support was on steam it would make up 0.034% of all games. So I stand by my original statement "...there are still very few games that support SLI...." It would also be fair to say that many of the big budget AAA titles have or gain SLI support over the course of their life cycle.

Sources 
http://www.geforce.com/games-applications/technology/sli?title=&sort_bef_combine=created DESC&sort_order=DESC&sort_by=created
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/12/nearly-40-of-all-steam-games-were-released-in-2016/

SLI might squeeze some life out of your rig, to a point. But buying two weaker cards in favor of a single better one, yields varied results between games and applications. And buying a card secondhand or at discount might be a good decision but it also might make more sense in the long run to save for a better, newer card. 

[Jumper118]

1 hour ago, VanguardScar said:

I disagree on a technicality. Nvidia officially lists 366 games with SLI support on their own website, from 2016-2002. Which is a significant number of games, and there appears to be, on first blush, a significant number of AAA titles in there. However steam reports that from 2004-2016 their platform alone launched 11,181 games. That means that if every game nvidia lists with SLI support was on steam it would make up 0.034% of all games. So I stand by my original statement "...there are still very few games that support SLI...." It would also be fair to say that many of the big budget AAA titles have or gain SLI support over the course of their life cycle.

Sources 
http://www.geforce.com/games-applications/technology/sli?title=&sort_bef_combine=created DESC&sort_order=DESC&sort_by=created
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/12/nearly-40-of-all-steam-games-were-released-in-2016/

SLI might squeeze some life out of your rig, to a point. But buying two weaker cards in favor of a single better one, yields varied results between games and applications. And buying a card secondhand or at discount might be a good decision but it also might make more sense in the long run to save for a better, newer card. 

Over 9000 of those games on steam are probably anime bullshit,  mobile ports or early access slow they don't require sli anyway

[Mick Naughty]

Only reason I got rid of my 660tis was because I had the 2gig versions which wasn't enough back then. Stepped up to a Titan. If I still games on a single 1080 monitor I'm sure I would be fine as I game on a 1440 monitor with an old 7 series card. I'm sure there would be some benifit but o wouldn't go red team. 

[stealth80]

12 hours ago, VanguardScar said:

I disagree on a technicality. Nvidia officially lists 366 games with SLI support on their own website, from 2016-2002. Which is a significant number of games, and there appears to be, on first blush, a significant number of AAA titles in there. However steam reports that from 2004-2016 their platform alone launched 11,181 games. That means that if every game nvidia lists with SLI support was on steam it would make up 0.034% of all games. So I stand by my original statement "...there are still very few games that support SLI...." It would also be fair to say that many of the big budget AAA titles have or gain SLI support over the course of their life cycle.

Sources 
http://www.geforce.com/games-applications/technology/sli?title=&sort_bef_combine=created DESC&sort_order=DESC&sort_by=created
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/12/nearly-40-of-all-steam-games-were-released-in-2016/

SLI might squeeze some life out of your rig, to a point. But buying two weaker cards in favor of a single better one, yields varied results between games and applications. And buying a card secondhand or at discount might be a good decision but it also might make more sense in the long run to save for a better, newer card. 

Most of those games listed are un-optimised/eastern/mmo's etc etc etc - As I said, speaking from experience, not articles - out of around 80 or so game I own only Just Cause 3 offered zero SLI support.

 

Secondly yes, if building a new rig, then you should go with the best card you can afford, that is common knowledge and I never said you should sli 2 mid cards over a good single slot .... I started with 1x 970, got a 1440P monitor then added another for 980ti performance - a 980ti was around £600 here in the UK, if I sold my used 970 I would have got around £180 so that performance would have cost me £420, adding a second 970 for £230 made more financial sense! SLI is an upgrade route, I would only recommend SLI on a new build if SLI-ing 2 of the top cards, aka 1080ti.

[cmptech]

thanks for the replies. I might get an RX-580. Although after I did further searching on the local online stores I noticed the price on the zotac 1070mini, it was the cheapest version of the 1070 available. Here the 1070mini is roughly around $380 while the RX-580 is around $277. I am now considering going for the 1070 mini. What do you guys think?

[Guest]

51 minutes ago, cmptech said:

thanks for the replies. I might get an RX-580. Although after I did further searching on the local online stores I noticed the price on the zotac 1070mini, it was the cheapest version of the 1070 available. Here the 1070mini is roughly around $380 while the RX-580 is around $277. I am now considering going for the 1070 mini. What do you guys think?

The GTX 1070 is a solid step up above the RX 580 / GTX 1060, being faster than both by about ~20%. Almost all of the boards can also overclock and squeeze out a little more performance. Even the mini variants have been shown to be excellent cards and have enough headroom for mild overclocking.

However, at this level of performance I suspect you might start running into being bound by your CPU. Meaning you'll see limited gains for that extra $100. This might be fine for now, as it might give you an upgrade path to a better CPU before needing to change GPU's again. 

Here's a graph showing how the i5 2500k (at stock) can bottleneck high end cards (In this case the 1080, but the effect will be less extreme with a 1070). 

Source : http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/2773-intel-i5-2500k-revisit-benchmark-for-2017/page-3

Benchmarks for 1070, w/ 580 and 1060 : http://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/2884-gigabyte-rx-570-aorus-review-vs-470-580-gtx1060/page-5

[cmptech]

 

Thanks for the in depth replies. Just another question. My 3dmark Firestrike (non-extreme) graphics Score = 12,219. Some RX-580 scores I see are around 14,000. From these two benchmark scores, it seems that the RX 580 is only about 14% better than my 660ti in SLI. Are these scores misleading when compared to the real world performance of the cards?

[Princess Luna]

Meh... Just keep those until Q1 of 2018 and buy a GTX 2060.

 

Not like you're getting a monitor that will take advantage of it any time soon any ways.

[Guest]

I would go for it, your cards are pretty old.