Just how dead is SLI with 900 series?

[MatteRB26]

Currently both myself and my wife are running a GTX 970, however with both my birthday & Christmas coming up I'm considering an upgrade.

Once I've replaced mine, I can either sell it on, or this morning I was wondering if there's any worth in throwing it in my wife's PC to run the two in SLI? Wow (one of the primary games she plays) does actually support multi GPU which is why I considered it.

Buying her a new GPU as well isn't really an option for a while, so I'm hoping I could throw an SLI together for now until we can, or our friend upgrades and gives us his 1080!

 

[CapitalOne]

I used to run SLI on Maxwell Titans. It does make a difference (depending on game) however a couple of health warnings:

Check the life of support in the drivers
970s only have 3.5gb ram (remember the scandal?) so might struggle in SLI

 

[MatteRB26]

That's a good point, does mixing the manufacturer make a huge difference in how it performs, or even prevent it..?

Funny you mention the 3.5gb because my wife's is an ASUS 970 and mines an MSI "4gb" card. Would it even be possible to mix the two? Or more hassle than just selling mine

 

[CapitalOne]

That's a good point, does mixing the manufacturer make a huge difference in how it performs, or even prevent it..?

Funny you mention the 3.5gb because my wife's is an ASUS 970 and mines an MSI "4gb" card. Would it even be possible to mix the two? Or more hassle than just selling mine

I don’t think you need to match manufacturers and the 3.5gb is a bit tongue in cheek as they will all report 4gb. If it was me, it would be a fun project to try if you don’t mind swallowing the cost of the SLI bridge and your PSU has the headroom. It’s not going to blow your mind though I’m afraid!

 

[gpuerrilla]

SLI is also dead on the 40 series as far as I can tell.

 

[MatteRB26]

I knew that they dropped support on modern hardware (didn't only the 3090 support it for workhorse PC's?), It's just when I replace my 970 I'll have it going spare - or I could just sell it and have a little extra to throw on the replacement, or potentially put the sale money to replacing her CPU/Mobo/RAM as she's still on an i5 4590

 

[varkanoid]

I had GTX 970 SLI it was great. Bit hot running though. I then went 980 SLI just cos OCUK were selling them off due to 1xxx series appearing and the difference it cost me was £100. That was really good too. Then I sold both got a 1080 for like £300 difference and felt 1080 was fast enough. So what I am saying it will cost you nothing to go 970 SLI in your wife's PC so try it first. All depends on the game to as SLI as others have said died off around the time of the 1xxx series I think the 9xx series was the last best time to use it. Then if you play games that doesn't use it or benefit is little you can move it on and it will have cost nothing to try. All depends if you like to tinker and try stuff.

 

[BUDFORCE]

I wouldn't bother.

Have you got a beefy power supply already? If not you'll need one, it'll pull a ton more energy, put out more heat, and won't make any difference in most games and will give you hardware issues in some.

Sli / Crossfire was something from 15 years ago maybe, even then it wasn't that great.

 

[CapitalOne]

I wouldn't bother.

Have you got a beefy power supply already? If not you'll need one, it'll pull a ton more energy, put out more heat, and won't make any difference in most games and will give you hardware issues in some.

Sli / Crossfire was something from 15 years ago maybe, even then it wasn't that great.

It was great in 2016ish with Maxwell Titans I can assure you, I think however Maxwell was the last really widely supported generation (inc. games of the time). Now I would imagine it’s just for the scores!

 

[Cooper]

I used to run two 970s in SLI from 2014-2017.

Many of the games I played from that era ran great with SLI, I could play Witcher 3 maxed out at 4K, albeit with a 30fps lock, or at 1620p 60fps, Battlefield 4 at 4K 60, Project Cars was the same.

Most people who slagged off SLI at the time were those who never tried it, and I never noticed the the supposed problem of (slight) frame hitching inherent to dual GPUs,a problem. I guess some are just more sensitive to it than others.

Sticking to games of the time these cards were still being sold and SLI will give you a big boost performance in supported games, and there are more of them than you think, but only a select few games from 2018 onwards will benefit from them and even then, the 4GB Vram of the 970 will be the bottleneck that cripples performance.

 

[Scania]

Firstly, I would NOT recommend anyone considering SLI over a single card solution, however, if you have an older card say a 9 or 10 series and can obtain a second card at a reasonable price then I’d say SLI is still very much viable today so long as whatever games you predominantly play support it, which a surprising amount still do, recent ish titles too such as Red Dead Redemption 2 - on which I saw a great performance improvement with my old 1080ti SLI setup - heat and ventilation is a problem along with a requirement for a decent PSU so I’d always recommend in addition to a beefy PSU, a blower style two slot card as a secondary card especially if the primary card is a triple fan 3 slot jobbie which my old Zotac Amp Extreme was and when I paired it with my MSI Lightning X there was zero room between the cards and my temperatures were crazy although performance was very good.

I gave the Zotac to my nephew eventually as I was concerned about the heat damaging something but am on the look out for a 1080ti Founders edition to go SLI again with (as I’d have airflow between it and my triple slot current MSI card) simply because on the games which support SLI that I play,of which I have quite a few, I miss the extra performance it still undoubtedly gives, I’ve a 4K screen and play most stuff now @1440p whereas previously with SLI, I could comfortably run RDR2 and GTAV at 4K…

So, as already said, if you’ve a decent PSU, airflow won’t be an issue and - crucially - your most played titles support SLI then absolutely it’s still an option, especially if it’s not really going to cost too much to implement.

I like the look of a dual card setup too, not that that’s a good reason to go for it!

 

[MatteRB26]

Well it's also looking like I'll need to upgrade my PSU as well given that it's an old fella now, so I'll probably sell my 970 and put that money towards a new PSU rather than doing an SLI setup in my wife's PC. She doesn't really need it, judge wondered if it'd be a nice little bonus is all!