[SOLVED] Is 1070s SLI w/ 7700k worth it?

[bfcallan]

Currently advising a family member on what to do for the time being. He wants to squeeze a few more frames out Fortnite for streaming. He also plays new rpg titles that are all over the place. The main focus is Fortnite because he entering online tournaments.

From the forums I have been reading dating back to 2017 multiple people have mentioned that SLI is not supported in most modern games, but he has the opportunity to grab an additional 1070 for $100.

My first question is does it have to be the same exact 1070 or do certain specs just have to match. The last time I bothered with dual GPUs was 2x6870s.

Second question is should he wait and save his money and purchase a card this autumn after his summer full-time work schedule (high school student), or should he buy a 1070 for $100 and wait for the next gen of cards to come out next summer/winter?

He has:
240hz Monitor
2x8 gb 3200 RAM
750w Power Supply
Case with good airflow and an air cooler
m2 ssd, and ssd
One 1070
I7 7700k

 

[Eximo]

To be honest, pretty sure Fortnite doesn't support SLI. I know the Unreal 4 engine didn't in the early days. The whole concept was a psuedo compression system where only 'new' pixels were drawn. SLI requires the cards to share memory and each card do every other frame. Doesn't work with two cards with Unreal because it would then need effectively the drawn frame from the other card.

Now they might have implemented SLI via Direct3D, which is supported, but not many developers bother. Grand plans for heterogeneous GPU compute, ie using Intel, AMD, Nvidia, etc all at the same time. No one has bothered.

But I've not played Fortnite, and I have ran my dual GTX980 since Unreal 4 engine came out, one of the big reasons I went with the slightly slower single GTX1080.

Regardless, one card is always better than two. So ideally, save up and pick up something like an RTX2070 Super at the minimum. Waiting for the next gen should be a while, GDC is in March, Nvidia usually makes an announcement if they have anything up and coming. So possibly June/July release.

Though for $100, I might be tempted. I would be suspicious of such a generously priced card. Almost half its value I would think.

 

[Eximo]

I see a few ways to enable SLI for Fortnite out there, but I don't think it is natively supported. Maybe someone who has tried it can chime in. Perhaps change your title to include Fortnite.

I see a few posts here on Tom's saying that Fortnite does not support SLI as recently as September.

 

[geofelt]

sli is rarely worth it unless you are looking at synthetic fps benchmarks.

Dual gpu is prone to screen tearing and stuttering.

My suggestion is to save up for a single strong graphics card.

 

[bfcallan]

To be honest, pretty sure Fortnite doesn't support SLI. I know the Unreal 4 engine didn't in the early days. The whole concept was a psuedo compression system where only 'new' pixels were drawn. SLI requires the cards to share memory and each card do every other frame. Doesn't work with two cards with Unreal because it would then need effectively the drawn frame from the other card.

Now they might have implemented SLI via Direct3D, which is supported, but not many developers bother. Grand plans for heterogeneous GPU compute, ie using Intel, AMD, Nvidia, etc all at the same time. No one has bothered.

But I've not played Fortnite, and I have ran my dual GTX980 since Unreal 4 engine came out, one of the big reasons I went with the slightly slower single GTX1080.

Regardless, one card is always better than two. So ideally, save up and pick up something like an RTX2070 Super at the minimum. Waiting for the next gen should be a while, GDC is in March, Nvidia usually makes an announcement if they have anything up and coming. So possibly June/July release.

Though for $100, I might be tempted. I would be suspicious of such a generously priced card. Almost half its value I would think.

The cards are from a family friend who tried to get into mining but never really did, so has a bunch of cards he needs to sell.

 

[bfcallan]

sli is rarely worth it unless you are looking at synthetic fps benchmarks.

Dual gpu is prone to screen tearing and stuttering.

My suggestion is to save up for a single strong graphics card.

Between the two of you I think I have found my answer. This is kind of what I had figured but, I wanted to ask. Hes not too trigger happy he just saw an opportunity so I think he will wait.

 

[geofelt]

If friend has several, get him to let you try one out and see if it does what you want.