Is SLI scaling better when Gaming 3D compared to 2D
I just wanted your oppinnion as before current 980ti i had gtx660ti 2-way sli and afterburner usually showed close to 100% gpu usage for both gpu's but when i sold that setup to my brother the gpu usage seemed lower Almoust in every game. Or is it card dependant and gtx660ti just was good at scaling ? I put this here as its Also 3d concerning topic
I just wanted your oppinnion as before current 980ti i had gtx660ti 2-way sli and afterburner usually showed close to 100% gpu usage for both gpu's but when i sold that setup to my brother the gpu usage seemed lower Almoust in every game.
Or is it card dependant and gtx660ti just was good at scaling ?

I put this here as its Also 3d concerning topic

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#1
Posted 05/18/2016 06:56 PM   
I dont think that can be determined based on your experience with 2 different performance cards (mid level vs high level) 2 gens apart. It will be dependent on many factors -- GPU, drivers, game, OS, other PC specs. Although it is fairly old now, Dave Bleja of Volnaiskra did some interesting tests involving SLI 2D vs 3D he posted to his blog here: http://www.volnapc.com/all-posts/3d-and-sli-performance-tested
I dont think that can be determined based on your experience with 2 different performance cards (mid level vs high level) 2 gens apart. It will be dependent on many factors -- GPU, drivers, game, OS, other PC specs. Although it is fairly old now, Dave Bleja of Volnaiskra did some interesting tests involving SLI 2D vs 3D he posted to his blog here: http://www.volnapc.com/all-posts/3d-and-sli-performance-tested

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#2
Posted 05/18/2016 10:50 PM   
No figures but my anecdotal evidence is dont SLI! I've just moved from sli 980's to on 980ti as I found SLI a massive headache with limited improvements. I get the pretty much the same performance on most games and in Mad Mad and Fallout 4 I get way better fps!
No figures but my anecdotal evidence is dont SLI!

I've just moved from sli 980's to on 980ti as I found SLI a massive headache with limited improvements.

I get the pretty much the same performance on most games and in Mad Mad and Fallout 4 I get way better fps!

#3
Posted 05/18/2016 10:54 PM   
2x980Tis running here. SLI is a massive boost if you know how to use it and configure it. You need to get your hands dirty in order to get SLI to work properly though. This is 2x SLI. 3x, 4x is a waste of money and never worked properly... Yes, SLI helps in 3D when it works. You need to understand a bit of how the drivers works though...
2x980Tis running here.

SLI is a massive boost if you know how to use it and configure it. You need to get your hands dirty in order to get SLI to work properly though. This is 2x SLI. 3x, 4x is a waste of money and never worked properly...

Yes, SLI helps in 3D when it works. You need to understand a bit of how the drivers works though...

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#4
Posted 05/19/2016 01:19 AM   
[quote="boom_shuckalaka"]I dont think that can be determined based on your experience with 2 different performance cards (mid level vs high level) 2 gens apart. It will be dependent on many factors -- GPU, drivers, game, OS, other PC specs. Although it is fairly old now, Dave Bleja of Volnaiskra did some interesting tests involving SLI 2D vs 3D he posted to his blog here: http://www.volnapc.com/all-posts/3d-and-sli-performance-tested [/quote] Maby i was kind of unclear and confused in my post but, i meant that I played all in 3D with 660ti sli2-way and the. When the card setup went to my brother he only games in 2D And the same games i had played in 3D showed much lower gpu usage than on my 3D setup atleast according to afterburner. But as helifax seems happy with his setup, i propably proceed in my earlier plans and get ready for 1080 Store day and find my self a used. 980ti so i can slide my way into 3D heaven. Yes a hassle but so is it anyways with pc and 3d. ITS ok as long as you follow that simple rule, play one game at a time, Set it up and play.
boom_shuckalaka said:I dont think that can be determined based on your experience with 2 different performance cards (mid level vs high level) 2 gens apart. It will be dependent on many factors -- GPU, drivers, game, OS, other PC specs. Although it is fairly old now, Dave Bleja of Volnaiskra did some interesting tests involving SLI 2D vs 3D he posted to his blog here: http://www.volnapc.com/all-posts/3d-and-sli-performance-tested


