Was thinking of picking up a GTX 670 for 2 way SLI on the cheap locally ...

[ImNotDeViLzzz]

https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/geforce-gtx-670-2-and-3way-sli-review,4.html

.. and this chart above is saying 2 way SLI cards draw 293 watts full stress and system totally draws 433 watts so to me their recommendation of having a PSU that is 700 watts seems a little high.  Could one not use even a good 550 watt PSU?  

[ZeouLs]

I only came here to say one thing

 

SLI SUCKS

 

bye

[AskTJ]

But why old cards, especially SLI? Spend the same and get a more powerful card.

[ZeouLs]

54 minutes ago, AskTJ said:

But why old cards, especially SLI? Spend the same and get a more powerful card.

a GTS250 is like 20-30 bucks max

[Dah budget gamer666]

Please dont get those old cards in SLI.

 

SLI doesn't give you any performance gain in most games, in fact it will decrease the FPS and will draw unnecessary high watts.

[Mick Naughty]

I wouldn’t do it unless it’s just try try things out.  

 

Using a single led card sucks and results in frames loss. 

 

So get the best thing you can for your budget. 

[Frankenburger]

The GTX670 has a power draw of around 170w under full load. You'd be cutting it close with a 500w PSU, but it's possible.

 

That being said, the performance gain you'd accrue in SLI would be offset by the low VRAM of the 670. If you mainly play older games, this won't be a problem. But if you're playing newer games, going with a used 4GB card would be better.

[ImNotDeViLzzz]

On 12/09/2018 at 7:59 AM, AskTJ said:

But why old cards, especially SLI? Spend the same and get a more powerful card.

It is the fun of running SLI for the first time ever and on top of that the person selling the card only wants $30 and it very well could end up costing me far less as the person also will accept trades from me.  In regards to more powerful cards I would be spending much more than I need to or could right now to get what I want for a top notch system. I used to have a GTX 1080 Ti but sold it.

[ImNotDeViLzzz]

https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/geforce-gtx-670-review,review-32443-16.html

That is enough to make me want to go SLI.  

Also again it is just for the fun of it too ...

and something I forgot to mention is it would be nice to have a backup card for this older system.  I also am getting into collecting video cards on the cheap ... even dead cards.

[Cereal5]

35 minutes ago, ImNotDeViLzzz said:

https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/geforce-gtx-670-review,review-32443-16.html

Those look like cherry picked (and old) games to me. Depending on what games you play, you will likely see at most 60% increase, and at worst, a frame decrease.

 

35 minutes ago, ImNotDeViLzzz said:

Also again it is just for the fun of it too ...

When I first built my computer (it was my first computer build, the one in my description), I had SLI 970s. I can already hear the entirety of LTT groaning, lol. I would have been so much better off just buying a 980 Ti, and I wouldn't have had to spend more money later on this 1080 I have now. Besides, the novelty of two cards wore off very quickly. I would recommend selling your 670 and buying the best card you can. Even if it's a 780 Ti or 970 or 1060. Whatever you can afford, a single one will be the best all around solution for you. SLI support in video games is at an all-time low right now. Maybe with NVIDIAs re-investment into SLI there will be a resurgence here in the next 1-2 years, but don't count on anything.

[Stefan Payne]

On 12.9.2018 at 1:55 PM, ImNotDeViLzzz said:

.. and this chart above is saying 2 way SLI cards draw 293 watts full stress and system totally draws 433 watts so to me their recommendation of having a PSU that is 700 watts seems a little high.  Could one not use even a good 550 watt PSU?  

Depends on the PSU you are talking about.

If we are talking about a good quality 550W PSU like Dark Power Pro P11, then yes.

But I have to remind you that getting 4 PCIe Connectors with 550W is rather rare. And out of my head, the Dark Power Pro is the only thing that comes to my mind that does that...

With others you have to order additional PCIe Cables...

 

Although I have to agree with that Statement:

On 12.9.2018 at 1:59 PM, ZeouLs said:

I only came here to say one thing

 

SLI SUCKS

 

bye

Especially since it just does not work most of the times with modern Games...

The If the Developer or Publisher is Koei Tecmo, don't think about Trying...

