[SOLVED] 2-way SLI 2080 Super PSU wattage

Mar 26, 2020
2
0
10
I put together this pc and was wondering if I'll have enough wattage for the second video card (if i decide to ever get/need it)

I won't be overclocking anything (except to get MEM at 3600)

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/VNp4Jb



CPU: Intel i9-9900k 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor

CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler

Mobo: Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO WIFI ATX LGA 11551 Motherboard

MEM: G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory

Storage: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive

GPU: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Super 8 GB AORUS Video Card (x2?)

Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro M TG ATX Mid Tower Case

PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA P2 850 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply



PCPartPicker estimated wattage at 714 which puts max power at 84% but I've also seen so many recommendations to go for 1000 watts for 2 RTX 2080 Tis and was wondering if I need to adjust accordingly for the Supers as well.
 
Solution
You can't trust Partpicker, as unfortunately it only adds the rated TDP of the cpu and gpu, and not their actual power draw - you have to look those up yourself.

Here:
9900K(stock) = 205w, 250w(overclocked)
Gigabyte Aorus 2080 Super = 350w. Source: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/213288/gigabyte-rtx2080super-8192-190710
20% of the above total for extra headroom to include everything else

205 + 350 = 555
555 x 20% = 111
555 + 111 = 666
666w for said system with a single 2080 Super Aorus. Remember, this is worst-case scenario type stuff. You're not going to pull that much normally.

For 2 of them = 1016w

I know you said you won't overclock the 9900K, but I thought I'd include it anyway:
250w at 5.0ghz
720w - single 2080 Super...

Phaaze88

Titan
Ambassador
You can't trust Partpicker, as unfortunately it only adds the rated TDP of the cpu and gpu, and not their actual power draw - you have to look those up yourself.

Here:
9900K(stock) = 205w, 250w(overclocked)
Gigabyte Aorus 2080 Super = 350w. Source: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/213288/gigabyte-rtx2080super-8192-190710
20% of the above total for extra headroom to include everything else

205 + 350 = 555
555 x 20% = 111
555 + 111 = 666
666w for said system with a single 2080 Super Aorus. Remember, this is worst-case scenario type stuff. You're not going to pull that much normally.

For 2 of them = 1016w

I know you said you won't overclock the 9900K, but I thought I'd include it anyway:
250w at 5.0ghz
720w - single 2080 Super Aorus
1070w - 2x 2080 Super Aorus
 
Solution
Mar 26, 2020
2
0
10
I'm planning on going down the route of either upgrading the 2080 super when it starts to lag behind or having the ability to chuck another in (at a lower cost than upgrading) so I wanted to be prepared for either option...

Haven't seen anything about sli disappointing, got any links?
 

WildCard999

Titan
Moderator
There's a lack of SLI support nowadays and the games that do utilize it don't exactly scale 100%, maybe 50% and that's being generous. Besides that there is always heat concerns, microstuttering, graphics distortion (wrong textures/colors), etc. I used SLI (780's) from 2014 to 2018 and the support has only gotten worse. In some scenarios you may even see worse performance with SLI over a single GPU.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Schlachtwolf
Having been running both CrossfireX and SLI for years and years, I would highly advise againt considering a SLI setup nowadays.

I finally stopped using multi-GPU for my latest PC build, becase game support for SLI and CrossFireX is worse than it has been for years, and multi-GPU support wasn't exactly great in the first place.

Most of the time one of my GPUs was just sitting idle. There are workarounds of course, but then you have to use an SLI profile from an older game and force it on the new game, and all it does is becoming a stuttering mess. And often you have to disable effects, which would actually be nice to have, in order to get rid of the flickering textures.
Sometimes the workaround means you get SLI running, but then both cards are only at 50% performance, and you end up with less FPS, a lot of stuttering, flashing textures, and a gaming experience that would be better using only one of the GPUs in the first place.

I used a workaournd for forcing SLI in Battlefield V for example, as it doesn't have mnulti-GPU support. Unfortuantely Nvdida Inspector, as you had to use, was banned by the game developers, because it could also be used as a graphical exploit / cheat.
But it wasn't such a bad thing actually, because all the stutterng and flickering textures were unbearable to look at

Sometimes new games work great with SLI initially, but the developers of the game never officially support multi-GPU.
Suddenly a game update is released which unfortunately breaks SLI. There's no help to get from support, as SLI is not officially supported. Sometimes you're lucky and a new update fixes SLI. But without the official support, it is not something you can be sure will be fixed, as the game developers have no obligation to do so, without official supoort.

Even for supported games, there's the microstuttering issues. Heat, power consumption - the list of negatives goes on and on.

I enjoyed SLI and Crossfire sometimes, otherwise I wouldn't have been using it for so many years. But you have to decide to live with a variety of less desirable glitches and bugs - but worst of all is that nowadays one of your cards will be sitting idle most of the time, and it will only get worse from now on

Also, you don't double the performance when you run multi-GPU. You have two expensive cards, and a smaller increase in performance than the money invested in it. They don't share memory either, so you gain nothing when it comes to available VRAM

SLI is great for benchmarking though, if that's something you spend as much time on as actual gaming

EDIT:
Buy the best graphics card you can now, save up money, and replace it with the best possible graphics card you can, once you need the upgrade.

I you decide on SLI, do it from day one. If you want it as a performance boost in a couple of years, your GPUs may be on their way to become obsolete or irrelevant.
Graphics card performance and technology is rapidly evolving, and it wouldn't make sense adding a second GPU down the line, especially considering the decline in multi-GPU supported titles, which might be even worse, when the time comes where you decide to add the second GPU
 
Last edited: