The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Yeah I found it. Did you REALLY have to move it? (What the heck kind of a forum name is Safety Valve?)



(refresh my memory, was it 240 years ago that we rejected Canada's first - of many - petitions for statehood?)

 

So currently got a 980 sli set up would anyone recommend a gtx 1080 single card set up over it and what would be the benefits. Most things i read the sli 980 is a better set up what is your thoughts.

 

Unless the games you play regularly all have SLI support, I think it actually might be worth it. The 1080 is quite a substantial step up from one 980 - it won't match the pair in a title with good scaling, but there don't seem to be that many of those these days. Would you actually need the extra power though?

 

Hey John, I would listen closely to Sam. He's the only guy in the world to run a 4-gpu setup back in the day, and he became only the 34th guy in London ever to buy an air-conditioner for his university apartment because of all the heat put out by those two double cards.

Jeff is another to talk to - but he is running a sli 970 setup just fine as I recall, and I'm still making do with my crossfire 7950s and 1600p 30" dell monitor, but I can't run max on graphics anymore, although usually very high will still work - all I need are low 30 or high 20 fps.

But as Sam has found out, nothing beats one single gpu for max compatibility.

Sam - you recently jumped to the 1080 as I recall. Are you actually running any 4k titles yet? Are you ever going to post a screenshot?

Is DDP ever going to admit that he would rather Canada be a state of the U.S. since where he lives is technically "within the borders of the U.S. of A" as defined by "from sea to shining sea" and "north of Mexico and south of Canada." ​

Rich

 

Apologies - didn't realise you were still waiting for one!
Yes I run pretty much every game at 2160p these days. I have done for considerable time really, back with the UP3214Q it was easier to run native res and drop detail than try and get away with a lower resolution and hope it scaled. On the UP3216Q with SST it's much easier. Which title would you like me to screengrab from?

 

Sam, it might be easier if you mentioned which games you are currently playing.


Would that include any of the Batmans, or how about any of the Assassins Creed games, like Syndicate? I am quite sure that you don't play Arma3, but if that has changed, any 4k screen from that would be great.

If you don't play any of those, like I say, maybe you could mention a few that you DO play. In any case, a full-size screenshot will be awesome!!!



Say how is the thin-client business going these days? Are you still with the same company?


As for me I am getting pretty serious about getting more active, like back in the day when I only gamed once a week on Tuesday, as I recall.

I pulled out my listing presentation book two months ago and I am pouring through it, bringing some material up to date on my new color printer, the Canon mx870 (I own 3 of those as you guys might recall - I won't express again how amazing that technology is or DDP will say - "off topic" and he'll send it over to Steam Release, or Vent your Anger, or some dumb thread like that.)

I'm sure DDP is also proud to be an American, since he is living on American god-given soil, south of up-state New York, not to mention Maine.


​

Rich

 

Well happy Halloween all you fine people, and ddp too.

As everybody in the world knows, the United States presidential election is coming up in just over a week. The campaign has been contentious and hard fought. I don't want to introduce any politics to this thread as that would be off-topic and then ddp would have to put it on another thread entitled "All the Cr#p that Nobody Wants to Read" so I won't talk about my choice - don't bother asking me I have definitely decided not to mention who she is.

I was going to ask some of you who you were voting for (for whom you were voting if I wanted to be a grammatical purist - but I don't because then ddp would move this to the "Proper Grammar According to Huxley's Certifiable Americana Semantic Bible" thread.)

In fact, I was going to ask you, ddp.

But then I remembered that although you live in the geographic United States, meaning south of Maine and north of Mexico, east of Washington State and west of New York state, somehow there is a line drawn across a small lake I have never heard of, so it seems that you are in Canada.

Say wut?

Furthermore, we have once again rejected Canadian application for statehood for the 200th time - lately our excuse always is because we can't figure out how to align 51 stars on the flag - we've decided that 50 is just about perfect - it's such a nice round number - sorry again about that Cannucks.

I mean, if it weren't for that - you guys aren't so bad - true you weren't very hospitable to the Finnians who got drunk and lost, wandering about in that small lake I was mentioning - still you did help out in the Big War by sending all 236 members of your Armed Forces over to participate in the invasion of Grenada, or some such small island - maybe somewhere in the Mediterranean now that I think about it.

