nVidia to pay up for GTX 970 memory problem

[sickmint79]

Watch the video and LOL.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPlCIUh_Tp0

this dude is a gomer and i found his videos helpful when picking out new tech for my lappy

good vid

 

[Thirdgen89GTA]

Linus isn't bad as far as content is concerned. However, his voice can be one of those voices that just grates on your ears. But he does do some cool builds.

 

[TCG Member 5219]

Linus isn't bad as far as content is concerned. However, his voice can be one of those voices that just grates on your ears. But he does do some cool builds.

I think Linus is awesome. Its all the other Canadian Hipsters he employs like Luke and Tarren.

 

[nytebyte]

Just get a 1070. Those are boss for everything including 1440p @144hz.

I don't know.. I have two 1080's in SLI and running Watch Dogs 2 at plain old 1080p (with all options maxed), I get GPU utilization of about 80% on both cards, not to mention it heats the house.

 

[TCG Member 5219]

I don't know.. I have two 1080's in SLI and running Watch Dogs 2 at plain old 1080p (with all options maxed), I get GPU utilization of about 80% on both cards, not to mention it heats the house.

Sli is junk for most games. Disable one card and you should see better utilization and similar performance. Besides at 1080p with all that gpu power, you are most likely bottlenecking your cpu.

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

I don't know.. I have two 1080's in SLI and running Watch Dogs 2 at plain old 1080p (with all options maxed), I get GPU utilization of about 80% on both cards, not to mention it heats the house.

What OS

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

SLI is great in theory...But when nobody designs their software to utilize it...It becomes useless and even a bottleneck sometimes

 

[nytebyte]

Sli is junk for most games. Disable one card and you should see better utilization and similar performance. Besides at 1080p with all that gpu power, you are most likely bottlenecking your cpu.

Not true. When SLI is supported in a game, you'll get a very noticeable performance increase. That's the whole point of it.

I've been running cards in SLI for years and when a game is set up properly for it, you'll get a 50% to 100% increase in performance.

The real problem with SLI is that lately there are a few games that don't initially support it, which is frustrating. It seems eventually most end up supporting it via a patch, but not right out of the box.

Thankfully Watch Dogs 2 and The Division support it.

 

[LikeABauce302]

Wish I knew about this. I have a GTX 970.

 

[TCG Member 5219]

Not true. When SLI is supported in a game, you'll get a very noticeable performance increase. That's the whole point of it.

I've been running cards in SLI for years and when a game is set up properly for it, you'll get a 50% to 100% increase in performance.

The real problem with SLI is that lately there are a few games that don't initially support it, which is frustrating. It seems eventually most end up supporting it via a patch, but not right out of the box.

Thankfully Watch Dogs 2 and The Division support it.

I too know about this. I have had 980tis in sli, 1070s in sli and 1080s in sli. In the end I preferred a single 1080. It was the most consistent high performance I could get across all my games. Sli support has always been sketchy and you are lucky if you get the scaling anywhere near 100%. Besides as I said you need to be running at least 1440p if not 4k in order not to bottleneck your cpu. 1080p is way too low of a resolution for 1080s in sli.

 

[nytebyte]

I too know about this. I have had 980tis in sli, 1070s in sli and 1080s in sli. In the end I preferred a single 1080. It was the most consistent high performance I could get across all my games. Sli support has always been sketchy and you are lucky if you get the scaling anywhere near 100%. Besides as I said you need to be running at least 1440p if not 4k in order not to bottleneck your cpu. 1080p is way too low of a resolution for 1080s in sli.

Well, I actually have two 1080's in SLI and I've done performance tests and have seen the results with my own eyes. SLI is consistently faster than non-sli.

One thing I didn't mention is that I'm running a 144Hz monitor which makes a difference. At that refresh rate, even at 1080p, you need some extra horsepower and a single 1080 usually doesn't cut it with today's modern games. If I was running at 60Hz, then I can see where your argument above would be true. At 60Hz it wouldn't be worth doing SLI with the GTX 1080 cards.

I just ran a test with Watch Dogs 2. The test consisted of loading my current game and taking a frame rate reading at the particular scene that loaded. Not hugely scientific, but still a reasonable test IMO.

Here are the results:
Single card (SLI disabled): 48 FPS
Dual cards (SLI enabled): 82 FPS
So a net gain of 34 FPS. Not quite double, but still totally worth it and very noticeable while playing the game.

I decided to do another test with The Division since it has a built-in benchmark option:
Single card (SLI disabled):
Framerate Avg: 79
Avg CPU: 34%
Avg GPU: 99%

Dual cards (SLI enabled)
Framerate Avg: 112
Avg CPU: 42%
Avg GPU: 97%

Net gain of 33 FPS. Again not an enormous gain, but still worth it.

Games that have better SLI support will of course perform better.
Deus Ex Mankind Divided is a good example. I can get true, consistent 144Hz performance from that game at 144 FPS with SLI enabled. Without SLI on, I only get about 80 to 85Hz.

If you are getting better performance with a single card, my guess is that you may have a configuration issue. Be sure to check that SLI is actually enabled for your cards by going into the NVidia control panel and make sure you have "Maximize 3D performance" selected in the SLI options. By default it's disabled, even if you have two cards.

Also, be sure you have a decent SLI bridge, especially if you have a monitor with a high refresh rate. With newer NVidia cards, you need to use a high performance SLI bridge since a standard bridge will not work all that well. Back when I first got my 1080's, the cards arrived before the bridge, so I had to use the old single-channel bridge from my old 780's while waiting for the new bridge to ship. It worked, but not very well and did cause problems when trying to run a game above 60Hz.

Also, use a DisplayPort cable instead of HDMI or DVI.

On another note, just a comment about 144Hz monitors. I didn't think that running at 144Hz would make such a huge difference in quality. I had lived with 60Hz monitors for so long that I was basically used to it. After getting a 144Hz monitor, I can say that I was surprised to see how much more smooth and fluid everything is, especially in games. It's very noticeable and definitely worth it.

 

[TCG Member 5219]

I was running 1440p@165hz with my pg279q. Trust me my friend, I have built 7 high end system in just the last two years. I get what you are saying. All of my last sli setups were being used with the nvidia hb bridge. And there are games that benefit from sli. Then there are games like doom that actually had no sli support. Not sure if it still doesn't. But running a single fast gpu will always offer more consistent performance over any sli setup. Even when sli is working, you will almost always get micro stuttering. Using a gsync monitor helps and so does running 144hz. I had no issues running just about everything at 1440p @165hz with a single 1080. No sli needed.