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Honest SLI questions for SLI owners please :)

AssaTM

AssaTM

AssaTM

Permabanned
Joined
9 Oct 2006
Posts
1,012
Hi all, due to the imminent release of the 980ti im either going to go for a 980 TI (either single card or SLI) or a Titan X, but the issue is I keep flip/flopping on the SLI side of it.
I heard a ton of great things like microstutter is essentially solved, then I heard it can be a problem at 4k (which is what i'd be gaming at) and people saying the profiles are great nowadays and it works perfectly, to others saying new games still suffer and so on.

So what im asking is for anyone that runs an SLI setup at the moment, what is your honest opinion of it? would I regret going SLI, or would it be the right move? do the pros outweigh the cons, and so on and so forth, thank you for the help, I really cant decide :(
 
I game at 4k and don't have a problem with micro-stuttering tbh, BUT some people are more sensitive to it than others.

As for SLi, been great for me :cool:

(I switched from 295x2 7-8 weeks ago, wasn't happy with AMD's 'support' if you can call it that)
 
Have you ever noticed it before? is it genuinely game breaking even when you do notice it? or just an inconvenience? the way some people speak it sounds like youre watching a slideshow which I know must be a massive exaggeration, ive only ever had single card setups but im in a situation now where I can really go for it and build the system I want, and of course SLI does equal a lot more power, its just the few that complain about it that put me off, even though from what ive read the vast majority have nothing but good things to say about it
 
Microstutter is usually when a game looks and feels like it's running at a lower frame rate than what is being displayed, so for people to say they haven't noticed it i'm not sure some fully know what it is. I've also read it can cause hitches at times.
 
But is it temperamental, like occasional, or a constant? I dont think anyones gonna worry too much if they have a few minutes of micro stuttering, but if that was the permanent norm then it cant possibly be worth paying more for a second card, but due to so many people being so positive about SLI, is it a case of they just have such high frame rates that it doesnt micro stutter? theres a lot of questions but it does sound like SLI is in a really good place right now
 
Hi, 980 sli owner here @4k. I notice stutters on the demanding games like witcher 3, is it a deal breaker? Depends on how sensitive you are to stutters I guess. To me it isn't.

980 sli outperforms a single Titan x. Yes 980 has only 4gb, but I don't think a single Titan x can handle graphic heavy games like witcher 3 at 4k, not unless you go sli.
 
Divine Pain said:
Hi, 980 sli owner here @4k. I notice stutters on the demanding games like witcher 3, is it a deal breaker? Depends on how sensitive you are to stutters I guess. To me it isn't.

980 sli outperforms a single Titan x. Yes 980 has only 4gb, but I don't think a single Titan x can handle graphic heavy games like witcher 3 at 4k, not unless you go sli.
Click to expand...

I think @2160p what you are seeing with the 980s is because they are 4gb cards and you are getting closer to maxing out the memory.

Using TitanXs @2160p does look noticeably smoother than the 980s but @1080p they look much the same in use.
 
So it's fair to say a Titan X in SLI is much less likely to create microstutter due to the higher VRAM as well as just the amount of frames it is outputting?
 
Kaapstad said:
I think @2160p what you are seeing with the 980s is because they are 4gb cards and you are getting closer to maxing out the memory.

Using TitanXs @2160p does look noticeably smoother than the 980s but @1080p they look much the same in use.
Click to expand...

Wow, totally forgot about that! You're probably right then Kappa.

Ignore my post.
 
Also from what i can gather there are a few games which run very well with 2+ cards, but for the most part you are going to see issues one way or the other in most games. May be better to go with a single card and see if DX12 makes a large difference to multi card performance?
 
AssaTM said:
So it's fair to say a Titan X in SLI is much less likely to create microstutter due to the higher VRAM as well as just the amount of frames it is outputting?
Click to expand...

No

@1080p both TitanXs and 980s in SLI look much the same, well mine do anyway but other people may be more sensitive.

