SLI.. It seems to be great. Why the complaints?

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Mushkins

Golden Member
Feb 11, 2013
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Personally, I never recommend SLI *or* Xfire to people when building a gaming rig unless they're going for some bleeding edge quad monitor setup thats impossible without it.

Even brand new games run at 1080p/60 on a decent single card unless you crank *all* the settings to the max. There's quite a few things that barely impact image quality but greatly impact GPU load that most people honestly cant tell are on or off unless staring at side by side screenshots. It's just not worth all the incompatibilities, stuttering issues, screen tearing, and fiddling with settings/profiles to max out all those sliders on top of an extra $400 for a second top-tier card unless you're seriously into it. There's no such thing as futureproofing when it comes to PCs, and you're honestly going to have a better experience most of the time if you save that $400, go single card, and 2-3 years down the road use that $400 to buy a *new* top of the line single card.
 
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McLovin42

Member
Dec 28, 2013
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SLI works fantastic.......and if you want to eliminate small tearing or stuttering issues with lower framerates then grab yourself an Asus 144hz monitor with G-sync and have nearly flawless performance with no lag. ;)
 

Childs

Lifer
Jul 9, 2000
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Never had a multi-GPU problem that was SLI specific.

It happens every now and then. BF4 had a bunch of SLI and CF problems recently. And Shadowplay causes a 40% performance drop on SLI vs 7% (at most, usually lower) on a single card. But normally SLI or CF is good bang for the buck compared to a single top of the line card. The problems if any are usually sorted out quickly.
 

Childs

Lifer
Jul 9, 2000
11,313
7
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News to me. Right around 5-10% on my 670s....

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NV says the hit should be 20% according to their faq. Its something I reported in the Geforce forums when Shadowplay was first released in Nov. Originally I thought it could be because I use multiple monitors, but other people in the thread reported the same thing with single monitors. But regardless, its another instance where SLI introduces another point of failure. Recording gameplay is somewhat niche, so it doesnt apply to everyone, but the potential for problems is still there. In general its worth it though, because the cost is usually in SLI favor vs a single high end card.
 
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Nintendesert

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2010
7,761
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It's great when it works and sucks when it doesn't. For some of us we get tired of dealing with those issues. It's good that it offers some good value and that overall it's a great solution. I however will continue to buy the fastest single GPU card I can afford. The more IT work I did in my professional life the less willing or patient I am with dealing with my own computer problems.
 

Childs

Lifer
Jul 9, 2000
11,313
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which drivers?

331.82. One person in the geforce forums said this might have been introduced after 331.65, but the performance has always been dodgy. The performance of 680 SLI was fast enough that I didnt care, but on the same setup using my 780 Ti, I have none of the shadowplay performance problems.
 

BrightCandle

Diamond Member
Mar 15, 2007
4,762
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Might be the case in BF4 (haven't used ShadowPlay there) but in Arma 3 its basically the same performance as without ShadowPlay running, if there is a difference its not apparent on the fps counter (less than 1fps).

That very likely depends on the game, maybe BF4 has a particular problem, the fact it differs per map is very suspicious.

It goes to my original point, SLI mostly just works but when it doesn't its normally a particular game, particular scenario in a game and its a real pain in the backside if its getting in the way of something you want to do. But it is relatively rare. BF4 is still a mess so I have to partly blame the game.
 

ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
25,134
2,450
126
Historically, getting Nvidia multi-card setups working well was easier than doing so on an AMD rig. It works much better than it used to on both platforms, though.
 

moonbogg

Lifer
Jan 8, 2011
10,731
3,440
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I tried shadowplay in BF4 and it caused major stutters and the game felt choppy and skipped etc. Never tried it since. I may try again though.
 

Throckmorton

Lifer
Aug 23, 2007
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Because it adds at least a frame of lag, which is at least 16ms. A graphics card can't render a scene until it has already happened, and with SLI you have two cards alternating...
 

BrightCandle

Diamond Member
Mar 15, 2007
4,762
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I am very dubious that ShadowPlay adds an additional frame of latency, I would definitely have noticed the impact. I suspect the performance drop more simply comes from either encoding across two cards in two different x264 engines and then having to sync them back together or doing all the work on the primary card and it not really being able to keep up with 2 cards in all cases.
 

Lonbjerg

Diamond Member
Dec 6, 2009
4,419
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SLI dosn't work in all games...try Word of Tanks eg...NO benefit.
And then htere is the microstutter issues...far between with NIVIDA...but sometimes it pops up it ugly head.
 

swchoi89

Senior member
Sep 9, 2013
200
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I have 2x GTX 770 in SLI. All maxed out in Battlefield, gives me around 60~120 FPS on my 3D monitor.

When I'm at around 60s, it feels a LOT smoother, than being in the 70~80 FPS zone. I have no idea why.

When I scroll with mouse (whenever I change my view), the screen tears up like crazyyyyyy
 
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2is

Diamond Member
Apr 8, 2012
4,281
131
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I use a framerate cap, but it still feels 'off'. I can't use vsync, too much lag for multiplayer. BF3 never had this problem. I think it might go away in future drivers once the game stops being benchmarked because it feels like whatever framepacing is used in the drivers for SLI is not working in BF4.

SLI working great for me in BF4, that said, it took an upgrade to Windows 8 to make that happen
 

Franzi

Member
Nov 18, 2012
45
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SLI has always been working great for me too, had 2 470's, 2 580's, 2 680's but then moved to a single Titan and now to a single 780ti. It really depends on the games and some people perceive microstuttering more, others not at all. I find single GPU a tad smoother but wouldn't say no to a 2nd 780ti either.
 

swchoi89

Senior member
Sep 9, 2013
200
1
81
You guys don't feel the extreme screen tearing when you hover around with your mouse? I have v-sync on and stuff but it happens for me. Like, it's a combo of ghosting effect and screen stuttering.