Nvidia SLI

[NirK]

Hello,

Is SLI pointless because of stuttering and frame timing problems? Or would 1080Ti SLI have good performance at 4k 60hz and 3440x1440 100hz?

Ignoring the cost and value, will 1080Ti SLI actually be better than 1 1080Ti when it comes to gaming? Obviously when the game supports SLI you get more FPS, but I would find microstuttering or any stuttering annoying, do all SLI games have these problems? Is it actually possible for SLI to be as smooth as 1 card? Also does SLI increase input lag?

 

[Rroff]

Problem with multi GPU at the moment is that less and less big titles support it out the box - with newer APIs it is harder to not break compatibility with SLI/CF.

If money is no object then having it there for the times it does work fine is another thing.

 

[Cooper]

I never had any (perceptible to me at least) problems with micro stutter when I was running Nvidia 970's in SLI, none whatsoever, GTA V, Witcher 3, Tomb Raider and many others were all amazing with SLI.

Like most things to do with SLI, you get too much commentary from people who've never actually tried it for themselves..

 

[Jae-So]

I used to swear by SLI (usually 2 mid range cards) but now use 1 GPU. I know you want to avoid the value discussion but I just don't think it is worth it at that high level.

That aside I very rarely had microstrutter (only a few occasions were it was perceptible). SLI scaling was another thing. Great on a lot of games but cam across a few where I was getting 20% incrrase.

Having said that, my last SLI set up was 670 SLI.

 

[Quartz]

I see no stutter with two Titan XM cards at 4K.

 

[Radox-0]

As mentioned if money is not object, then sure I would buy 2 GPUs. Heck messing around in Nvidia inspector I can get 3 way SLI working with my 1080Ti's though then frame pacing is awful.

For most the part I rarely notice microstutter aside from in Elder Scrolls Online (where I run just one card), most my other SLI games feel extremely smooth with 3440 x 1440 @ 100hz + G-Sync. Now I will say there is a very slight, and I mean very slight difference in play when I am running SLI, then disable one card for example, I do notice the one card feels a notch smoother, even if FPS goes down, but not that significant for most the part and the raw grunt of two GPU's more then makes up for it. Not to mention you become attuned very quickly.

It also depends on your game library. Some games see no scaling (slight regression in some cases) other's see mediocre scaling and others decent scaling.

TLR, all depends on your game libary. If the games you play support SLI well, then sure it can be nice. Playing GTA5, Witcher 3 etc maxed out at higher details / FPS then what one card can manage is neat, but its all very crap from price / performance.

 

[Rroff]

Its possible to eliminate the SLI stutter in Skyrim - albeit the way I went about it was limiting the framerate to 56 while using G-Sync to offset that its fairly low - that allows you to throw some crazy graphic mods, etc. at it and the framerate cap keeps the physics engine from "exploding" and also seems to allow you to run with silly ugrid settings without any game breaking bugs which most of them aside from the odd NPC trigger/mission completion seem to happen if your framerate exceeds 60fps which can happen even with a 60fps cap where it might be averaging around 62.

(Personally I can't stand 60fps/HZ V-Sync so that would never be an option).

 

[Jae-So]

I used to swear by SLI (usually 2 mid range cards) but now use 1 GPU. I know you want to avoid the value discussion but I just don't think it is worth it at that high level.

That aside I very rarely had microstrutter (only a few occasions were it was perceptible). SLI scaling was another thing. Great on a lot of games but cam across a few where I was getting 20% incrrase.

Having said that, my last SLI set up was 670 SLI.

 

[NirK]

Ok to reword it, if you had 2 setups, 1 with 1 x 1080ti, 1 with 2x 1080ti SLI, they were both running at 4k 60hz at always above 60fps with Vsync on (so locked at 60fps), would the SLI and single card look exactly the same? Or would the single card be smoother with less stuttering? Or would the SLI have stuttering but only very rarely eg. once every 10 minutes? Also would the SLI setup have an extra frame of lag? Does the SLI have microstuttering and end up looking worse than a single card at 4k 60hz (locked at 60fps)?

 

[Radox-0]

Ok to reword it, if you had 2 setups, 1 with 1 x 1080ti, 1 with 2x 1080ti SLI, they were both running at 4k 60hz at always above 60fps with Vsync on (so locked at 60fps), would the SLI and single card look exactly the same? Or would the single card be smoother with less stuttering? Or would the SLI have stuttering but only very rarely eg. once every 10 minutes? Also would the SLI setup have an extra frame of lag? Does the SLI have microstuttering and end up looking worse than a single card at 4k 60hz (locked at 60fps)?

You would not expect to see a big stutter every 10 mins or so, so no on that part.

For most the part the experience will be very similar. You may notice a very slight more smoothness if say your using SLI, then immediately drop down to one card, but its very small for most the part in my experience and more often then not a non-issue for most the part, more so as once your engrossed after a few moments its even more of a non-issue Now I say for most the part as there are a couple of games I have played were using two cards tended to be noticeably more choppy vs one card to the extent I disabled the second card, but its in the minority, as mentioned Elder Scrolls Online for at times.

Only time I have found it absolutely horrible was if I was using 3/4 way SLI, even with cards that supported it natively like my Titan X Maxwell's, but that is a different story I guess and why they dropped support for Pascal (not to mention few would really buy more then 2 GPUs for gaming)

 

[tyler_jrb]

Never had stutter with SLI, ever. Was always just as smooth as a single card for me.

All though i don't use it any more and just using a single card. Mainly because its getting to the point where a single card is where I'm happy with and poor optimizations in general.

I have had 1080Ti SLI and there was so little games that took advantage of it if at all. There was some games where it does make a good difference but those games are few and far between.

 

[Kaapstad]

Best SLI setup I used was GTX 690s in quad SLI.

They were dual cards to start with and had a hardware fix for microstutter.

 

[Jacky60]

Ok to reword it, if you had 2 setups, 1 with 1 x 1080ti, 1 with 2x 1080ti SLI, they were both running at 4k 60hz at always above 60fps with Vsync on (so locked at 60fps), would the SLI and single card look exactly the same? Or would the single card be smoother with less stuttering? Or would the SLI have stuttering but only very rarely eg. once every 10 minutes? Also would the SLI setup have an extra frame of lag? Does the SLI have microstuttering and end up looking worse than a single card at 4k 60hz (locked at 60fps)?

I had titan Pascal SLI and it was great for the games that supported it, GTA5 for example looked amazing and with SLI you can enable SSAO which takes image quality to another level. I really only play Arma 3 and I discovered that while the image quality was great, Arma 3 FPS was lower in SLI (due to the CPU overhead and this being a very CPU dependent game).
I sold both Titans and went a single 1080ti as £700 for an hour or two on GTA5 or the Witcher 3 per month didn't seem worth it. If the games you play scale reasonably well then I'd say its worth it as image quality can and does improve a lot at the same FPS and or you get higher fps and I never noticed microstutter.