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1080 SLI?

Associate
Joined
19 Aug 2018
Posts
57
Hi all.

I currently have a 1080 graphics card which runs my 1440p monitor.

I play destiny 2 and some other games like Farcry 5 etc. On destiny 2 max settings I get around 95fps at 1440p on average. I play very often and it’s my main hobby.

I have the opportunity to get another 1080 graphics card for £300. And I would like to play at 120-140fps on average in Destiny 2.

Should I get a second 1080 at that price? Or am I better saving my money. I would like the extra frame rate as i do prefer better FPS. Is SLI worth it?

Thanks
 
Caporegime
Joined
17 Jul 2010
Posts
25,660
SLI is dying and many games don't support it, have poor support, don't give that big an uplift in performance and in addition you have extra noise and power requirements to deal with. Like the man above said, save your money, sell your 1080 for £300 and then put your £600 towards a 2080 if you need more performance.
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Mar 2015
Posts
4,528
Location
Earth
SLI does work okay when supported, but largely agree with others, with better single cards available, makes more sense to go that way and have full performance on tap.

Would agree with above, sell your current 1080 and combine the outlay you had in mind for the second card and pick up a single stronger card. Or just notch down some settings in game and wait for next gen or something, no doubt you can likely get from the 95 FPS you mentioned your getting now and achieve the 120 FPS or so your after by tweaking some filters. Nvidia has a nice guide on the game showing impact on a setting by setting basis and the visual impact (or lack of in some cases): https://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/destiny-2-pc-graphics-and-performance-guide
 
Soldato
Joined
22 Nov 2009
Posts
13,252
Location
Under the hot sun.
Hi all.

I currently have a 1080 graphics card which runs my 1440p monitor.

I play destiny 2 and some other games like Farcry 5 etc. On destiny 2 max settings I get around 95fps at 1440p on average. I play very often and it’s my main hobby.

I have the opportunity to get another 1080 graphics card for £300. And I would like to play at 120-140fps on average in Destiny 2.

Should I get a second 1080 at that price? Or am I better saving my money. I would like the extra frame rate as i do prefer better FPS. Is SLI worth it?

Thanks

Save your money. Sell the 1080 and buy a used 1080Ti. If lucky you might pick one for around £400.
 
Soldato
Joined
28 Sep 2014
Posts
3,431
Location
Scotland
I think you better wait until Nvidia unveiled RTX SUPER and benchmarks until you get better idea about performance and maybe you could buy RTX 2070 SUPER with 1080 Ti performance level for £400-450 and value of second hand 1080 Ti may see it fall down to £200 possible after used RTX 2060, RTX 2070, RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti flooded the second hand market as owners upgrade to RTX SUPER cards.
 
Associate
Joined
26 Aug 2016
Posts
561
I'll counter the negativity here and say I've not had any problems running my two 1080s in SLI (I don't even worry about it any more). The majority of major titles support it, and it's certainly not "dying".

The real question is what sort of uptick in FPS you get on any particular title - this can vary anything from 20% to 80% in some cases. I had a 2080Ti FE for a month and it was benching slightly slower than my 1080 SLI setup in most 2D games (VR on the other hand was a different story...).

That being said, a second card is only worth purchasing if you buy one on a generation release (to get maximum benefit and bragging rights immediately) or once it's dirt cheap (making it a quick and cheap performance upgrade to an old system). I wouldn't buy a second one halfway through a GPU generation lifecycle. As someone said above, buy the best-performing single card you can afford right now - you can add another later when they cheapen if necessary.
 
Associate
Joined
16 Jan 2010
Posts
1,415
Location
Earth
Hi all.

I currently have a 1080 graphics card which runs my 1440p monitor.

I play destiny 2 and some other games like Farcry 5 etc. On destiny 2 max settings I get around 95fps at 1440p on average. I play very often and it’s my main hobby.

I have the opportunity to get another 1080 graphics card for £300. And I would like to play at 120-140fps on average in Destiny 2.

