Hardware & Technical Black Friday SLI question

Para Handy

Para Handy
Since it is Black Friday soon I was toying with the idea of looking for a deal on a second 1070 to go SLI.

I have never used SLI before so a couple of questions:

Does Elite Dangerous still have issues with SLI?

Do I need to have EXACTLY the same card as my existing one (Asus Strix GTX1070 8GB DDR5 OC).


For info - I run 2560 x 1440 27 inch monitor, I won't be going VR (done it, sold it) - my PC is i7 6700K 4.2 Ghz 16GB DDR4 Ram on an Asus ROG Maximus VIII Hero - I don't overclock.

Finally another question, would I really expect to see any difference for my outlay? I say this 'cos the game runs like silk with no stutter or FPS drops as it is although I might up my monitor to a larger one, say 4k at some point.
 
Last edited:

Morbad

Morbad
Dural said:
Never seen anyone say you don't need exactly the same cards.
Click to expand...

You need the same GPU/major model, preferably with the same memory capacity, but identical part numbers are not a requirement (and don't always imply identical properties anyway).

Dural said:
I've done it once, never had any issues at all with any games or overheating.

This looks like a comprehensive set of tests - https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/geforce-gtx-1070-2-way-sli-review,1.html They are testing at 5K res in one test and getting 66 FPS vs 34 FPS SLI vs single card - that's a nice jump. 4K is 100 FPS vs 56 FPS for SLI vs single.
Click to expand...

SLI profiles are developed on a per-game basis, and trying to use a profile for a different game or a custom profile can be quite hit or miss.

I've had a few SLI setups, though none in the last few years, and while I could get most games working without problems, this was far from universal.

HeavyGrooves and jon flint here have both had major issues with SLI in Elite: Dangerous on their RTX 2080 Ti, which while new, should be seeing the most support.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/452878-Negative-SLI-scaling

I did personally get positive scaling last time I tested, but that was in 2015 and the game or drivers could easily have broken SLI support since then.
 

Jon flint

Jon flint
Many games work really well with SLI, I've run through a few and uploaded vids to YouTube, Elite isn't one of them sadly:

[video=youtube_share;aHEIf3Bb3d8]https://youtu.be/aHEIf3Bb3d8[/video]

The vid was done with sli 1080ti's, I was only mad enough to buy a single 2080ti!

I was at one point getting some positive scaling with elite, not sure if was a driver or a game update that broke it, but right now, it tends toward negative scaling :(

+Morbad beat me to it :)
 
Last edited:

Dural

Dural
Oh that really is a shame it doesn't work with Elite. I've seen quite a few people posting about their SLI setups, didn't realise there were such serious problems.

That video - I can see why you were mad!
 

Para Handy

Para Handy
Thanks everyone, that confirmed my understanding that E D was problematic. So I'll save the dosh for now and wait to see how the 20series progresses.

Thanks again. [up]
 

Jon flint

Jon flint
thowans said:
Is SLI still worth buying? I mean, Nvidia cut off SLI from 1060 models where it could be potentially good.
What's for high end gaming cards it is useless, I think. Even a single 1070 has enough performance to run 1440p at 60 fps.
GTX 1080 and 1080ti are more than enough even for 1440p at 120 Hz.
RTX 2xxx series is a good choice for 4K resolution. Don't mention ray tracing enabled. It is another question.
Click to expand...

I think if you've got something like a 1080ti, going sli can help bridge the gap and get you to 4k/60, since a single 1080ti isn't really enough for 4k in most titles. If you game at 1440p, adding a 2nd card can also help push to 144hz if that's your thing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom