The GTX 1080 will not support any higher than 2 way SLI configurations

[MiNo]

This is good news for 99.999% of us !

Clearly it hurts both the single GPU user as well as dual GPU users, when Nvidia have to dilute their efforts to make 1,2,3 +4 GPUS work in both hardware and drivers, rather than 'just' focus on 1 + 2 GPU setups.

THB i could not care less about extreme benchmarks. I mean, they are somewhat cool in the same way a drag racer is cool. It's just not relevant at all for 'real' usage. And as said above, it's likely to hurt performance for the vast majority of users to support it.

 

[Excalabur50]

Really I think no more than 2 cards is a good thing let face it imagine what motherboard manufacturer's can do with the real estate freed up on the boards and how things could be made cleaner, It makes for some interesting possiblities

 

[Breit]

Given Nvidias track record with SLI licenses and all that, I wouldn't be surprised if they artificially hurt performance with more than 2 cards in DX12 multi-gpu mode or outright block it. If they don't want you to have SLI, then you won't get it.

 

[SuB]

If there plan is to keep it to two cards and continue SLi as a format, they do need to start getting back on it with their drivers. Of late they have been a bit lacklustre, things like World of Warships having major issues, and The Division is a big one.
They've gone super quiet on SLi support for that, and that was a title that was announced to be super SLi friendly.. it isn't...

I wonder if a 2+2 setup would work... I.E. 4 cards, connected in pairs.

Hope Kaapstad doesn't have a breakdown at this news

 

[Kaapstad]

If there plan is to keep it to two cards and continue SLi as a format, they do need to start getting back on it with their drivers. Of late they have been a bit lacklustre, things like World of Warships having major issues, and The Division is a big one.
They've gone super quiet on SLi support for that, and that was a title that was announced to be super SLi friendly.. it isn't...

I wonder if a 2+2 setup would work... I.E. 4 cards, connected in pairs.

Hope Kaapstad doesn't have a breakdown at this news

Won't cause me any problems.

DX12 benchmarks will support 4 way setups regardless of if they use SLI bridges or not.

AOTS supports mixed vendor setups so lack of SLI means very little.

 

[Kushiro]

Who knows, the Ti or whatever may be different. Never know.

 

[D.A.M IT!]

Not being supported and not working are 2 different things entirely. Sounds like there is a bit of confusion with this, even with certain members of EVGA.

As an example of this I use Geforce cards in my WS for 3D modelling/rendering which aren't supported by autodesk, but they run just fine if not better than equivalent priced Quadro's which are.

Also apparently Jayz2cents hes been sent 3 1080's by Nvidia and has tweeted 'don't believe the rumors'.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what this really means for 3+ SLI setups. But it may just mean anything over a 2 card SLI setup will be a bit more temperamental and glitchy in certain circumstances than they already are

 

[Wraith]

Also apparently Jayz2cents hes been sent 3 1080's by Nvidia and has tweeted 'don't believe the rumors'.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what this really means for 3+ SLI setups. But it may just mean anything over a 2 card SLI setup will be a bit more temperamental and glitchy in certain circumstances than they already are

Either that or you can still 3 - 4 Way SLI with standard bridges and high bandwidth SLI will be limited to 2 way only, from looking at the teardown images the SLI fingers haven't changed so I'm going with that theory for now.

Also we have to take into consideration the PCI bandwidth limitations too, HBM on PCIe 3.0 how long before we start seeing PCIe 4.0??

 

[Breit]

...from looking at the teardown images the SLI fingers haven't changed so I'm going with that theory for now.

I'm guessing that implementing the HB SLI mode into the drivers for older cards (9xx) could also technically be possible then?!

 

[Wraith]

I'm guessing that implementing the HB SLI mode into the drivers for older cards (9xx) could also technically be possible then?!

We wish, but what would be the financial benefit in that.. :lol:

 

[Breit]

We wish, but what would be the financial benefit in that.. :lol:

The same could be asked for implementing Ansel into 600-series cards...
Customer satisfaction I guess.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Either that or you can still 3 - 4 Way SLI with standard bridges and high bandwidth SLI will be limited to 2 way only, from looking at the teardown images the SLI fingers haven't changed so I'm going with that theory for now.

Also we have to take into consideration the PCI bandwidth limitations too, HBM on PCIe 3.0 how long before we start seeing PCIe 4.0??

It could also mean the end of Dual GPU's on a single PCB. They may no longer make those cards if they are really committed to 2 way SLI only or the HB bridge can't produce enough.

 

[Wraith]

It could also mean the end of Dual GPU's on a single PCB. They may no longer make those cards if they are really committed to 2 way SLI only or the HB bridge can't produce enough.

Why would it be the end of dual GPU cards?

 

[Kaapstad]

Why would it be the end of dual GPU cards?

This^

Don't be surprised if we see a GTX 1090 with 2 x GP204 cores on the same board.

It will probably have the same look and power usage as the old GTX 690.

 

[Wraith]

This^

Don't be surprised if we see a GTX 1090 with 2 x GP204 cores on the same board.

It will probably have the same look and power usage as the old GTX 690.

Ooh if I could get my hands on a 690 that'd be epic!

 

[Kushiro]

You cant have mine.

Starting a collection

The 690 was a nice card. Still is. Now if only Vram was upgradable.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Why would it be the end of dual GPU cards?

I didn't say it would, I said it could!
If they did it for bandwidth reasons, then obviously because the Bridge isn't fast enough.
If they did it for driver reasons. Don't expect it to happen. It would completely mute the point of strictly two way SLI. They would end up still having to make drivers for 3/4way SLI. Which is counter productive to what they are trying to achieve

 

[Wraith]

No one knows right now, all we have are limited details, speculation and rather sketchy 3DMark scores. I can't wait to see some real world solid performance and numbers.