So that was nice.

Then of course there is that accent. And on top of that a bunch of you don't even speak English at all but instead some form of French. So that raises some big questions. Yeah the French did gift us with that big statue in New York harbor, but if we had to start adding French translations to all of the ATM instructions, that could be costly for the people that we love the most, the big bankers.

So as I started out (please don't move this to the "Monsters and Ghouls" thread) Happy Halloween everybody!

Rich

 

Hahahaha! Don't eat too much candy!!

 

Wow it's been a long time again, I do apologise. I'll try and get you some screens this week. I still play a little Left 4 Dead 2 though the game isn't ideal for showing off 2160p due to its age - Overwatch and Planet Coaster will be the titles of the season for me. The new Doom is pretty spectacular visually as well, so I'll throw in one of those. However, if you want some 2160p screenshots of games on high fidelity, I recommend you have a look through gamegpu.ru .

I will choose not to mention the political elephant in the room

 

That sounds great, Sam. So the Russians are the place for the high res 4k game screenshots, huh. Good for them. I remember reading a piece about steam expanding to Russia. They said that they had been told that it wouldn't work out - that everybody cracked software and wouldn't buy it - but they said that to the contrary, it turned into a great market for them.

I hope those Russians, Ukrainians, Serbs, etc. come out with some more slavic titles like those two brilliant Metro games, the ones that Jeff finally got me to play after I had dismissed them for months as "freaks in a tunnel." Haha. Come to think of it, they ARE freaks in a tunnel, plus a lot more - brilliant classics without doubt. In another year or two I guess I'll be ready to play them again. (Kevin always preferred single-player - I wonder if he ever played the Metro titles.)

In the meantime, yes, I'm looking forward to seeing those screenshots. No rush. How's work with your thin client company?

So you're still on Left 4 Dead 2. Another great one from Valve. Maybe one day they'll surprise us and do something with Half Life.

Speaking of which I heard that there was a Dishonored sequel coming out - tomorrow in fact- not from valve of course, but their former art director Viktor Antonov, who did the original Dishonored, had a partial hand in it. That is another classic right up there with Metro, and the two Dishonored DLC titles were also great in my opinion, especially the Witches where you play as - believe it or not - the assassin who killed the queen in the first title - and he is having huge pangs of conscience throughout the game - big-time regrets about having done that. "One should not kill a queen."

I went back to the original game and went out to the yard after defeating his four apprentices - the first time through I was so scared I just tossed more grenades out there and finished him off - but this time there he was, alone, yielding, asking to be allowed to live and pledging to leave the island and to re-start his life in a different vocation. I let him go.

I read that Viktor has since changed companies once again.

So on your Left 4 Dead 2, do you game with buddies, or just get on with anybody? Which character do you prefer to play?

Wrapping up, I will follow your lead and not mention anything about the political elephant in the room - except I am pretty sure that for once, ddp, otherwise known as Commodore Perry, didn't have anything to do it.

Speaking of politics, I thought of you the other day - I was reading that Angelina Jolie wants to move to Britain and get herself elected to the House of Commons. Are you okay with Tomb Raider running your country?

Rich

 

Hey guys it's been a while. Been busy working my butt off the past couple months. I think my latest purchasing decision has spoken pretty clearly on my thoughts about multi-GPU in general. I replaced my pair of Gigabyte GTX970 G1 Editions with a single Gigabyte GTX1070 G1 Edition recently and the results are so far pretty positive. $430 delivered was a pretty good deal with next day air, haha.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb2nw6Sz4kY


This sums up the performance difference quite well. In single GPU applications the 1070 completely demolishes the 970. No comparison whatsoever. Nearly twice as fast. When the 970s are in SLI, that gap disappears, but other factors, especially memory constraints, limit the usefulness of the 970s. More on those issues below.

