GeneralWill SLI ever be good?
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GeneralWill SLI ever be good?Posted:

TheFakeMrSneaky
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Like the title says... I have never used SLI and I have always heard it isn't worth it. Was it worth it in the past? Do you think it will become a thing in the future? Maybe now it's not worth it because one card can run 4k for the most part but maybe in the future when there are 32k monitors O.o lmao I guess on a serious note the graphics cards will just get better...
#2. Posted:
BLVD
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I personally don't think SLI is worth.
All I've ever heard from doing so is Microstutters, driver issues and game compatibility issues. If you were to SLI I'd do a bunch of research into the games you're going to be playing and to see if SLI is even supported.
But it really just depends on what you're doing and if you like the look of 2 graphics cards instead of 1/got the budget.


#3. Posted:
21
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SLI is pretty useless right now, for the most part. If you solely play older games where SLI is pretty well supported, then sure it might make sense- but that's a very unlikely scenario IMO.

Most newer titles just flat out don't even support multi-GPU set-ups any more, so you will get absolutely zero scaling and essentially have a GPU doing nothing. Or, in some cases, negative scaling so you actually lose performance by having SLI enabled.

Even in some games where SLI is kind of well supported and has decent scaling for AVG FPS, it can seriously tank 0.1% and 1% low FPS which can cause horrible micro stuttering.

I do believe multi-GPU set-ups could make a comeback in some form or another at some point, but who knows.


I have run GTX 770s and GTX 970s in SLI. Both performed very well in games I played at the time, but I did occasionally have issues with stuttering or piss poor scaling when I started branching out in to different/newer games. Was definitely a fun experience having a multi-GPU set-up, and the SLI 970s made sense for me at the time, but waiting for the 980Ti to launch would have probably been better for me in the long run.
#4. Posted:
M9z
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21 wrote SLI is pretty useless right now, for the most part. If you solely play older games where SLI is pretty well supported, then sure it might make sense- but that's a very unlikely scenario IMO.

Most newer titles just flat out don't even support multi-GPU set-ups any more, so you will get absolutely zero scaling and essentially have a GPU doing nothing. Or, in some cases, negative scaling so you actually lose performance by having SLI enabled.

Even in some games where SLI is kind of well supported and has decent scaling for AVG FPS, it can seriously tank 0.1% and 1% low FPS which can cause horrible micro stuttering.

I do believe multi-GPU set-ups could make a comeback in some form or another at some point, but who knows.


I have run GTX 770s and GTX 970s in SLI. Both performed very well in games I played at the time, but I did occasionally have issues with stuttering or piss poor scaling when I started branching out in to different/newer games. Was definitely a fun experience having a multi-GPU set-up, and the SLI 970s made sense for me at the time, but waiting for the 980Ti to launch would have probably been better for me in the long run.


Plus you only really benefit from SLI in older games by using two older cards, because any card produced today can easily outperform some older cards many times over, so yea SLI is basically dead at this point, and with the constant improvements on performance and speed of todays GPU's, I can't see any reason outside of rendering 8k and such where SLI would be beneficial.
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TheFakeMrSneaky wrote Like the title says... I have never used SLI and I have always heard it isn't worth it. Was it worth it in the past? Do you think it will become a thing in the future? Maybe now it's not worth it because one card can run 4k for the most part but maybe in the future when there are 32k monitors O.o lmao I guess on a serious note the graphics cards will just get better...


It depends on the use case. SLI is impressively garbage in most case scenarios and the reason was due to technology advancement. Main problem being you can't have something like a 980 2gb card paired into a 980 ti 4gb card. So it was incredibly and still is expensive and your performance is a lot less than you'd expect, they run hotter if you're not using water cooling too, so louder and hotter pc/room. SLI also has problems with stuttering because the frames are getting split up between the two cards. It didn't really help either that AMD and Nvidia essentially let it die and that has it's own reasons.

For gamers especially low end gamers who are getting 2gb, 3gb, and 4gb cards there's the issue of wanting to have better graphics and the reality SLI didn't give that doubled memory and only half of the performance of the second card. Which then came down to the reality of why buy a second graphics card if you don't actually get one?

BUT NVLINK on RTX cards... different story. Being the fact that with NVLINK you get the actual performance you always dreamed of. So if you wanted a 2060 NVLINK setup that could actually face up a 2080. You can.

The reality for 4K gaming though is still not an easy to swallow one, sure a 980 Ti can do 4K, sure... At what fps and what resolution? 4K gaming is awesome (depending on the game) but it comes at a cost of your PC's heat and sound, as well as your fps. If you're like me 4K gaming with World of Warcraft in a raid or battleground, it's cool but... why? In something like Forza, it's down right unreal.

Coming from someone with 3 monitors and a 2080 Ti, 4K is awesome, do I play in 4k often or a lot? I literally only play World of Warcraft in 4K because any other game has issues, be it in scaling, text becoming way too sharp and small to read, 60 fps is not something I'll ever enjoy again, or be it just the actual heat coming off my PC mind you I have 2 360 radiators and yes my 2080 Ti is under water. It's hot in topeka. I'd love to Black Desert Online in 4K in Remastered Ultra, but that is actually going to require me to have a 9900K or 3950X and another 2080 Ti... /shrug.
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