Should I SLI 2 GTX 660 TI evga, For 3d gaming?

[vantranist]

I recently just baught a new rig for gaming and i wouldn't mind trying 3d vision gaming with my new 3d 120hz monitor.

From what I have gathered 3d vision gaming requires a lot more GPU preformance than non 3d gaming. I am starting to wonder if 1 660 Ti (evga superclocked) will be enough to run most games in 3d at 1080p?

Here are my specs

i5-3570K 3.40
GTX 660 TI (evga superclocked)
[CrossFireX/SLI] GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 Chipset DDR3 ATX Mainboard
850 Watts - Corsair Professional Series CMPSU-AX850 80 Plus Gold Power Supply
8 gigs ram

So, Do you think I should SLI and would my current hardware support that?

Also I would like to know basicly what SLI even does? Does it double the GPU preformance or does it not effect preformance as much as you might think - running double gpu = double preformance?

 

[bystander]

For a rough estimate of how much power you can expect to need, take what you currently have in 2D, and with 660 ti sli, you'll have similar performance in 3D.

Of course in 3D, you can get away with lowering or removing AA, and remove DoF effects all together. Aliasing is lessened in 3D, as you have 2 images that sort of help cancel out the aliasing to some extend, and DoF is just a way to give an effect of depth, which 3D does for you already.

 

[vantranist]

lol my computers still in the mail, I ordered it online and haven't recieved it yet!

So basicly what you are saying is that if i got 70 FPS in battlefied 3 with one 660 Ti in 2D, I would get the same (or near) FPS in 3d if i ran them SLI?

Also, Can I even use two Nvidia gtx 660 Ti's on my current motherboard?

 

[bystander]

Well, you can only get up to 60 FPS in 3D with a 120hz monitor and 72 FPS with a 144hz monitor (VG278H with 3D Vision 2 kit, there is a 24" version too). 3D forces v-sync, as it is very critical to the 3D effect.

Also, your motherboard is terrible for SLI. With 2 cards, it goes into x8/x4 mode, which is no good for SLI.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Well, you can only get up to 60 FPS in 3D with a 120hz monitor and 72 FPS with a 144hz monitor (VG278H with 3D Vision 2 kit, there is a 24" version too). 3D forces v-sync, as it is very critical to the 3D effect.

Also, your motherboard is terrible for SLI. With 2 cards, it goes into x8/x4 mode, which is no good for SLI.

With two cards it runs x8 + x8 not x8 + x4.

 

[vantranist]

I read you can't SSL a Crossfire motherboard though (after i created this thread) In a sticky in this forum. Does that not apply to me?

 

[cookybiscuit]

Well, you can only get up to 60 FPS in 3D with a 120hz monitor and 72 FPS with a 144hz monitor (VG278H with 3D Vision 2 kit, there is a 24" version too). 3D forces v-sync, as it is very critical to the 3D effect.

Also, your motherboard is terrible for SLI. With 2 cards, it goes into x8/x4 mode, which is no good for SLI.

The 144Hz Asus monitor does not do 72Hz in 3D, the 3D hardware like the glasses are limited to 60Hz, so the monitor goes to 120Hz when it enters 3D mode.

I use a 670 which is pretty close in performance to a 660ti. I had the same worry when first going to 3D but I found it to be totally fine even though I hate turning settings down and love 60FPS. At the end of the day, 3D is 10 billion times better than any in game settings, so you won't really care if you need to turn them down a bit.

Also make sure your monitor actually supports 3D, just because its 120Hz does not mean it does.

 

[vantranist]

Thanks, its a 3D monitor for sure!

So 3D is really that cool huh? How much do you turn your graphics down on 3D and what FPS do you get, and do you play at 1080p?

 

[djangoringo]

I read you can't SSL a Crossfire motherboard though (after i created this thread) In a sticky in this forum. Does that not apply to me?

Your motherboard supports 2 way SLI, it has two pcie 3.0 16x slots, with two nvidia cards it will be running at 8x/8x.
Check first if you need the second card, if you do, then get it, two 660 ti are a good option for high end gaming at a low price, they can beat any single card with a single gpu on the pcb, except now with the geforce titan(but it's almost the double of the price of two 660 ti).

 

[vantranist]

So is 8x8 full potential when SLI'ing?

Also what is Two way SLI?

 

[djangoringo]

Two cards in SLI, and yes, it's at 8x/8x when in SLI, it won't affect the performance of both cards.

 

[cookybiscuit]

Thanks, its a 3D monitor for sure!

So 3D is really that cool huh? How much do you turn your graphics down on 3D and what FPS do you get, and do you play at 1080p?

I play at 1080p yea. So long as you get a good OC on the processor you likely wont find you have to turn settings down at all other than games that are very heavy like Crysis or BF3.

Also make sure you head over to the Helix mods websites, it has a tonne of fixes for broken games.

 

[popatim]

x16 x16 is better that x8 but x8 isn't much of an impact on performance.

Two way SLI is is two cards in SLI, three way would be 3 cards, etc...

 

[bystander]

Looking at the details here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128546

I must misunderstand what they mean by this:
PCI Express 3.0 x16: 1
PCI Express 2.0 x16: 2 (x8, x4)
PCI Express x1: 3
PCI Slots: 1

 

[bystander]

Anyone here planning or using 3D Vision, you definitely need this site: http://helixmod.wikispot.org/gamelist

 

[Mousemonkey]

Looking at the details here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128546

I must misunderstand what they mean by this:
PCI Express 3.0 x16: 1
PCI Express 2.0 x16: 2 (x8, x4)
PCI Express x1: 3
PCI Slots: 1

I always go to the manufactures site to get spec details.

http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4144#sp

 

[vantranist]

So as long as I have 2 PCI ExpressX16 Slots, i can SLI gpu (8x8)? Even though one of them is a PCI Express 2.0 x16 and the other is a PCI Express 3.0 x16?

How does the 2.0 or 3.0 effect me if at all when dealing with PCIe slots and a 2 way SLI?