@2160p the TitanXs in SLI look better as they have a wider bus (384bit) and 12gb of memory which handle the larger amounts of data that 4k needs for each frame. By comparison the 980s have a 256bit bus and 4gb of memory which is getting more stressed in both how fast data can get across the bus and how much the memory can store.

The 980ti when it launches could give you a third option as these cards @2160p should perform similar to the TitanXs proving you don't use more than 2 and risk running out of memory (6gb) pushing the settings.
 
Perfect_Chaos said:
Also from what i can gather there are a few games which run very well with 2+ cards, but for the most part you are going to see issues one way or the other in most games. May be better to go with a single card and see if DX12 makes a large difference to multi card performance?
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This^

And apart from anything else....yet another reason to steer well clear of 4K for the time being.

Expense.

Frustration.

Dissatisfaction.

Buy a GTX 980 ti, sell the 4K monitor, get a quality 1080p monitor, max out everything for the next 2-3 years, ini tweaks n all and enjoy high end stress free quality PC gaming.
 
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Ran GTX 470 SLI up until I grabbed the 780 - pretty rare to have issues with it these days but sometimes with new game releases you have to wait a bit before being properly supported at driver level and/or never get support.

The only game I really saw microstutter in with SLI was BF4. (I ran dozens of games both mainstream and less so without any issues at all).

As a generalisation SLI works well when your getting close to your desired framerate and use the second card to top it up i.e. one card is giving you 45-50fps and you use a second card to hold 60fps solid or trying to hit 120fps, etc. if your getting poor performance with one card i.e. sub 30fps then your going to get less than desirable performance/smoothness with multi GPUs as well - if your getting say 15 fps with one card then your going to get very noticeable microstutter, etc. with multiple cards even if your managing to get upto 60fps.


EDIT: While not always the case "issues" with multi GPU generally come down to user error or people expecting it to be entirely plug and play - which it isn't.
 
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What's your take on 980Ti SLI vs single Titan X at 4k Kaap? That's an interesting conundrum and could depend if the user is happy with very high settings instead of Ultra. But then again a single Titan X won't be able to do Ultra 4k all the time too because of grunt.

Ah you kind of answered my question in your most recent post further up.

Kaapstad said:
The 980ti when it launches could give you a third option as these cards @2160p should perform similar to the TitanXs proving you don't use more than 2 and risk running out of memory (6gb) pushing the settings.
Click to expand...

980Ti SLI should be a pretty rapid option for those at 4k as long as they don't need every setting toggled on Ultra.
 
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The only time I ever notice MS is when using borderless window mode. My 780's were smooth and the titans are even better. I've been SLI since the 680 and I don't think I'll be going back to a 1 card setup.
 
RanxZy said:
What's your take on 980Ti SLI vs single Titan X at 4k Kaap? That's an interesting conundrum and could depend if the user is happy with very high settings instead of Ultra. But then again a single Titan X won't be able to do Ultra 4k all the time too because of grunt.

Ah you kind of answered my question in your most recent post further up.
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1 v 1 or 2 v 2

It would be very difficult to tell a pair of 980ti's from a pair of TXs unless you were running FRAPS and then it would take several runs as it would be that close.

The 980ti will have a few less cores and 6gb of memory but both of these should allow a tiny bit more OC headroom than the TX making it very close.:)
 
Gotta say I'm at 1080p but VSR/DSR looks lovely to me downsampled from 4K. GTA V was beautiful playing like this but it's a shame about the crossfire issues I had with hitching.
 
RanxZy said:
980Ti SLI should be a pretty rapid option for those at 4k as long as they don't need every setting toggled on Ultra.
Click to expand...

More than 6gb only really becomes a must have when you use 3 or 4 cards.

Using 2 cards there may be the odd occasion when having more than 6gb would be nice but 99.9% of the time you won't have the GPU grunt to use it.

If you try and max out Watch Dogs or GTA V @2160p on a pair of TXs, yes it will use about 8gb of memory but you will be playing the game at about 30 to 35fps which is pretty useless.:)
 
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