To SLI or not to SLI

[CRAZYCAP]

Hi Guys

I currently have a GTX 570 in my Z68X-UD3R-B3 motherboard with an i5 2500k. I game currently at 1680x1050 and will be getting another down the track. Now the question is....do I grab another 570 for SLI or would I be better off waiting for the red team to delivery the 7000 series and jump ship?

Thanks guys.

 

[yassarikhan786]

I don't think the fastest single 7000 series card will be faster than two 570's in Sli. Sli can sometimes prove to be very smooth but many people run into problems with micro stuttering, driver issues, game incompatibility, etc.

I think I would still wait to see how the 7000 series cards perform, because they will supposedly use less power than the 6000 series cards and have similar performance with less heat/noise or use the same amount of power and be greater in performance

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[SkinToxicated]

When you say you getting other down the track do you mean another monitor or another GPU? gaming on 2 screens (as opposed to 1 or 3) is a strange set up as you gonna have a bezel in the middle of your field of vision (regardless of bezel correction, your still gonna have physical edges of the monitor on the middle).

If you refeering to getting another GPU, TBH mate going SLI on a 1050 monitor is gonna gona be like putting a ferrari on a go kart track, at that rez youre gonna be able to run most games on full fat settings with ease on a single 570 i have a 570 and was running the BF3 beta on ultra with a bit more AA @1920x1080p and still getting 50+ fps even in the busy stuff. Unless youre getting a another 570 dirt cheap (do i remeber you saying you getting one of some one 2nd hand?) then it would be silly not to turn it down, but if youre buying another, my advice would be youre better off investing your hard earned in a 1920x1080p monitor

 

[yassarikhan786]

When you say you getting other down the track do you mean another monitor or another GPU? gaming on 2 screens (as opposed to 1 or 3) is a strange set up as you gonna have a bezel in the middle of your field of vision (regardless of bezel correction, your still gonna have physical edges of the monitor on the middle).

If you refeering to getting another GPU, TBH mate going SLI on a 1050 monitor is gonna gona be like putting a ferrari on a go kart track, at that rez youre gonna be able to run most games on full fat settings with ease on a single 570 i have a 570 and was running the BF3 beta on ultra with a bit more AA @1920x1080p and still getting 50+ fps even in the busy stuff. Unless youre getting a another 570 dirt cheap (do i remeber you saying you getting one of some one 2nd hand?) then it would be silly not to turn it down, but if youre buying another, my advice would be youre better off investing your hard earned in a 1920x1080p monitor

Some good points there. I think you should upgrade your monitor first before getting another 570/7000 series card. That would be best if you want to fully utilize the power of your GPU(s).

 

[fcb]

It could be that the HD 7 series may perform similar to or better than the GTX 5 series?

Yup, it's good to mention about the monitor as well. If you have a standard 19 - 20" LCD and were to upgrade to a larger 24 - 27" screen, it would make a big difference in viewing area. You would be able to test how well your 570 performs using the highest supported resolution of your LCD. That way, you'll be able to set a comfortable level of settings for games.

 

[Rastalovich]

Not to condone use of SLI, but you have a third option of waiting until the GTX 6xx series come out and bank on a possible 570 price drop.

Your 570 must be kicking serious butt on a 1080 screen, especially oc'd. So I'd not envisage too much pain in the meantime.

 

[SkinToxicated]

Not to condone use of SLI, but you have a third option of waiting until the GTX 6xx series come out and bank on a possible 570 price drop.

true, but even if they dropped to say £180-£200, Sli'ing GTX 570s is still gonna be a waste of horsepower on a 1680x1050 monitor. As i said my single GTX570 ran BF3 on ultra on a 1080p monitor with no probs a tall

when the HD7000/GTX600 series do arrived, will we really see a big step in GPU power? yeah they will run more efficently (with temps and power usuage) I cant see the point in upgrading till we see DX12

IMHO the HD7000s/GTX600s will be the GPU equivilent of the iphone 4Gs, few more bells and whistles with a bit more grunt in them but on the whole doesnt really warrant the upgrade from the iphone 4

 

[CRAZYCAP]

Guys, you are the reason i post my conundrums. You have solved my problem. For the time being I am going to stick with my single GTX 570 and wait and see what happens with the next gen cards. This will be a win/win, either I pick up another 570 real cheap or I can decided whether to stick with the green team or switch to the red team for the next gen cards.

 

[Broken Gear]

I would also suggest if going SLI in the future, i would go for a good 24" gaming monitor, since SLIng 570 will make your FPS average around 90, it would be a waste to view it at 1680x1050, i would go for a 24" 1920x1080, and to fully appreciate the smoothness get a 120hz Refresh rate. you will see a great difference in visual comfortability especially when playing fast moving games such as first person shooters.

 

[alienware]

Assuming you have a 1.2gb 570 I would give it a miss.

Adding another one will give you a serious power boost, but sadly the way things are headed it will be useless power.

I took those measurements playing Battlefield 3 in single player yesterday. They are VRAM usage levels.

I've seen stats from users playing it in multiplayer where memory usage has gone over 1600mb.

I run quad SLI and it has some serious muscles. Sadly when I load BF3 it all falls to pieces, because even though I can whack out 3D scores in Vantage well over 30,000 896mb VRAM simply isn't enough.

There's a reason AMD's new cards have 3gb, and it's not for show. It's for the whacking huge textures going into modern games.

I game currently at 1680x1050

Crivens I just noticed that. Is that a joke?

Anything more than a 560ti is complete and utterly wasted at that resolution. Infact, the 7970 doesn't really come into its own until you get it to 2560x1600.

Jesus man.

 

[Big WigglyStyle]

I have a 570 with 1.28gb of VRAM and I've recorded using nearly 1300-1350mb of Vram in bf3 ultra 2x AA on a 1920x1080 23" monitor and never get any stuttering

 

[SmoulderingCircuits]

I have a 570 with 1.28gb of VRAM and I've recorded using nearly 1300-1350mb of Vram in bf3 ultra 2x AA on a 1920x1080 23" monitor and never get any stuttering

A ) This thread is getting on a bit

B ) That's because once VRAM is full, DRAM is used, which is why dual channel runs better than single channel in games. You had only exceeded the VRAM capacity by a smidge so it didn't reduce playability to a noticable extent

 

[Stevo]

I'm always a fan of single card setups get the best out there, SLi seems to have conflicts with games and its thrown me off ever since.

 

[Mrboxfacetramp]

Do you have an chance of selling the GTX 570 and get dual 7950/70?

 

[Rastalovich]

Anything more than a 560ti is complete and utterly wasted at that resolution. Infact, the 7970 doesn't really come into its own until you get it to 2560x1600.

I'm running a theory that resolutions aren't as big a hit on memory as you might think. For sure, you're going to need all the vram goodness to get all those crazy textures and the work to blend them together, but from 1680x1050 to 1920x1200, at the same quality setting - I'm theorising that all the textures still have to load and the multiple frame production at the bigger resolution is all that's needed. i.e. the base is the same, just the screen respresentation.

This is based on how good we may think programmers are - which always bites us in the butt... we shall see.

 

[MaXiMiZe]

Huh, a 7970 at 1680 x 1050 really sounds strange...