Does SLI really work well?

[Deleted]

So heres my situation, built a new rig around 3 months ago (see sig) and have been looking at BF3 and Skyrim and they look pretty graphics intensive.

This is my current graphics card, and I was wondering which would work better, installing another one for SLI or just grabbing a GTX 570 in about 3 months time?

Things to consider, my mobo has a 16x and a 8x PCIE slot, so in SLI both cards would run at 8x. Would the two cards in SLI be more powerful than a 570 or a waste of money?

[Relive]

nwm....................

Maybe u should notice that i edited the post cuz what i asked alrdy stood in the post, there for i deleted it, but couldnt remove the post so just changed it.
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[Deleted]

Puting a card in a x8 will only make you lose say 1-2% in fps, which you would not even notice. 560ti in SLI is way more powerful than a single 570, even more powerful than a 580 card.

Eidt: When you say x8, I assumed you mean a x16 port running at x8 mode?

[taekvideo]

It's definitely not worth upgrading from 560ti to a 570. That's only about a 20% increase (assuming neither card is overclocked).
Upgrading from 560ti to 2x 560ti is almost a 100% increase.
Does your psu support sli? If it does then definitely go for it.

[Deleted]

Puting a card in a x8 will only make you lose say 1-2% in fps, which you would not even notice. 560ti in SLI is way more powerful than a single 570, even more powerful than a 580 card.

Eidt: When you say x8, I assumed you mean a x16 port running at x8 mode?

Yes, the main port is x16 but would be put in x8 mode once the new card is installed. Thanks for the advice and I'm glad to hear that! Was pretty much at the limit of my budget when I bought the PC so should hopefully be able to give it a bit extra power once I save up a bit more

Edit: Using Coolermaster 700W PSU so SLI should be fine

[Deleted]

It's not 100% increase because SLI does not have 100% scalability in real world applications.It's more like 60-80% increase depending of the game.

[Darkelementz]

SLI it, you'll be impressed with the increase in performance. Dual card builds (crossfire/SLI) FAR outperform single cards. 2 gtx 285s outperformed the single NVIDIA cards for an enormouse amount of time. I think only the 580 beats it now (maybe the 570 gets close)

[Straight-X-Edge]

Puting a card in a x8 will only make you lose say 1-2% in fps, which you would not even notice. 560ti in SLI is way more powerful than a single 570, even more powerful than a 580 card.

Eidt: When you say x8, I assumed you mean a x16 port running at x8 mode?

He specifically said "my mobo has a 16x and a 8x PCIE slot, so in SLI both cards would run at 8x". That's his EXACT words.

OP: While your performance will take a hit from the GPUs running slower, it won't matter at all. Unless it's a MAJOR upgrade, SLI will always beat a new card. Think about it. You're running TWO cards at once. You didn't meantion if it's the 1gig or 2gig version, but it doesn't really matter. You would have more memory of course if you went with the top-end 570 (2560 bits), as your low-end 560 would only be 2 gigs in SLI (4 gigs if it's the top end). Video Memory is important, but with that much you're not even gonna notice a difference.

Long story short: Essentially, you're adding two cards stats together vs one card. Unless it's extremely outdated, 2 cards are better than 1.

[taekvideo]

It's not 100% increase because SLI does not have 100% scalability in real world applications.It's more like 60-80% increase depending of the game.

That's old news. SLI gives 90% or more increase in most games now.
Anandtech doesn't have a 560ti sli benchmark (and 570 sli doesn't work), but you can see with 460's:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/313?vs=314
Only a few games which don't have support for sli... or have bad support... won't give much/any increase, such as Civ5.

[Deleted]

You should know that the vram does not stack if you use SLI so it would be either 1 or 2gb. If you put in one with more than the other you get the effect of the one with less.

[Ghul]

im running 2 460 in sli and i have yet to see a game that i cant run at full settings.

[Deleted]

Thanks for advice all! Really helped as I have never used SLI before

[Deleted]

Posting here to save spamming another topic, hope you don't mind me jacking your thread for a small question! <3

I'm currently running one of those new thingymabob Asus motherboards with the entirely new BIOS, P8 H67-M PRO I believe. I'm running an Asus Nvidia GTS 450 in the build. What would be a better upgrade? Another GTS 450, or a GTX 570+ series card?

I'm pretty sure I can run SLI or Crossfire (Whichever it is with my MB), but if I do put another of the same card in, it's going to be partially blocking the fan of the first one. Still a viable option?

