SLI Pros and Cons

[Toxophilix]

Hi,

I'd be grateful from advice on SLI from people who have used it in recent years.

I'm ordering a system with one GTX-670 from PCS and as of now I'm specifying an SLI-ready motherboard and enough surplus PSU capacity to allow me to add a second card if and when I choose. I'm wondering, though, if this is wise. The extra cost is quite significant - about £80 - just to have the ability to do something I might well never do. I could use that budget to improve other aspects of the system that would give benefit from day one.

A key element in the decision, for me, would be whether I could expect to run into driver or other issues with SLI. If such issues are common - ie, it's to be expected that some games that run without issue with one GPU will behave oddly with two - then I would almost certainly rather just dial down my graphics settings to deal with future, more demanding games, rather than add a second card. On the hand, if SLI setups are largely issue-free it would be much more attractive. I'm expecting to be running graphically intensive stuff under Windows 7, btw.

Googling for answers to this question is not very illuminating. There are plenty of people who have had problems but it's impossible to tell if they were being clueless (eg, not updating their drivers), or if the issues are ones that Nvidia has since fixed.

So, I would greatly appreciate it if any of the SLI-using experts posting here could give me an idea of how stable and reliable the technology now is.

Thanks.

 

[keynes]

Hi,
I have a SLI set up and I have not encountered any problems running games, I think some games support SLI better than others but in my case it works fine. Whether or not you require an SLI set up probably depends on how many screens you are planning to run or if you wish to do any 3D gaming. It could also be cheaper to add a 2nd GPU than buying a newer one when you wish to improve gaming performance in the future.

 

[Toxophilix]

More to think about. Thanks.

 

[baron75mk2]

SLI is definately worth thinking about - i havent had any issues with it so far , but that being said not all games work
( or work well with it ) so for the occasional game you might have to turn a card off , but this can be done in nvidia game profiles anyway.

All depends on what games you want to play & most importantly what settings & FPS you want to achive - makes no difference weather on 1 monitor or 2 or 3 , SLI /Crossfire means more performance in terms of FPS , so if its more FPS you want at high or ultra settings then SLI is the way to go

Only thing is with SLI you tend to get more heat & more power draw than with a single card like say a GTX 690 vs 2X GTX 680s , but for raw performance the 680s will beat the 690 ( marginally )

So think about game settings & most importantly what fps you want to achive with any given game :yes:

 

[Karnor00]

Personally I don't generally think its worth paying extra to have a system SLI/crossfire ready. In my opinion, by the time most people are thinking of adding a second GPU, technology is likely to have moved on enough that it will be more cost effective to simply buy a whole new GPU.

So really I'd either go for SLI/Crossfire right at the start, or not worry about it at all.

 

[Toxophilix]

Personally I don't generally think its worth paying extra to have a system SLI/crossfire ready. In my opinion, by the time most people are thinking of adding a second GPU, technology is likely to have moved on enough that it will be more cost effective to simply buy a whole new GPU.

So really I'd either go for SLI/Crossfire right at the start, or not worry about it at all.

Yes, that's the issue.

For me, there's really no point in 2 x 670s right now as just one card will run any game I'm interested in (I think just about any game, period) with high settings and high FPS on a single screen. Multiple screens and 3D don't really interest me.

What is hard to guess is how long it will be until games are released which the single card struggles with. Then again, for how long will it even be possible to buy a GTX-670?

 

[Grimezy]

Yes, that's the issue.

For me, there's really no point in 2 x 670s right now as just one card will run any game I'm interested in (I think just about any game, period) with high settings and high FPS on a single screen. Multiple screens and 3D don't really interest me.

What is hard to guess is how long it will be until games are released which the single card struggles with. Then again, for how long will it even be possible to buy a GTX-670?

I was in the same situation as you. I have a single 670 and you're correct in believing that all games will run brilliantly for you. I currently get over 60fps in any game I've tried in max settings, and sometimes I'll stick GW2 on 'best performance' instead of 'best visuals' and it can go into the 170's :L (I have slow internet so playing on max on a MMO isn't always great for me).

I did choose to go with the SLI setup though and you're right in saying it could be a complete waste in money. The way I'm looking at it is if I get to a point where my games aren't running too great on high settings anymore, I can just add an extra card which will hopefully help speed things back up rather than spending another £300 on a completely new card that may not offer much better performance. However, if cards advance rapidly in the next couple of years with added features then mine could be made pretty redundant and I'd rather buy a new one than a 2nd 670. It's just a risk I was willing to take to be honest because I had the budget to do so.

If you're stuck for cash, scrap it. If you've got the budget then in my opinion it's a worthwhile investment. There's not much else you could improve with that extra £80 unless you up'ed the ram to an amount you'd never use or if you got a more powerful processor for the money but then most games are GPU dependant anyway so it seems better to invest in the gpu side of things.

 

[Toxophilix]

I'm not really stuck for the cash, just hoping to avoid throwing it away on nothing

I think you're right that it's a gamble worth taking.

Ironic thing is that the root cause of the dilemma is that the 670 has such excellent performance for its price.

 

[Grimezy]

I'm not really stuck for the cash, just hoping to avoid throwing it away on nothing

I think you're right that it's a gamble worth taking.

Ironic thing is that the root cause of the dilemma is that the 670 has such excellent performance for its price.

I know how you feel, my original budget was £700-£800 and I was going to settle for a HD7870 which seemed a lot better than any in it's price range. But then I started reading into it more and decided I'd prefer to go for an Nvidia card just because of the reputation so I added the 660. Then I read the 660Ti would be worth the extra money over the 660 so my budget crept up even more. Then I found out the 670 was probably the best card out there of the lot in terms of price to performance so I went for it. I don't like buying things when I know there's already a better product out there for slightly more money and figured going for the 670 might prevent me from having to upgrade for a while longer. So then my budget of £800 turned into £1000 and I ordered it.

Honestly though, I'm very happy that I did go for the best I could. The 670 is a great card and I feel if I'd gone for anything lower I'd constantly be reminding myself that I didn't have it. It's also extremely settling to know that if I want to improve it in the future I can easily put another 670 in there. Hopefully they won't be too expensive by then! And honestly, I read posts of people still using 3-4 year old graphics cards who can still push very good performance out of them so I think SLI 670's would make somebody set for a good few years. I hope so anyway!