SLI VS no SLI

Hey guys, i have decided to make a thread about this, since many users are confused about the SLI vs NO SLI thing, i'm going to try to feature as many games as possible in this thread, so i had a look at whats installed and i have :

Devil may cry 4

Rainbow six vegas 2

C&C:tiberium wars

Bioshock

Race Driver: GRID

Dead Space,


The test will have 2 screenshots of the same scenes in SLI VS NO SLI as mentioned above, the outcome is:
Rainbow six vegas 2:
with SLI active


No SLI

--------------------------------------------
Bioshock:
with SLI active

No SLI

--------------------------------------------
Devi may Cry 4
with SLI active



No SLI

--------------------------------------------
Race Driver: GRID I tried to get the 2 scenes similar as possible.
With SLI active


No SLI

------------------------------------
Unreal Tournament 3

With SLI active

-------------------------------------
Gears of War
With SLI active


No Sli


Note: the game is capped @ 62 FPS, i think i could get more Frames IMHO

Dead Space

With SLI Active


No SLI


Fallout 3

With SLI Active


No SLI


------------------------------------
Settings Used:

Rainbow Six vegas 2:
Resolution: 1440x900, AA: Quality Level 4, Motion Blur:High, Shadows: High, Vsync off

Bioshock:
Resolution: 1440x900, All other settings on high, Vsync off

Devil may cry 4:
Resolution: 1440x900 , Shadows:Super High ,Textures: Super High, Quality: Super High, MSAA : 4x, Framerate: Variable, Vsync: Off

Race Driver:GRID
Resolution: 1440x900 , Everything On Ultra high, MSAA: 4x, Vsync: Off

Unreal Tournament 3
Resolution : 1440x900 , All SLider @ 5 , Smooth Framerate Disabled , FOV slider on max.

Gears of War
Resolution : 1440x900 , Maximum ingame settings , Post Processing on Intense

Dead Space
Resolution : 1440x900 , Maximum ingame settings, Vsync Off

Fallout 3
Resolution : 1440x900, Max settings, Shadows Exterior + Interior on max , 2xAA , 8XAF , HDR

Driver Used: Forceware 177.66, for Dead space and Fallout 3 i have used 180.70
--------------------------------------------


Frames Per Second:
Game:..............................................With Sli active............................................No SLI

Rainbow Six vegas 2---------------------63----------------------------------------34

Bioshock:-------------------------------67 ----------------------------------------37

Devil may cry 4-------------------------85 ----------------------------------------32

Race Driver:GRID----------------------- 63----------------------------------------26

Unreal Tournament 3--------------------65----------------------------------------N/A

Gears of War---------------------------62-----------------------------------------34

Dead Space----------------------------87-----------------------------------------34

Fallout 3-------------------------------64-----------------------------------------30

Differences Chart


Note: i didnt Disable SLI in any of the tests, what i did was make the game work on Single GPU, so the NO SLI screens should be a couple of FPS lower.

 

SLI & Crossfire have come a long way in terms of scaling. Pretty much any mainstream game has a good 70% or higher boost.

Its the oddball titles that you get hurt on.

BTW I am on my desktop with a 1920x1080 resolution so the pics fit fine, but the vast majority of users are going to have issues with your picture size, you need to thumbnail them or shrink them.

 

Alright , i'll thumb them.

 

great job

 

Guys.. mind voting for games please ?

 

+1 rep

Thx a lot for the info - impressive SLI results! I didn't know the effect of SLI was this big :-|

The three games I would like you to test:
Mass effect, Gears of War, and Call of Duty 4

 

Thanks for the Rep buddy !

ok, now need another member to confirm one of the games you have mentioned to get tested

 

To think I passed up a 7950 SLi laptop when Compusa closed in my area....I blame the wife.

 

Sure would like to see this test done for COD4.

 

Okay. gonna test with Multiplayer since its a bit more intensive, but a note on this game: it really has serious Problems with Geforce 7 cards on both sides, Mobile and desktop.

EDIT: i'm having problems taking the shots with print screen. when i paste it i get Ugly black textures.. i want to show the FPS so there isnt any other way i know, can someone tell me a solution for this?

 

Don't bother testing with the Witcher IMO, from what I remember from the official forums the SLi support is very hit and miss and doesn't work well with all SLi combinations.

 

for the screenshots use FRAPS and then take a screen shot with the fraps application and it will save a screenshot and the current FPS that is displayed on the screen.

 

Fraps doesnt show the FPS for me..

 

I could fill in the blank for UT3 , tonight or so.
And I can tell you, UT3 does NOT properly support SLI...
I can also try Crysis if you want.

 

Eleron whaaat? UT3 saw one of the biggest Benefits of SLI when i had it, but after i uninstalled it, my little sister spilled chocolate milkshake on the DvD


EDIT: i made this bench long time ago on the XG driver.



all sliders on max, 1440x900

 

SLI has gotten a lot better than it used to be, even a year ago. I think the 177 drivers must've given it a few extra frames. Could you do a Crysis benchmark (at dx9 high)? SLI has been starting to scale really decently with Crysis.

 

how do you change from dx10 to dx9? I have sli running bioshock and getting the same frames per second like yours (60) but want to see how much of a difference it would make running the game in dx9.

 

will do, installing now.