On 12.9.2018 at 2:54 PM, ZeouLs said:

a GTS250 is like 20-30 bucks max

Maybe, but a Radeon HD7770 should be faster.

And a 7850 is way faster and both don't cost much more than that.

On 12.9.2018 at 6:21 PM, Frankenburger said:

The GTX670 has a power draw of around 170w under full load. You'd be cutting it close with a 500w PSU, but it's possible.

GTX670 has lower power draw than Radeon HD7970GHz.

And with both of them in Crossfire while running heaven and Prime I only got about 520W or so on the Secondary side.

(the thing I remember was ~575 on my Powermeter while using a Cougar GX-F wich is a lower end Gold so I'd assume around 90% Efficiency -> 517,5W. Altough in 230VAC, it could be higher but not by much. And even with 93% Efficiency, wich is IMO unrealistic with this unit, we would be talking about 535W)...

So usually I'd expect something around 400W. So a good 550W should work fine.

 

Quote

That being said, the performance gain you'd accrue in SLI would be offset by the low VRAM of the 670. If you mainly play older games, this won't be a problem. But if you're playing newer games, going with a used 4GB card would be better.

I kinda agree but not quite.

Because 4GiB Memory is kinda the minimum today.

So 6 or 8GiB Cards are recommended. But there ain't much of those for a good price...

 

 

Anyway, the main problems are that SLI/CF just doesn't work or that it causes Issues that aren't there with a single card or the so called µStuttering.

Either way, you have to get a Powermeter!!

Because that is a good way to check if SLI/CF is running or not...

[ImNotDeViLzzz]

3 hours ago, Cereal5 said:

Those look like cherry picked (and old) games to me. Depending on what games you play, you will likely see at most 60% increase, and at worst, a frame decrease.

 

 

Those are games that I haven't even come close to playing enough of and are games I will play or do play.  I also could list more where SLI would help but I was just giving what I could find quickly. Also yes I often play dated games because of my backlog4life, the cost and also I have consoles for gaming too.

Anyway I got pretty much clear answers from people in regards to the wattage / PSU I need for it which is what this thread really was about.

[Mick Naughty]

Brand new betas support it. If a game doesn’t , it’s prolly shit. 

[Frankenburger]

6 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

GTX670 has lower power draw than Radeon HD7970GHz.

And with both of them in Crossfire while running heaven and Prime I only got about 520W or so on the Secondary side.

(the thing I remember was ~575 on my Powermeter while using a Cougar GX-F wich is a lower end Gold so I'd assume around 90% Efficiency -> 517,5W. Altough in 230VAC, it could be higher but not by much. And even with 93% Efficiency, wich is IMO unrealistic with this unit, we would be talking about 535W)...

So usually I'd expect something around 400W. So a good 550W should work fine.

In general, I like to recommend around the worst case scenario. If both GTX 670's were hitting 99% GPU usage, the power consumption for the GPUs alone would be around 340w. As long as the CPU isn't pulling more than 100w (leaving about 60w for the rest of the system), then it should be fine, but that really depends on the workload. My SLI 1080Ti + 6850k @1.24v draws about 520w while gaming. This is with my two 1080Ti's undervolted to use about 70% power on average.

 

6 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

Anyway, the main problems are that SLI/CF just doesn't work or that it causes Issues that aren't there with a single card or the so called µStuttering.

I can't vouch for CF. I haven't had a CF system since 2012. But SLI does work more often than most people gives credit for. Of course, mileage varies from person to person depending on the games they play, but both TechPowerUp and BabelTech shows about 3 of every 4 (graphically demanding) games have positive SLI scaling on average. In my experience with SLI over the years, those averages holds true.

[Cereal5]

6 hours ago, ImNotDeViLzzz said:

Those are games that I haven't even come close to playing enough of and are games I will play or do play.  I also could list more where SLI would help but I was just giving what I could find quickly. Also yes I often play dated games because of my backlog4life, the cost and also I have consoles for gaming too.

Anyway I got pretty much clear answers from people in regards to the wattage / PSU I need for it which is what this thread really was about.

It sounds like you already have your own mind set and don’t need advice. But don’t come complaining back here when you have issues with poorer than expected framerates