Maby i was kind of unclear and confused in my post but, i meant that
I played all in 3D with 660ti sli2-way and the. When the card setup went to my brother he only games in 2D
And the same games i had played in 3D showed much lower gpu usage than on my 3D setup atleast according to afterburner.
But as helifax seems happy with his setup, i propably proceed in my earlier plans and get ready for 1080 Store day and find my self a used. 980ti so i can slide my way into 3D heaven.
Yes a hassle but so is it anyways with pc and 3d.
ITS ok as long as you follow that simple rule, play one game at a time,
Set it up and play.

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#5
Posted 05/19/2016 10:59 AM   
SLI works better in 3D than in 2D, as a general rule. My last GPUs have been SLI 660, 770, and 970. But with the 970, I've increasingly seen games that get no performance boost with SLI at all. This has made me reluctant to go SLI with this next generation, and I'll probably be going for a 1080 instead of two 1070s.
SLI works better in 3D than in 2D, as a general rule. My last GPUs have been SLI 660, 770, and 970. But with the 970, I've increasingly seen games that get no performance boost with SLI at all. This has made me reluctant to go SLI with this next generation, and I'll probably be going for a 1080 instead of two 1070s.

#6
Posted 05/20/2016 07:47 AM   
It could well have been just my rig but when I SLIed 670s (the only time I have ever SLIed) I suffered 'issues' and noticeable hitching(?) in games. I have downgraded to a single 970; So far, no hitching and things seem to work better. Raw performance in 3D? SLI was mega. Still won't be going back to SLI again though.
It could well have been just my rig but when I SLIed 670s (the only time I have ever SLIed) I suffered 'issues' and noticeable hitching(?) in games. I have downgraded to a single 970; So far, no hitching and things seem to work better.

Raw performance in 3D? SLI was mega.

Still won't be going back to SLI again though.

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#7
Posted 05/20/2016 09:29 AM   
[quote="Metaloholic"]Maby i was kind of unclear and confused in my post but, i meant that I played all in 3D with 660ti sli2-way and the. When the card setup went to my brother he only games in 2D And the same games i had played in 3D showed much lower gpu usage than on my 3D setup atleast according to afterburner. But as helifax seems happy with his setup, i propably proceed in my earlier plans and get ready for 1080 Store day and find my self a used. 980ti so i can slide my way into 3D heaven. Yes a hassle but so is it anyways with pc and 3d. ITS ok as long as you follow that simple rule, play one game at a time, Set it up and play.[/quote] The most likely answer here is that your brother's setup, the bottleneck switched to being the CPU from the GPU in your case. In 2D, especially at 1080p, the 660ti SLI is probably not the bottleneck. In 3D, it most certainly would be. SLI has always previously been a good value proposition, but these new cards are putting a real kink in that idea, unless the older cards drop radically in price. Also worth noting- if you expect to VR at some point during the life of your current card, SLI is a non-starter. At the moment, the only things that use SLI that I've found are the VR Steam Performance test, and the NVidia demos. Everything else actually produces negative scaling when SLI is enabled, and that was on a GTX 690, where the GPU would definitely expect to be the bottleneck.
Metaloholic said:Maby i was kind of unclear and confused in my post but, i meant that
I played all in 3D with 660ti sli2-way and the. When the card setup went to my brother he only games in 2D
And the same games i had played in 3D showed much lower gpu usage than on my 3D setup atleast according to afterburner.
But as helifax seems happy with his setup, i propably proceed in my earlier plans and get ready for 1080 Store day and find my self a used. 980ti so i can slide my way into 3D heaven.
Yes a hassle but so is it anyways with pc and 3d.
ITS ok as long as you follow that simple rule, play one game at a time,
Set it up and play.