Should I get a second 1080 at that price? Or am I better saving my money. I would like the extra frame rate as i do prefer better FPS. Is SLI worth it?

Thanks
I've been running 1080ti for two years and I have enjoyed the experience. Obviously in games that don't support it its useless but its the most cost effective way to get decent fps if a game supports it. If instead I'd gone single card and had upgraded to a 2080ti I'd be getting inferior performance
in the games I play (Witcher 3, GTA 5) for pretty much the same as I paid for my SLI setup. It's annoying AC:Odyssey doesn't support it but a single
2080ti wouldn't cut it there at 4K either. Also in Arma 3 for example I can enable SSAA which gives incredible image quality far superior to a single card.
I'd probably wait until after the Super launches and ensure that the majority of games you play support SLI but £300 for better than 2080ti performance looks like a no brainer to me. You won't get that kind of performance at a decent price for years otherwise.
 
Associate
Joined
16 Jan 2010
Posts
1,415
Location
Earth
Can't comment on whether PSU will support it, I'm on an EVGA 1600G2 monster from my 295X2 quadfire days so never thought about it. I'd certainly check whether that PSU can cut it .
 
Associate
Joined
16 Jan 2010
Posts
1,415
Location
Earth
Also in some games that don't 'officially' support SLI there are sometimes workarounds and the drivers have a couple of options in Nvidia control panel e.g. Alternate Frame Rendering (AFR) modes 1 and 2 so it's possible to get some games working with SLI that didn't originally support it. Again, if you have a favourite or a few fave games/upcoming games then check to see if you can use SLI some way or other. In GTA 5 or the Witcher 3 the improvement in quality of the image plus FPS is amazing, it really is much prettier to look at and you can make it prettier AND increase FPS which is always a bonus.
 
Associate
Joined
26 Aug 2016
Posts
561
Also, my power supply is a 650W 80Plus Gold Rated PSU.

Would that cope with 2 1080's if i went with that?
Yes, it should handle it. With an overclocked 6700K and two 1080s at load, my system (including the monitor) pulls about 500W from the wall.

Your PSU will might be near the limit in terms of efficiency though (if you care about that sort of the thing), but I reckon you shouldn't have any problems.

Edit: just ran a Heaven benchmark test to confirm - it peaks at around 550W so a 650 might be quite tight if the CPU was put under significant load as well. I'd say get at least an 850W PSU to be safe...
 
Last edited:
Don
Joined
21 Oct 2002
Posts
46,744
Location
Parts Unknown
Hi.

I game at 1440p

Went from a single 1070 OC to 1070 OC SLI.

Tbh, I wish I had just spent the extra on one awesome card.

Pain to get some games to work (BFV in particular), some games now crawl at unplayably slow speed (Company of Heroes).

I do get almost double performance in some games, like BFV, but it's added some headaches.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
19 Aug 2018
Posts
57
Yeah I just play Destiny 2 and Farcry 5 currently.

I won’t be upgrading my PC for another 2 years so wanted the second card to help me last until then. Especially since SLI works with Destiny 2.

I can currently afford £300. I just can’t be bothered with the hassle of getting rid of my 1080 and then trying to find something better. The second 1080 seems the easier option
 
Associate
Joined
20 Aug 2020
Posts
2,036
Location
South Wales
I love SLI and in games that support it I've never had issues. One GPU is always best but if the games you play do support it then honestly it works fine.

SLI is not well supported much on some newer titles unfortunately but it's far from dead. D2 and FC5 work great in SLI.
 
Soldato
Joined
30 Dec 2013
Posts
6,280
Location
GPS signal not found. (11)
Ultra/max settings are pointless nowadays. You can't tell the difference. Drop down to high to get the desired performance without spending £300 plus potentially a new PSU.

I recently played through all of FC5, played the first third at medium high then the 2nd maxed as the 1080 coped well but 60-70fps made me drop to high again. I couldn't tell the difference in visual quality at 1440p at all.
 
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