SLI- a good choice?

[Denoxx]

Hey guys

Im planning the future of my PC and I want to get the GTX 780 (when its released). I planned to buy 2 of them so I can run them in SLI,

but after a bit of research I found lots of forums where they dont recommend SLI, cause it will cause framelaggs. They also say that with an SLI-System you won't be able

to run every game, due to driver problems. Now... I thought SLI is a good choice :D What do you think about it? I read that above 50 FPS you won't see the framelaggs anymore. Will 2 GTX 780s (assuming that they will provide as much power as the GTX 680 ) run a highend graphics game on over 50 FPS?

Thanks for all your answers

[Dave :)]

SLI and Crossfire is very hit and miss, at least with the current gen cards. Some games run fine and better with SLI over single cards, whilst others run horribly. Most of it is caused by driver issues and it can be a hard time to get it to run without crashes etc. We don't know how nVidia and AMD will change their Drivers to accomodate multi-GPU set ups, however if this year is anything to go by, it may not be that great. If they do sort them out however, you could get some really strong performance out of them, better than single units, over 50FPS, yes :). There may still be microstuttering, but unfortunately we just have to wait and see.

[MartyniP]

Some games have incompatibilities with SLI, some just don't show a huge increase in FPS, and on rare occasions I've heard of games not running at all with SLI. Personally I think that 2 GTX 780's would be overkill for most current games, maybe if you wanted it to last for many generations.

[thegamezbeplayed]

Do you like High resolutions? or do you like high framerate? Can you tell the difference between 30 fps 60fps and 120fps?

[MartyniP]

Some games have incompatibilities with SLI, some just don't show a huge increase in FPS, and on rare occasions I've heard of games not running at all with SLI. Personally I think that 2 GTX 780's would be overkill for most current games, maybe if you wanted it to last for many generations.

We can always hope... We're being kept behind by consoles yet again!

[joelanderson]

Crossfire/SLI work very well in some games and not so well in others. depending on where the technology is when the GTX 780s get released, maybe just buy one and see how it works? I currently run an older crossfire setup and it works great in some games. Some games (Crysis is a good example) don't scale at all in my experience.

[ForumSage]

780 will probably have enough power to power all your games. But if you are running triple monitor setup then you should whichever card that has more VRAM

[thegamezbeplayed]

If he is running anything higher than 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 he should get 2 cards. especially for triple monitors.

[codytappen]

SLI is usually pretty buggy and not worth your time(game/software compatibility issues, frame stuttering, hard to setup). It is a good idea to consider if you really need that graphics power as even a GTX680 will run 1440p resolutions (and deffinetly 1080p) MUCH better than just playable and the 780 should be even more powerful. If you really do need it you should get a duel GPU card because generally they have a couple less compatibility issues (still a lot), although you get slightly less performance it's very comparable (REALLY close) to duel cards...

[Denoxx]

Thanks for all your answers. One of the reasons why I'd consider buy SLI cards is the fact that Nvidia is only capable of 2 Monitors (except the 590/690 ) and I'd like to have 3 monitors. Yes maybe a Gtx 790 will be the better solution.

[Gil]

I haven't had any problems with sli. I have gtx 460's and a lot of games went from having to lower some settings to get acceptable performance with 1 card to over 100 fps average on max settings with sli. No reason not to have 2 gpu's if you don't mind paying for them. My experience with these 460's has been so good I'm planning to get 2 780's.

Also, dual gpu cards are not better than sli. They are sli on one card, you still have to enable sli to use both gpu's so they won't work in all the same situations as normal sli.

In fact they will have lower performance both when sli works properly and the rare occasion where sli does not work. The only reason to go that route is if you are going to get 2 of them for quad sli or if you don't have room/don't like the cluttered look of regular sli. They aren't as good and generally cost more.

[Reslivo]

Question: How do you know you'll need more than one GTX780? Nobody knows the performance of them, yet.

When they come out, I'd advise asking this question again because nobody can give you a definitive answer at the moment, unfortunately.

Hypothetically speaking though, I'd go for a 790. It's a little cheaper than two 780s (going by previous Nvidia price plans), less power consumption and less chance of experiencing micro-stuttering.

[Rhizo]

Some games have incompatibilities with SLI, some just don't show a huge increase in FPS, and on rare occasions I've heard of games not running at all with SLI. Personally I think that 2 GTX 780's would be overkill for most current games, maybe if you wanted it to last for many generations.

We can only hope the ps4 or xbox 720 will have a decent graphics card in it, maybe the ports wont be so absolutely repulsive as we have seen in the past.

[BlueLion]

In some cases they can be problematic and glitchy with applications that don't have full support. Having cards sandwiched together also isn't the best for cooling but I would recommend finding a single card that is the equal performance of those cards together.

[Helltech]

I have never had a problem with SLI. Microstutter almost seems like a myth to me, but from what I can it is something some people can see, and some cannot. I must not be able to. Also a lot of the problems that SLI/CF had (and plagued their reputation ever since), they have grown out of. Most of the problems occurred around the 2005 era, drivers and hardware have matured very much since then. The problems you will run into are heat, power delivery, and support for older applications. A lot of older games don't utilize SLI/CF, but then again you usually don't need SLI to power them at full settings.

[Denoxx]

I have never had a problem with SLI. Microstutter almost seems like a myth to me, but from what I can it is something some people can see, and some cannot. I must not be able to. Also a lot of the problems that SLI/CF had (and plagued their reputation ever since), they have grown out of. Most of the problems occurred around the 2005 era, drivers and hardware have matured very much since then. The problems you will run into are heat, power delivery, and support for older applications. A lot of older games don't utilize SLI/CF, but then again you usually don't need SLI to power them at full settings.

I think there are many games out there that dont need the SLI to run on max settings, but would I be able to run them altough they dont use SLI? Or is the choice of games restricted? In case of heat I've heard that a good air cooled system with a slot space between the 2 cards is enough. Is that true?

[Helltech]

I have never had a problem with SLI. Microstutter almost seems like a myth to me, but from what I can it is something some people can see, and some cannot. I must not be able to. Also a lot of the problems that SLI/CF had (and plagued their reputation ever since), they have grown out of. Most of the problems occurred around the 2005 era, drivers and hardware have matured very much since then. The problems you will run into are heat, power delivery, and support for older applications. A lot of older games don't utilize SLI/CF, but then again you usually don't need SLI to power them at full settings.

I think there are many games out there that dont need the SLI to run on max settings' date=' but would I be able to run them altough they dont use SLI? Or is the choice of games restricted? In case of heat I've heard that a good air cooled system with a slot space between the 2 cards is enough. Is that true?[/quote']

That depends on the motherboard, and most motherboards now have good layouts for SLI/CF.

[cheti]

If you wanna go with SLI or crossfire id suggest getting a 120HZ monitor, cause the micro-stuttering will annoy you to death.

But in general, sli and crossfire are bad ideas and I more-or-less never suggest them for anyone.

One good card over SLI/Xfire is much better.

Best wishes

- cheti

[Xorbex]

I have not experienced issues with my 560 sli setup and now my 660 ti sli rig. It is true that some games don't take advantage of it.