2 Cards non SLI performance

[Mr Hat]

Hi, a friend of mine is upgrading his rig, and he was able to sell his previous card for a cheap price to me. Now I've got 2 GTX960s laying around, and I'd like to put them both into my system. The issue is that my motherboard only has one 16x slot, one 4x slot, and a few 1x slots. I heard that SLI needs 8x at least. The question is, wil my system perform better with those 2 cards, without SLI, or doesn't it make any difference?

 

[bicycle_repair_man]

SLI requires the second PCIe slot to run at x8 speed at least.

Personally, I'd sell both cards and get a single RX 480, GTX 970 or the imminent GTX 1060 instead.

 

[Mousemonkey]

You could run both cards and do a Surround setup with three screens as that does not require an SLi capable motherboard.

 

[Mr Hat]

You could run both cards and do a Surround setup with three screens as that does not require an SLi capable motherboard.

That's not really the point, although it would be epic :S. I'm looking for performance. Thanks for the answer though!