SLI/Crossfire support is thankfully MUCH better and more glitch-free than it was a few years ago, but it's not perfect. It was to the point that I was running constantly in single GPU mode unless a specific title called for SLI. The power, heat, and noise are all a factor, though the 970s are surprisingly modest on all of these fronts. This was also because a single GTX970 is easily enough for pretty much any game at 1080p, but there are definitely exceptions to that. Some games are even a challenge for SLI. Problem though is that even at 1080p that famous 970 3.5GB memory limits gets prodded now and again. A proper 4GB card wouldn't meet its limit nearly as easily. So the excellent performance potential of the cards is somewhat wasted.

The few large applications I needed SLI for had some glitches in the end. Skyrim in particular, even the new Special Edition, has issues with flickering reflections on water for example. War Thunder, another one of my most played games, has issues with the volumetric shader clouds shimmering and smoke effects that flicker. These engines don't do anything really special, so it's kind of disconcerting that these mainstream engines haven't received some sort of fix from Nvidia after several years. Crossfire isn't any better or worse either.

So if you are playing mainstream games with good driver support, and you NEED the extra performance, SLI or Crossfire are certainly viable options. A lot of the past issues have been ironed out. Those looking for money-effective performance though, would be better off with a single fast card. Now say you have a 1080 at 4K and it isn't enough, then another GPU makes sense. But if you have say a 970 at 1080p or 1440p, get a better card instead. SLI has always had limited usefulness. If a given SLI configuration compares closely with a single GPU in benchmarks, chances are the single GPU will be much better in real-world usage.

TL;DR
Multi-GPU definitely has its place, but a faster single card will usually work out better in the long run. It's more reliable performance in all scenarios. Especially between generations there are optimizations, and better specs, and more memory. Not to mention less power usage. Unless there is a specific application for SLI in mind, the benefits will come with a catch.

 

Funny how times change isn't it - I went from 4 GPUs, down to 2, and now despite double the pixel count of before, just the one - seemingly you've thought the same. nvidia abandoning SLI for more than 2 cards kind of sends a strong message to me. My GTX1080 is to my amazement almost entirely inaudible alongside my file server which isn't exactly noisy, and is sufficiently low on power that I barely notice any heat difference in the room when gaming - what a contrast to the 850W quadCF setup of old.

As for screenshots, I have been playing a bit of Planet Coaster as I was always a huge fan of the original RollerCoaster Tycoon games. Considering how appalling the current RCT title is, PlanetCoaster is astonishingly polished, an absolute joy to play. These images will lose a little in compression, but should give a rough idea of what I'm talking about.

http://i.imgur.com/5rqy30k.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/BoN14hi.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/RefOszs.jpg

 

In general the GTX1070 craps all over the pair of 970s. The reliable performance and no worries about GPU scaling make all the difference. It's one of the best specced GTXx70 cards in a while, even better than the 970 was compared to the 980. Not quite the same screaming deal in price, but exceptional cards nonetheless. Heat is a large factor, as the pair of 970s will heat the room pretty quickly, despite them being fairly modest as individual cards. Even when running single GPU there's always power being consumed by the second card as well which is a nuisance. The 1070 is noticeably better in that department. It requires a single 8 pin power connector vs the 970s' 8+6 for each card. I think that says enough.

As far as dual GPU goes I think I've had my fun. It's more trouble than it's worth for my needs. My video card purchases will probably gravitate toward the higher end in the future. The GTX1070 barely squeaks by my performance goal, which makes it a winner, though in the future I may have to aim for the high end flagship ie the 1080's successor.

I've thrown the 970s up on Craigslist at $200 OBO each with an automatic discount for the pair. Hopefully I get a few bites, as it's been hard to move hardware lately. Considering they still sell for near their retail price, and over $200 used, I think I'm making a pretty tempting offer.

 

Good luck on selling those cards, Jeff.

Your earlier post was quite detailed and informative. The video link was nice - I haven't watched it yet but I will.

Just to make sure that I followed you - are you saying that the problems that you mention below were specific to SLI - and these problems have disappeared by running a single card?

I am 98% sure that's what you meant, but I thought I would confirm.


Sam, did you finally link to some screenshots? Can't be.

Let me rub my eyes a few times - maybe it's these glasses. Yes, the links are still there. Okay, I'll open them next time when I watch Jeff's video link.

Happy thanksgiving to you nice people (and ddp too.)
Rich