The most likely answer here is that your brother's setup, the bottleneck switched to being the CPU from the GPU in your case. In 2D, especially at 1080p, the 660ti SLI is probably not the bottleneck. In 3D, it most certainly would be.

SLI has always previously been a good value proposition, but these new cards are putting a real kink in that idea, unless the older cards drop radically in price.


Also worth noting- if you expect to VR at some point during the life of your current card, SLI is a non-starter. At the moment, the only things that use SLI that I've found are the VR Steam Performance test, and the NVidia demos. Everything else actually produces negative scaling when SLI is enabled, and that was on a GTX 690, where the GPU would definitely expect to be the bottleneck.

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#8
Posted 05/20/2016 12:50 PM   
Read Nvidia's SLI scaling page. (as well as the complete article) http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/introduction-to-sli-technology-guide#3 Also check out Nvidia's SLI Best Practices http://developer.download.nvidia.com/whitepapers/2011/SLI_Best_Practices_2011_Feb.pdf From the FAQ Why don't all games see performance increases? Applications which tax the GPU will see tremendous performance improvements of up to 2x with SLI technology when using two graphics cards. Most of today's hottest games and as well as next-generation games fall into this category. However, some applications, typically older generation applications, are limited by factors other than the GPU's processing power. The most common limitation is the CPU. If an application becomes CPU bound, no additional graphics power can improve performance. This situation is most common at low screen resolutions like 1024x768 with no additional functionality turned on. Turning on antialiasing and anisotropic filtering or switching to higher resolutions can often move the processing requirements back to the GPU. For CPU-bound applications, NVIDIA offers a new SLI rendering mode called SLI Antialiasing. This rendering mode allows you to enable SLI8x, SLI16x, or SLI32x (for quad SLI only) antialiasing and enhance the visual quality of any gaming application. I would assume that one of the reason's that you see helifax mentioning good SLI scaling, is because he uses 3D Vision surround.
Read Nvidia's SLI scaling page. (as well as the complete article)

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/introduction-to-sli-technology-guide#3

Also check out Nvidia's SLI Best Practices

http://developer.download.nvidia.com/whitepapers/2011/SLI_Best_Practices_2011_Feb.pdf

From the FAQ

Why don't all games see performance increases?

Applications which tax the GPU will see tremendous performance improvements of up to 2x with SLI technology when using two graphics cards. Most of today's hottest games and as well as next-generation games fall into this category. However, some applications, typically older generation applications, are limited by factors other than the GPU's processing power.

The most common limitation is the CPU. If an application becomes CPU bound, no additional graphics power can improve performance. This situation is most common at low screen resolutions like 1024x768 with no additional functionality turned on. Turning on antialiasing and anisotropic filtering or switching to higher resolutions can often move the processing requirements back to the GPU.

For CPU-bound applications, NVIDIA offers a new SLI rendering mode called SLI Antialiasing. This rendering mode allows you to enable SLI8x, SLI16x, or SLI32x (for quad SLI only) antialiasing and enhance the visual quality of any gaming application.

I would assume that one of the reason's that you see helifax mentioning good SLI scaling, is because he uses 3D Vision surround.

#9
Posted 05/20/2016 03:03 PM   
Anyone use/tried that SLI scaling "visual indicator"?
Anyone use/tried that SLI scaling "visual indicator"?

#10
Posted 05/20/2016 03:05 PM   
[quote="D-Man11"]Anyone use/tried that SLI scaling "visual indicator"?[/quote] It doesn't work in 3D.
D-Man11 said:Anyone use/tried that SLI scaling "visual indicator"?

It doesn't work in 3D.

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#11
Posted 05/20/2016 03:06 PM   
That's a shame :(
That's a shame :(

#12
Posted 05/20/2016 03:11 PM   
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