1080 Ti Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme Sli

[jmanltd]

I'm soon to be buying a second 1080 Ti Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme to Sli. However, it's come to my attention that due to the behemoth size of the cards (each engulfs 3 PCI-E slots), each card will essentially be touching each other with no space between for air-flow. I'm a little hesitant to keep these cards in such close proximity to each other considering how hard they're going to be pushed.

Thus I ask what would be the most cost effective way of keeping these cards separated? From what I understand, I have three potential solutions:

• 
  ■ Buy a new motherboard that offers more flexibility/space in terms of PCI-E slots
  
  ■ Watercool each card - I was considering something like this for each.
  
  ■ Buy a PCI-E extender- I'm unsure if this is even viable but I've heard some people use extenders to give them more flexibility with GPU placement.

Without sacrificing performance, what would be the most cost effective solution considering the options? Or are there further alternatives?

For reference, here's my setup.

Thanks in advance!

 

[feelinfroggy777]

Your going to need a big motherboard that will have 2 full x16 PCIe slots that are farther apart than 6 slots and you wont see any performance increase from it.

I have 2 1080ti's in sli and I run mine on the EVGA Hybrid Cooler here:

https://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=400-HY-5598-B1

I am not sure if that will fit your gigabyte card, but they fit fine on my Founder's Edition cards. This will give you a boost in performance. My GPUs never go above 50C in heavy gaming. So there is no thermal throttle. Without the Coolers my FE cards had on slot between them and the top GPU would easily hit 84C and downclock.

So the best idea for performance is putting them underwater, but you will need a big case to do it. What case do you have?

 

[feelinfroggy777]

Oh, and by the way, I would not recommend buying 2 1080ti's. It is just not worth it. Not because of limited SLI support. But because your monitor will be the bottleneck bottleneck. Until a 4k 144hz monitor is released, the second 1080ti will give you absolutely nothing in performance. But if your a junkie like me, then go for it.

 

[EpIckFa1LJoN]

First off, what are you doing that you would even need a second 1080 Ti?

Second, you will want to check your motherboard manual. My Asus board makes me use the first and third slots, not first and second, for SLI. However yours might be first and second since those are ones that are reinforced. You might check if you are able to use first and third though that might hurt performance.

If you really need (or want) a second 1080 Ti you may not need anything other than a 3 slot SLI HB Bridge.

 

[sickaid]

2 1080s...Wtf are you working in Disney studios or something?

 

[Bob Bobson]

Oh, and by the way, I would not recommend buying 2 1080ti's. It is just not worth it. Not because of limited SLI support. But because your monitor will be the bottleneck bottleneck. Until a 4k 144hz monitor is released, the second 1080ti will give you absolutely nothing in performance. But if your a junkie like me, then go for it.

Hi, so two years later, im cosidering the same thing. I dont think my 1080ti aorus will be able to run newer games on 150hz 1440p in the upcoming years. and i can buy used aorus 11g Ti, two more years of varranty, for 350-400 bucks. Should i go for it? I will be buying new x570 mobo anyway, also the new ryzen 3700x, so i think this would go neatly together. Will 850W psu be enough? i read 7nm cpu are better at power usage, so i think it should be fine

 

[feelinfroggy777]

Hi, so two years later, im cosidering the same thing. I dont think my 1080ti aorus will be able to run newer games on 150hz 1440p in the upcoming years. and i can buy used aorus 11g Ti, two more years of varranty, for 350-400 bucks. Should i go for it? I will be buying new x570 mobo anyway, also the new ryzen 3700x, so i think this would go neatly together. Will 850W psu be enough? i read 7nm cpu are better at power usage, so i think it should be fine

No, because many games dont support SLI, and the ones that do offer a limited performance bump (30%). You would do better to sale your 1080ti and buy a 2080ti. But if it were me, I would hang one to your 1080ti for now and when the next round of GPUs are released consider getting an upgrade. The 1080ti is perfectly fine for 1440p.