[SOLVED] 3090 vs 1080 SLI

[Alex_B_thw]

I am currently on a 1080 SLI with a 4K 60Hz monitor setup, spent $1500 at the time of launch (Strix cards).

Any suggestion on upgrading to a 3090 at ~ $2000 (Strix card)? Do you think I will see any improvement in frame times/fps with a 3090?

I know a 3080 might be a better bet price-wise but I just want to future proof a bit if I go in for an 8K TV sometime later.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Nemesia]

The 3090 is better than 2 1080 in SLI or 1080TI in SLI at 1440p and 4K. The difference is not by a lot but it's around 10 fps between 2 1080TI SLI and a 3090.

Two 1080 should be very close or the same as a 3090.

But the 1080 VRAM is 8GB and you don't have 16GB VRAM on two 1080 SLI. It's still just 8GB VRAM.

You could sell both the 1080 for 250-300 each and buy a 3090. Not too sure it's worth it now. You could wait a while.

 

[spentshells]

If you can get your hands on a 3090 or 3080 I would advise you to do so asap.
The two 1080's will fetch a decent price at the moment, might even get 1/2 to 2/3of your money back.

Just get the 3080, the extra performance isn't worth all that extra money.

 

[Nemesia]

And it seems prices are still going up.

 

[sizzling]

8k gaming isn’t really practical. I would not even plan on gaming at that. We have really only just reached 4K >60 FPS gaming.

 

[Alex_B_thw]

The 3090 is better than 2 1080 in SLI or 1080TI in SLI at 1440p and 4K. The difference is not by a lot but it's around 10 fps between 2 1080TI SLI and a 3090.

You are right, looks like a 1080 SLI setup is still decent in 2021!

 

[Alex_B_thw]

If you can get your hands on a 3090 or 3080 I would advise you to do so asap.
The two 1080's will fetch a decent price at the moment, might even get 1/2 to 2/3of your money back.

Just get the 3080, the extra performance isn't worth all that extra money.

I have a 3090 on order (that's the one that I could place in my cart, damn scalpers) and will be delivered next week, I was just wondering if I should cancel the order, since @Nemesia mentions that one might only see a 10fps increase.

 

[sizzling]

You are right, looks like a 1080 SLI setup is still decent in 2021!

A big factor is if the game supports sli

 

[Alex_B_thw]

8k gaming isn’t really practical. I would not even plan on gaming at that. We have really only just reached 4K >60 FPS gaming.

True! But what about future proofing? Perhaps better to hold out for 4000 series GPUs (or whatever they will be called)?

 

[Alex_B_thw]

A big factor is if the game supports sli

Yup! That's a valid point as well!

 

[sizzling]

True! But what about future proofing? Perhaps better to hold out for 4000 series GPUs (or whatever they will be called)?

There is no such thing as future proofing. In all likelihood it will be several generations of gpu for 8k to be feasible in AAA games. It’s 4 times the number of pixels, it’s similar to the leap between 1080p and 4K. To play today’s AAA games we probably need a gpu of at least double that of a 3090 and by the time such a card exists the latest AAA games will be even harder to run. We have only just got to the point where >60fps is realistic at 4K but 4K has been a thing since back to the 780Ti/980Ti, it’s taken 4-5 generations to get to where we are with 4K.

 

[itsdigger]

Why invest in future proofing? By the time you think you got it right, the next new thing happens and you're back trying to catch up again.

I thought I was future proofed with the 1080 TI lol...
Lucky for me, I'm still happy with it and wouldn't be able to tell the difference in 10fps difference...

 

[carocuore]

The 3090 wins, few or no games natively support SLI (or crossfire) anymore unless you do some driver tweaking and add mods, and it honestly ends up looking worse than with a single card, Cyberpunk is an example, there's a way to run the game on SLI mode but you need to add mods that remove the antialiasing and it ends up looking like a Playstation 2 glitchy game.

 

[spentshells]

I have a 3090 on order (that's the one that I could place in my cart, damn scalpers) and will be delivered next week, I was just wondering if I should cancel the order, since @Nemesia mentions that one might only see a 10fps increase.

well, the extra money for the 3090 doesn't seem worth it. But if you can get a 30xx and that's what you want, do so. You can ebay your 1080's for a lot of money, sli is done like dinner, support is gone unless the game is programmed to support it, how many people are going to have sli 3090s? Not many, games will not be coded that way. Move forward get lots of money for those 1080s while you can.

Ebay prices are bananas you might see 500 usd each, if ya gouge

 

[InvalidError]

SLI is discontinued, which means no more driver support for new games and low likelihood of bugfixes or optimizations for existing stuff. That would be the biggest reason to sell the 1080s while they are still worth something and get a 3080/3090 if you can.

 

[LordVile]

You are right, looks like a 1080 SLI setup is still decent in 2021!

No it’s not SLI died a while back and most games don’t scale well if at all and some scale negatively. Plus you’re doubling the power requirement.