Dual Video Cards but not SLI

[rleulink]

It seems to be possible to run dual video cards without enabling SLI. However, could anyone comment about the cons and pros for running dual video cards without SLI?

 

[Rapajez]

Yes, it's actually the default setting I believe, and works fine. Why would anyone want to do this? What is your goal?

The point of SLI is to get (about) twice the performance of 1 card. If you're not using SLI, you just have one card doing nothing while the other card is gaming.

 

[Luca Rood]

If you run SLI, the cards will act like one, on the other hand if you run multi card without SLI, you can use each card separatelly for a specific task. Running SLI or not really depends on your goal, for gaming you probably want SLI, though some games are not compatible with it. I personally don't use SLI, because my rig is for professional purposes, and the applications I use can take advantage of each card individually. Also if you are in the rendering/editing business (or anything that uses GPU processing), you can use one card just for the monitor(s), and the other card(s) exclusively for your GPU intensive task.

 

[Rapajez]

If you run SLI, the cards will act like one, on the other hand if you run multi card without SLI, you can use each card separatelly for a specific task. Running SLI or not really depends on your goal, for gaming you probably want SLI, though some games are not compatible with it. I personally don't use SLI, because my rig is for professional purposes, and the applications I use can take advantage of each card individually. Also if you are in the rendering/editing business (or anything that uses GPU processing), you can use one card just for the monitor, and the other card(s) exclusively for your GPU intensive task.

Along those lines, if you just need to display to a lot of monitors, keep in mind most modern GPUs will support 3 monitors on one card.

 

[k1114]

If you run SLI, the cards will act like one, on the other hand if you run multi card without SLI, you can use each card separatelly for a specific task. Running SLI or not really depends on your goal, for gaming you probably want SLI, though some games are not compatible with it. I personally don't use SLI, because my rig is for professional purposes, and the applications I use can take advantage of each card individually. Also if you are in the rendering/editing business (or anything that uses GPU processing), you can use one card just for the monitor(s), and the other card(s) exclusively for your GPU intensive task.

You can only use each card for a different task if the software let's you choose which is the case for many pro software but not for the majority of what normal people use.

 

[rleulink]

I would like to understand something - I still have not decided if I want to pay for SLI or just a single card.
I normally run software like MATLAB, SIMULINK, Adobe Lightroom, AUTO CAD (2D drafting not 3D) and I play video game.

 

[k1114]

Parallel Computing Toolbox can use multiple although sli makes no difference as you have to assign a worker to each gpu regardless. Lightroom and autocad only use 1. Typically a single card is recommended in the majority of situations, even for gaming rigs.

 

[Luca Rood]

Parallel Computing Toolbox can use multiple although sli makes no difference as you have to assign a worker to each gpu regardless. Lightroom and autocad only use 1. Typically a single card is recommended in the majority of situations, even for gaming rigs.

I second that, you are probably better of with a single gpu, as both SLI and non SLI multi-gpu require support of the application you are using.

 

[rleulink]

Thanks - I will be better off with a single GTX 970. I do not want to buy something that I never need and use extra cash for making my wife happy (aka: gifts and flowers)