Request: 980ti SLI Benchmarks

Dirk Diggler · 23 Jun 2016 at 11:21

TLDR:
Early indications are that bandwidth does make a difference in applications that have good SLI scaling, and can be as much as 10% which equates to a decent overclock to your GPUs

We've been looking at numbers in the 980ti owners thread as one of the guys is considering SLI. I ran some benchmarks for him, but we're now discussing the difference 6 cores, 40 lanes and resultant PCI-E bandwidth makes. I've also seen this discussed elsewhere when people have been trying to decide which hardware to buy. Some say it makes a difference, some say it doesn't.

Could we settle this in this thread?

It would require someone with 980ti SLI driven by a 4 core i7 and a mobo supporting only x8/x8 bandwidth. Bench the following games @ 2560*1440 with your cards running 1418/3500.
- Added : As long as it's a pair of 980ti then it doesn't matter what the CPU/Bandwidth - it's all relevant.

ROTTR
Far Cry Primal
Dragon Age Inquisition
Metro Last Light Redux
Firestrike
Firestrike Extreme
Firestrike Ultra
Heaven

Is there any way I could force my cards to x8 bandwidth? - PCI-E Gen 2 in BIOS

(Remember, GPU's must be 980ti @ 1418/Stock)
Resolution should be 2560*1440 where it's optional.

ROTTR Settings:

Heaven Settings:

Valley Settings:

Far Cry Primal Settings:

Dragon Age Inquisition Settings:

Metro Last Light Redux Settings:

Current 980ti SLI (1418/stock) Leaderboard :

ROTTR

String (5930k @ 4.4GHz x16/x16) - 100.25

MrKambo (4790K @ 4.75GHz x8/x8) - 91.36

String (5930k @ 4.4GHz x8/x8) - 90.48

Far Cry Primal

String (5930k @ 4.4GHz x16/x16) - 68

String (5930k @ 4.4GHz x8/x8) - 68

Dragon Age Inquisition

String (5930k @ 4.4GHz x16/x16) - 112.7

String (5930k @ 4.4GHz x8/x8) - 105.9

Metro Last Light Redux

String (5930k @ 4.4GHz x16/x16) - 82.18

String (5930k @ 4.4GHz x8/x8) - 78.77

Firestrike

String (5930k @ 4.4GHz x16/x16) - 24248

MrKambo (4790K @ 4.75GHz x8/x8) - 22931

String (5930k @ 4.4GHz x8/x8) - 22632

Firestrike Extreme

String (5930k @ 4.4GHz x16/x16) - 15106

MrKambo (4790K @ 4.75GHz x8/x8) - 14861

String (5930k @ 4.4GHz x8/x8) - 14082

Awahwah (4690k @ 4.5 x8/x8) - 13487

Firestrike Ultra

Gabbatek (5820k @ 4.2GHz x8/x8) - 8469

MrKambo (4790K @ 4.75GHz x8/x8) - 8376

String (5930k @ 4.4GHz x16/x16) - 8347

String (5930k @ 4.4GHz x8/x8) - 8065

Heaven

String (5930k @ 4.4GHz x16/x16) - 2730

String (5930k @ 4.4GHz x8/x8) - 2763

Valley

String (5930k @ 4.4GHz x16/x16) - 4164

String (5930k @ 4.4GHz x8/x8) - 3861

Dirk Diggler · 23 Jun 2016 at 11:28

** Reserved for future single card leaderboard if required for CPU comparisons **

stooeh · 23 Jun 2016 at 11:45

If you can limit PCIE to gen2 in BIOS would that give a similar effect ?

Dirk Diggler · 23 Jun 2016 at 11:51

stooeh said:
If you can limit PCIE to gen2 in BIOS would that give a similar effect ?

I'll have a look.

mrkambo · 23 Jun 2016 at 12:00

This is my result for ROTTR

4790K @ 4.75GHz
980Ti SLI @ 1418/3500

My minimums suck real bad for some reason, might have to investigate that!

Dirk Diggler · 23 Jun 2016 at 12:11

stooeh said:
If you can limit PCIE to gen2 in BIOS would that give a similar effect ?

I tried Gen 1 and Gen 2 but still getting x16.

mrkambo said:
This is my result for ROTTR

4790K @ 4.75GHz
980Ti SLI @ 1418/3500

My minimums suck real bad for some reason, might have to investigate that!

Interesting. Over 10% FPS difference and as you say a big difference in minimums. The minimums is something I think a lot of benchmarks and reviews don't take into consideration.

Could you run the three Firestrike benches at those settings (Normal, Extreme and Ultra)?

mrkambo · 23 Jun 2016 at 12:11

String said:
Could you run the three Firestrike benches at those settings (Normal, Extreme and Ultra)?

Yeah bare with me

z10m · 23 Jun 2016 at 12:26

String said:
Is there any way I could force my cards to x8 bandwidth?

Yes there is.

mrkambo · 23 Jun 2016 at 12:33

Here we go...

Dirk Diggler · 23 Jun 2016 at 12:35

Perfect. I need to head out for a couple of hours but I'll get those benches done at the 1418 clock speed later.

Cheers.

a66as · 23 Jun 2016 at 20:24

I still have my 980ti's lying around, if im not busy tommorow afternoon i could help you out

Dirk Diggler · 23 Jun 2016 at 20:40

a66as said:
I still have my 980ti's lying around, if im not busy tommorow afternoon i could help you out

Cheers, the more data the better. I'm just doing my Firestrike benches now...

Dirk Diggler · 23 Jun 2016 at 21:00

Firestrike benchmarks :

Heaven Benchmark :

I'll update the OP with what we have so far.

Dirk Diggler · 23 Jun 2016 at 21:12

Leaderboard added, could do with some more data.

mrkambo · 23 Jun 2016 at 21:26

I can't play benching till the weekend now, but ill spent the afternoon on Saturday going through all my bench runs.

Dirk Diggler · 23 Jun 2016 at 21:29

mrkambo said:
I can't play benching till the weekend now, but ill spent the afternoon on Saturday going through all my bench runs.

No worries, probably best sticking to actual benchmarks with a score (see OP).

mrkambo · 23 Jun 2016 at 21:43

I've got a few games with built in benchmarks, i feel thats more of a accurate representation.

But ill stick to scored benchmarks if that what you need.

Dirk Diggler · 23 Jun 2016 at 21:45

mrkambo said:
I've got a few games with built in benchmarks, i feel thats more of a accurate representation.

But ill stick to scored benchmarks if that what you need.

No, games with benchmarks built in is what I meant. Sorry, my bad.

mrkambo · 23 Jun 2016 at 21:48

nah its all good, leave it with me...

LegendaryDread · 23 Jun 2016 at 22:02

String said:
I tried Gen 1 and Gen 2 but still getting x16.

Gen 2 x16 offers identical performance to Gen 3 x8