[SOLVED] Build Advice and the value (or lack) of going SLI

[Gyoung123]

Hi Guys,

So (shock) I'm here for some build advice. As of late I've noticed my CPU is woefully out of date since building my PC 8 years ago and sits uncomfortably at 98 to 100% usage whilst I try to play Warzone in a stuttery mess. I made a post before and got a very helpful response about a build in my price range.
Here is my current (to be upgraded) build:

Case: Zalman Z11
Motherboard: Asrock Z77 Extreme4 Motherboard
CPU: Intel i5 3470K
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 2x8GB DDR3
PSU: Seasonic FOCUS Platinum 750W
OS Drive: Samsung EVO 256GB SSD
Storage Drive: WD Caviar Blue Something 2TB HDD
GPU: Zotac 1080 Mini 8GB
Monitor 1: BenQ Zowie XL2730 27inch 1440p 144hz
Monitor 2: LG 24EN43, 1920x1080, 60Hz

Below are the suggested upgrades (P.S I pecifically said I wasn't particularly looking to upgrade my GPU yet in this post)

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor £154.98
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard £103.99
Memory: Thermaltake TOUGHPOWER Z-ONE RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory £83.47
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN550 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive £70.45
Case: Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case £89.99
Total: £502.88

Now here's where the point of this post comes in: First, would you tweak that build in any way? I probably wouldn't mind stretching to around £600-650

Second, a friend of mine suggested that running another 1080 in SLI would be a good way to up my graphics power considerably and relatively cheap compared to a brand new GPU. So:

1. Do you think SLI is worth it compared to buying a new singular GPU?
2. Would my current PSU be able to run SLI 1080s and the suggested new build?
3. Would that case fit two GPUs, I'm assuming no?
4. Would the Ryzen 5 3600 just become a new bottleneck for the 2x 1080 cards?

If any of these are an issue, could you suggest a new new build that would be able to run an SLI (Provided you think it is worth it). I am still trying to stay within the £600 range, but if you don't think that's feasible feel free to stretch the budget a bit to make the build support a possible SLI Setup.

If you read all of this, then a massive thank you!

Cheers.

 

[Lutfij]

I'd get the Samsung 970 Evo Plus as opposed to the WD drive. I wouldn't go SLI in this and age if it's only for gaming. I'd go for an mitx or an matx build but that's just my way of building system's.

 

[Gyoung123]

Can you elaborate on why you wouldn't go SLI? From what I can see on current benchmarking, if we look at the 2070 for example, most sources I come across say that there is only around a 5-10% performance increase in the 2070, which currently costs ~£400

Meanwhile, I can get another 1080 mini for approx £300. Would the difference of doubling up the 1080 really be lower than 10%? (I know a lot of these numbers are a bit arbitrary, but I would think going SLI would provide a more significant boost than what bench marking sites suggest the difference between the 1080 and the 2070 is, despite being cheaper.)

Additionally, I'm not familiar with the mitx or matx terms, could you elaborate?

 

[Zerk2012]

Looks fine to me.

For the SLI question. It's not a good thing anymore their killing support for it more or less. The scaling is fairly poor depending on the game you can get results from -10% to about a 50% increase. Notice the first percent the - is their for a reason you can actually get worst FPS than using a single card.

 

[Gyoung123]

Alright, I did a bit more digging and yeah, I can see now that SLI is being phased out and why.

A final tag-on question then:

How futureproof is the AMD Ryzen 5 3600? If I were to say increase by CPU budget by around £50, is there a CPU within the low £200 price range which would be significantly more powerful and last longer?

 

[DSzymborski]

Alright, I did a bit more digging and yeah, I can see now that SLI is being phased out and why.

A final tag-on question then:

How futureproof is the AMD Ryzen 5 3600? If I were to say increase by CPU budget by around £50, is there a CPU within the low £200 price range which would be significantly more powerful and last longer?

Generally speaking, the best idea is to go with a 3600 for gaming and if you have significant non-gaming needs that require a lot of power, to just jump straight to a 3900X. The 3600 to 3600X jump isn't worth it when there's a real change in price, but I'll let Steve Burke describe why!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDV7aA6arVo

 

[geofelt]

To answer your questions:

1. No, sli is not a good option. You may win synthetic fps benchmarks, but your gaming experience will be better with a good single card. Dual gpu is prone to screen tearing and stuttering. More games are not even supporting dual gpu.

2. Yes, your 750w seasonic focus can run dual GTX1080 cards. But, I do not recommend that.
Here is a list of other options:
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page362.htm

3. Your case is a atx case with 7 expansion slots. Yes, it would fit two graphics cards.
But, my reading of the motherboard specs says dual gpu is supported via crossfire, That applies only to amd graphics cards, not nvidia. SLI needs to be licensed, and I suspect that would not be supported.

Do you get the message that dual gpu is not such a hot idea??

4. There is always a bottleneck(AKA limiting factor)
For gaming, once you get to a processor in the $250 class, you are going to get good gaming.
If you favor fast action shooters, spend more of your budget on fast graphics. Particularly if your gaming resolution os more than 1080P.
If you favor sims, strategy and mmo games, pay attention to single thread clock rate.
For those types, I would look to the new 10th gen Intel K suffix processors which will do 5.0, compared to ryzen at about 4.3
In particular, I like the i5-10600K. But, as with any new product, it is in short supply.
Here is a review:
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i5-10600k-cpu-review
If you favor multiplayer games with many participants, look for a processor with 12 threads or more.

On your build, there are better ssd devices.
Check on comparisons on the anandtech ssd bench app.
https://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD18/2447

Probably the best performing ssd is the samsung 970 evo plus.

 

[logainofhades]

SLI is dead. The R5 3600 is a great chip, and should be for a few years. If you are just gaming, a 970 evo is a waste of money. Spend that extra on a 1tb Crucial P1/P2, or intel 600p/665p instead. Games don't really take advantage of the 970 evo's performance.