Bioshock was originally DX9, they did DX10 in the last minuite, they have improved Lighting. i dunno but the change in FPS from DX10 to DX9 will not be big at all, which is good, IMO stay on DX10

 

To OP: It might be better if you were to also write the framerate under the pictures, that way we don't have to open up every one.

 

Alright, thanks for the Suggestion, i will be fixing that as soon as i Upload Gears of war and Mass effect Screens.

 

Ok guys, i have Added Gears of war. now gonna do Mass effect

 

Hello brainer !
So , what about Mass Effect ? Is there any increase of fps with SLI ?

 

Yeah it actually went from 32 to 62 , but i cant even look at the game because i hated it from all my heart

Right now i'm doing S.T.A.L.K.E.R benchmark, damn its a great game with Oblivion lost mod

 

will you done the crysis benchmark ?

 

Will do, i'm studying a bit now, after i'm done i'll bench it

 

So we will wait

 

alright, ive installed Triple C pack just to improve things a bit, then went to benchmarking, but when i started it i had an 1000 mile free fall, everytime i start a level i get this free fall so i think i cant do that game

 

I could do Crysis.
I`ll do a non SLI run and a SLI run, how do you want it benchmarked?

 

Here it is , the pics will be added later for the sceptics:
It's the level where everyone is under attack and you have to take out the cannon thingies.
1) With SLI : 1440x900 all high 38 fps
2) Without SLI 1440x900 all high 21 fps.

Here are the pics :

 

That's some great results! I always thought SLI would bring more trouble than gains, but you obviously proved me wrong! I'd better turn it back on then.

 

High at 1440x900 with 38fps in combat? Is it just me, or is that better than what the 8800M GTX gets?

 

maybe it was slugish when you first bought your notebook because of stock drivers, but now with the new ones, SLI is the way to go

 

Do you mean 8800GTX desktop? Since eleron has 8800m GTX SLI, i.e the mobile variant.

 

Better? I dunno man, that's what I get I took pics in almost the EXACT same place, same situation, just for reference. Sure, it dips to 25fps ONCE IN A WHILE, but the 177.41 drivers and 4 GB of Ram really come in nicely here.

I am curios what he meant too, the desktop 8800 GTX gets better results.

 

Oh, I misread. Since the guy who was doing all of the benchmarks before had SLI 7950M GTX, I misread and thought that you were the same guy.

 

Sorry,no
I posted results just to show how good SLI is.

 

Just turned SLI back on. Played mass effect, but game started to freeze every now and then. In the citadel tower it wasn't even playable anymore, while on 1 card it playes fluently, no hick-ups whatsoever. Also tried SLI on with Physx off, but no improvements. Might be the drivers. I'm using the 177.41 drivers at the moment. Will try some others tomorrow.

 

I was using 177.41 up until 5 mins ago.
I`m on 177.79, let`s see how they work.

 

Mass Effect has a serious SLI bug in the citadel, that´s why. But it plays great on a single 8800m GTX so

Actually Eleron our 8800m GTX SLI probably beats my desktop 8800 GTX. Hmm do you want me to make a comparison? I can run the Crysis benchmark test at 1440x900 since that is my max res on my desktop. I can run that on both machines and compare FPS and see which ones faster

So the competition a E6600 at 2.93 GHz, 2GB 813MHz Ram and 8800 GTX 768MB, 384 Bit bus overclocked to 630/1530/1000 against a T7700 2.4 GHz, 4GB 667 Mhz Ram, 8800m GTX SLI 512MB 256-bit overclocked to 625/1500/950. This will be interesting stuff. Crysis is the game I will run, can also do benchmarks on other games of course.

 

i think Eleron will win for some reason

 

Yeah though eleron has his overclocked to 550/1350/850 I think?

 

Well I lost to my Desktop. Here is what I got using exact same nvidia settings and Crysis benchmarked at 1440x900. Though M1730 benchmark in Vista and Desktop 8800GTX in XP all under DX9 of course.

Desktop 8800GTX:

!TimeDemo Run 1 Finished.
Average FPS: 41.75


M1730 8800m GTX SLI 1440x900

!TimeDemo Run 1 Finished.
Average FPS: 32.50

 

No, I had it stock.
OCed to 550/1500/850 in the spots I took the screenshot I get 45-48fps

 

Ah, so trying a new driver would probably not make any difference. It does play great on a single GPU. Flawlessly at 1920x1200 with all settings maxed out, so it's no problem at all. Just wanted to see if with SLI on it would go even faster.

 

Are they both(all 3 of them, errr) OCed?

 

Yes both overclocked. Though not the CPU of course on my M1730. However CPU speed has little impact I saw, maybe +1 fps.

Strange is I get a little higher average fps at 1920x1200 on my XPS than on 1440x900. I guess SLI doesn´t work as hard in 1440x900 that it does in 1920x1200.

 

I guess so. Maybe at 1440x900 the SLI balancing is not properly implemented as one might think.
I don`t game below 1680x1050 anyways

 

Though I must say the 8800GTX is one of the best GPU´s I have ever bought. It is still a very strong card.

 

Yup. I just hope the 1730 will be able to handle the 9800M GTX SLI someday...

 

that would be money burn if you upgrade IMO.. its not that big upgrade to spend the $$$ on