Reference card vs. non-reference for SLI in the future?

[Crazy_Diamond]

I have been running two PNY GTX 770 4GB OC in SLI for a few years now, and the setup has been a champ for my needs (1080p 60Hz). My only issue with the setup is that it runs relatively hot (the top card usually hovering around 79/80C), draws a boatload of power, and will probably not be enough for when I plan to upgrade my monitor.

Seeing the new GTX 10xx series, I am starting to think about upgrading; specifically to a GTX 1070, most likely adding a second card in the future for SLI. However, I am not sure whether to go for a founders edition 1070 or one with an aftermarket cooler. After trolling through a bunch of forums I learned that blower style GPUs ,such as the reference designs, are usually better for SLI than the axial style because of the way the hot air from the GPU is exhausted.

My question is this: Since I might want to run two 1070s in SLI in the future (1-2 years), should I go for a reference card to take advantage of the blower design OR is the difference between cooler styles not significant enough to worry about for SLI?

 

[anthonyc821]

I have been running two PNY GTX 770 4GB OC in SLI for a few years now, and the setup has been a champ for my needs (1080p 60Hz). My only issue with the setup is that it runs relatively hot (the top card usually hovering around 79/80C), draws a boatload of power, and will probably not be enough for when I plan to upgrade my monitor.

Seeing the new GTX 10xx series, I am starting to think about upgrading; specifically to a GTX 1070, most likely adding a second card in the future for SLI. However, I am not sure whether to go for a founders edition 1070 or one with an aftermarket cooler. After trolling through a bunch of forums I learned that blower style GPUs ,such as the reference designs, are usually better for SLI than the axial style because of the way the hot air from the GPU is exhausted.

My question is this: Since I might want to run two 1070s in SLI in the future (1-2 years), should I go for a reference card to take advantage of the blower design OR is the difference between cooler styles not significant enough to worry about for SLI?

Crazy_Diamond,

I have a MSI GTX 960 with and aftermarket cooler on it. I don't know how hot the GTX 1070 runs but it would be better to get one with an aftermarket cooler. From what I heard, my friend has I think a GTX 980TI with the reference cooler and he said it runs pretty hot. So i'd say you would have better cooling with an aftermarket cooler. If you case fits, try to find one with triple fans. I think it would be a bit better.

-UPDATE-
Also, I read a thread that said that people wait for aftermarket coolers because they apparently come factory OC'd.

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3096564/reference-gtx-1070-high-temps.html

 

[iyzik]

I've heard similar things about reference being better for SLI because of the blower design but I think it is mostly myth. Especially if you have a case fan on the side panel right next to the GPU's. I used to run crossfire reference 6970's and they ran hot as hell, switched to non-reference crossfire 7970's a few months later and they ran much much cooler.
The argument for blower fans for SLI/CF does sort of make sense but I don't think it makes up for simply having better coolers on the non-reference. My two cents.

 

[GAMER_1]

I have been running two PNY GTX 770 4GB OC in SLI for a few years now, and the setup has been a champ for my needs (1080p 60Hz). My only issue with the setup is that it runs relatively hot (the top card usually hovering around 79/80C), draws a boatload of power, and will probably not be enough for when I plan to upgrade my monitor.

Seeing the new GTX 10xx series, I am starting to think about upgrading; specifically to a GTX 1070, most likely adding a second card in the future for SLI. However, I am not sure whether to go for a founders edition 1070 or one with an aftermarket cooler. After trolling through a bunch of forums I learned that blower style GPUs ,such as the reference designs, are usually better for SLI than the axial style because of the way the hot air from the GPU is exhausted.

My question is this: Since I might want to run two 1070s in SLI in the future (1-2 years), should I go for a reference card to take advantage of the blower design OR is the difference between cooler styles not significant enough to worry about for SLI?

A Reference design (Usually a blower) would probably be the best for SLI. Since instead of blowing it in the case it blows it out of the graphics cards "port" area. So it will not blow on the other cards. But SLI is a Win and Losing situation, Because not all games support SLI. Usually High-End games such as Doom usually have SLI/Crossfire support on the release date or in an update later. So with Nvidia, (I use them to. Don't worry :3) they will sometime's lose performance over time so Nvidia isn't the most future-proof but is a tad bit future-proof.

AMD is a different story. They usually have more support on older products (Like there 2012 gpu's still work and have great performance in 2016.). So they have better future-support than Nvidia. They are also open source so Crossfire (Even though it isn't used as much as SLI) should be on more Mid to High-end games such as Ark. (Though they support both, Just putting it in as an example) AMD Has lower performance though.

Now here's what you should be looking at. DX12's Multi-GPU support. This is what you should look at because all people need to do is use DX12 and you automatically get SLI and/or Crossfire Support on all DX12 games! AMD is generally better at DX12 because of asynchronous-compute which (Just for simplicity, its a simple definition.) just improves performance on DX12 applications and games and because DX12 is built on Mantle, an API that's been made for AMD and has now evolved into Vulkan and DX12.

So for Multi-GPU DX12 + Futureproof "ness", I'd choose AMD. But Nvidia works too. The only problem with Nvidia is that usually after there GPU's go 3 generation's back (Like the GTX 700 Series. Its lowered in performance over time.) They stop being good. So in 3 Years or so the 1060/1070 would be bad in performance compared to the GTX 1100 series or whatever there next series is. The 1080 would still work good, But again not future-proof. Then AMD at the moment is standing on the performance (390x For example is at a GTX 980 level of performance and the fury x is between the 980 TI and 980. The 980 TI by the way is the 1070 - 1 to 4 fps.) of the Maxwell Architecture. So it might get older then the 1000 Series, but will actually last 4-5 years instead of 3 years.

So in conclusion,you should go for AMD, but unless you want to go Nvidia, go with a 1070, but it's not as futureproof.

(Lol forgot about you're question in the first place (Still read this though, it's important.) so, if you need SLI, both will work just fine. I would go by price. I wouldn't worry about it.)