Question SLI 1070 on a Origins EVO-17 Notebook: Is it worth it? (Gaming Usage)

[wyvernoasis]

I have a power house EVO-17 Notebook, 4k screen, i7-7700, 32 gigs or ram, with a single Nvidia 1070 in there. I've been thinking about getting a second for SLI.

A bit about gaming setup if it helps:
Most of my games are SLI supported due to the ever supportive modding community: (Ark, Skyrim, Fallout 4). I don't have very much interest in newer games, but I enjoy good graphics, but don't push 4k resolutions. I tend cap my frame rate and never push my card over 70% processing power. This of course doesn't always give me the best graphics for texture heavy settings or anti-aliasing. I run boarderless window mode on most of my games since using full screen on one monitor always minimizes or moves my application windows on the second monitor.(If anyone knows a solution for this I dying to hear it, I can not find one for the life of me). I run the second monitor at 1600x900 with maybe music from youtube and discord.

I've done quite a few hours of research, but I'm getting a ton of mixed messages from various articles and performance graphs as I consider buying a second 1070. I have no interest in getting a 1080 seeing as mixing cards isn't recommended and possibly a huge no no. I also hear that SLI is Super buggy and wonder if anyone has personal experience with a SLI notebook.

I wanted to upgrade for better performance (better resolutions and textures at a capped frame rate of 60 fps with relatively the same performance process usage as one card, if that's even possible), but I don't know if it will overall cause my pc more stress/lessen the life span. I know it will generate more heat and takes more power, but will it cause substantially more stress on the video cards? It's a really nice pc and I want to keep it as long as possible, but is the second 1070 (a $800) upgrade worth it for someone like me?

 

[MrN1ce9uy]

Two things:

1. Dual GPUs in a laptop is never a good idea due to the heat restrictions.
2. I've never heard of anyone adding a second GPU to a laptop that didn't come with two GPUs already. Maybe, just maybe that's possible. But again, it's definitely not worth it for $800.

PS: No one here will tell you that SLI is a good idea even in a desktop. When it comes to laptops, you typically don't upgrade the GPU. It's just too expensive to make it worth the money and effort.

 

[wyvernoasis]

It had an option during it's build for dual 1070s or dual 1080s. It's a huge laptop/workstation. Thanks for the input though.

 

[MrN1ce9uy]

I don't think anyone will tell you $800 for another GTX 1070 is worth it. They go for around $200 used on eBay, desktop of course. With your $800 + the value of your used laptop, you could sell it and buy a much better gaming laptop or build an even better desktop. Laptops aren't really meant for gaming or upgrading.

 

[wyvernoasis]

Okay, thank you. By the way as we're on the topic of gpu's, how do you like the EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti ? I was thinking about a build with one.

 

[MrN1ce9uy]

I'm very satisfied with my GTX 1080 Ti. However, if you were buying now (unless you buy used) the RTX 2080 is a better buy because it offers similar and sometimes better performance along with ray tracing support. Not to mention it's very difficult to find a new 1080 Ti now.