[Deleted]

SLI it, you'll be impressed with the increase in performance. Dual card builds (crossfire/SLI) FAR outperform single cards. 2 gtx 285s outperformed the single NVIDIA cards for an enormouse amount of time. I think only the 580 beats it now (maybe the 570 gets close)

Indeed. I have 2 285gtx's in SLI and it's astonishing how well it runs some games on full settings. The only hurt is the lack of DirectX 11 support.

As far as I know 2x 285gtx in SLI is comparable to one 480 and that's comparable to one 560. 570 and 580 are only small upgrades over those really (~10% to ~20% on average respectively).

@OP, 2 560 cards in SLI will outperform any single GPU card on the market. Only dual-gpu cards and other SLI / CF options will beat it.

[Deleted]

Posting here to save spamming another topic, hope you don't mind me jacking your thread for a small question! <3

I'm currently running one of those new thingymabob Asus motherboards with the entirely new BIOS, P8 H67-M PRO I believe. I'm running an Asus Nvidia GTS 450 in the build. What would be a better upgrade? Another GTS 450, or a GTX 570+ series card?

I'm pretty sure I can run SLI or Crossfire (Whichever it is with my MB), but if I do put another of the same card in, it's going to be partially blocking the fan of the first one. Still a viable option?

SLI is Nvidias multi GPU tech and CrossFIreX is AMDs. As far as I can see your MB only supports CrossFireX, someone correct me if I'm wrong. So buying another 450 would not be an option So either a GTX 570 or you could go for 2x AMD 6870 in CrossFire. I would personaly reccomend going for 2x 6870 since they outperform the 570 greatly and even the much more expensive 580.

[Wries]

Time for an old fashion quote breakdown. Since I last time got called an ass-hat by an ass-hat for doing similar: let me clarify that I mean no harm nor disrespect, Straight-X-Edge.

He specifically said "my mobo has a 16x and a 8x PCIE slot, so in SLI both cards would run at 8x". That's his EXACT words.

Hence it's justified to ask for a clarification. 8x slot would be complicated and would hint on the mobo not having a SLI-certificate.

OP: While your performance will take a hit from the GPUs running slower, it won't matter at all.

Yes! For clarification: PCIe Gen 2 x8/x8 definitly still have enough bandwidth for current generation cards. I'm not even sure that we can say that x16/x16 vs x8/x8 matters at all when SLI'ing mid-end cards.

Unless it's a MAJOR upgrade, SLI will always beat a new card. Think about it. You're running TWO cards at once.

Well compability and bad scaling on certain titles can always be an issue. But it's becoming less and less of one.

You didn't meantion if it's the 1gig or 2gig version, but it doesn't really matter. You would have more memory of course if you went with the top-end 570 (2560 bits), as your low-end 560 would only be 2 gigs in SLI (4 gigs if it's the top end). Video Memory is important, but with that much you're not even gonna notice a difference.

That's not how it works though. SLI mirrors memory. 2x GTX 560Ti 1GB means you still only have 1GB VRAM. I'm a huge supporter of going with more VRAM than whats considered sane, because I know first hand how crippling 1GB VRAM can be when pushing up anti-aliasing and resolution. I think BF3 will motivate more people to go with the 2GB models.

Long story short: Essentially, you're adding two cards stats together vs one card. Unless it's extremely outdated, 2 cards are better than 1.

Theoretically though two SLI'd GTX 550s should not outperform a 580.

[Deleted]

Now that you mention this, I've got a question that's been bugging me;

would a corsair 650tx be enough power to sli 560ti (msi hawk) ?
I've heard people say I need 800 watts and others say it's more than enough...

[taekvideo]

Now that you mention this, I've got a question that's been bugging me;

would a corsair 650tx be enough power to sli 560ti (msi hawk) ?
I've heard people say I need 800 watts and others say it's more than enough...

It's plenty.
800watts is only really needed for 3-way sli/crossfire.

[blackblade]

SLI it, you'll be impressed with the increase in performance. Dual card builds (crossfire/SLI) FAR outperform single cards. 2 gtx 285s outperformed the single NVIDIA cards for an enormouse amount of time. I think only the 580 beats it now (maybe the 570 gets close)

Assuming you're playing something more demanding than WoW, Of course.

[Squeezus]

Be careful about the 8x. I have ran in to MB's that will not run 2 x16 cards unless both slots themselves are x16. No slow down to a lower speed. It will just not run them.