GTX 670 Sli, or single GTX 780?

[Guest]

Hello. I'm new here, and this is my first question. I heard this was pretty much the site to ask these kinds of questions, so I signed up

Anyway, while I've being learning and building PCs for about 6 or 7 years now, I've never once attempted an SLI setup, but with an upcoming job I was hoping in the near future to upgrade my gaming machine. I've been eyeing a GTX 780 since they came out, hoping it was a sizable upgrade from my current single GTX 670, but then I read that two GTX 670s in SLI would be far more powerful than a single GTX 780, possible equal to or more powerful than a GTX Titan.

My question(s) is, is SLI reliable? What is required, either on the motherboard or from my power supply, to run SLI? Are certain games not compatible? What complications could I run into, and can I easily toggle or disable SLI if I need to?

Thank you ahead of time for any replies!

 

[tinmann]

Hi, The GTX 670 in SLI is more powerful than both the GTX 780 and the Titan. To get another GTX 670 would be the fastest and least expensive route. The Titan and GTX 780 are really close in terms of performance but SLI GTX 670's are close to GTX 690 performance. All that's required is a motherboard that supports SLI, has two PCI-E 2.0 or 3.0 X ( preferably both @ X16 but it will still work with one @ x16 and one @ X8) and at least a 750w power supply. You can toggle SLI on and off using Nvidia control panel and not all games are optimized for SLI but you can create you own SLI profiles and profiles are being added all the time. The down side is the two cards will create more heat so you really do need a well ventilated case with good air flow.

 

[Guest]

Hi, The GTX 670 in SLI is more powerful than both the GTX 780 and the Titan. To get another GTX 670 would be the fastest and least expensive route. The Titan and GTX 780 are really close in terms of performance but SLI GTX 670's are close to GTX 690 performance. All that's required is a motherboard that supports SLI, has two PCI-E 2.0 or 3.0 X ( preferably both @ X16 but it will still work with one @ x16 and one @ X8) and at least a 750w power supply. You can toggle SLI on and off using Nvidia control panel and not all games are optimized for SLI but you can create you own SLI profiles and profiles are being added all the time. The down side is the two cards will create more heat so you really do need a well ventilated case with good air flow.

So, I'm a bit lost of the PCI-E slots ordeal. My motherboard specs claim that it has "One PCI-E x16, running at x16" and "One PCI-E x16 slot, running at x4". What is the difference between these? And is it possible to still do SLI with these two slots?

 

[dbenet89]

HIgher end single cards are always better, than sli a lower end, you can always go sli on a higher end card, but with the lower ends you may get stuck with old outdated hardware.

 

[ihog]

It's possible, but running the second GPU at PCIe x4 will bottleneck performance.

 

[tinmann]

What dbenet89 and ihog said are true. It is possible to sli the 670 but the x4 pci-e lane will bottleneck your performance and a single higher end is give you more future proofing. Here is my thinking it may be flawed but the GTX 780 is $650.00, for that I could get a GTX 670 and another REALLY nice motherboard.

 

[ddferrari]

I'm a little late to the party, but perhaps my post will help others.

I'm running two Gigabyte GV-N670OC-2GD GTX 670s which are OC'd from the factory and have them further OC'd by about 10%. These will slightly outperform a GTX 690, so yes, adding another 670 is your best bet performance-to-price wise. BTW- a good 650W psu will be fine for this setup (although I may be spoiled by my Seasonic x-650 gold!).

I've only run into a few games that don't like sli and it can be easily turned off in the Nvidia control panel. Otherwise, the system runs flawlessly and I can say that the "problems" associated with sli are all but gone on Nvidia's side of the fence. I haven't seen a microstutter yet. Don't consider sli unless you have a case with decent cooling.

As for your mobo, you need to go to the manufacturer's site and see if it's sli capable. The difference in real world performance between x16 and x8 is negligible, and only a few games see significant fps loss even at 4x.

If you haven't pulled the trigger on that second 670- you'd better get on it. They are become sold-out everywhere, and they're as cheap as they'll ever get.