GTX 980 SLI P870DM-G

Hey I was curious if it's possible to do an SLI setup with the desktop version of the GTX 980. The only options I see when building the laptop are the Desktop GTX 980 and GTX 980M SLI. Any input is appreciated. I do realize none of the resellers have that option but is it possible to do after purchase?

I think fitment and power would be the biggest issues if trying this but I am not certain about the space in the P870.

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Power shouldn't be a problem, two 330 watt PSUs should be able to handle that.

Besides its larger size, I think cooling is the problem. Cooling two 200 watt GTX 980s will require some massive cooling system in the laptop itself. Until someone releases a lower TDP and smaller size version of the GTX 980, I don't really see it happening.

 

MSIs got it done so theres always that.

As for doing it after you receive it. The answer would be no. There sinply isnt enough space as the case was only designed to support a max of 2 mxm modules or one for the GXX.

 

All that MSI got done was to sell people two 980s which even when overclocked to their maximum just barely beat two 980Ms in a Clevo:

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/7808124/fs/7333219/fs/7295065

Unleashed SLI 980 would tell us a total different story and require a lot more power and cooling...

 

You would need a mobile cpu with p570wm style cooling

 

Well.... I am kinda skeptical about GTX 980 sli in Clevo P870DM -G.

First, you would need 120w GTX980 or 180w GTX980. Because 200W GTX980's size is much bigger than regular mxm 3.0b graphics card, you won't be able to fit two cards.
Second, you might have to change the vbios of the graphics card. (If it exist)
Third, you will have to change the bios as well, since I don't think current P870DM can recognize 120 / 180w GTX 980 in SLI.
Fourth, you will need Much, MUCH stronger cooling solution for that. Unlike MSI GT80, Clevo P870DM has desktop cpu as well, which means it will have harder time to solve all the heat from both the gpu and the cpu.
Lastly, you will have to sell your kidney to buy theses graphics card. 120w GTX980 was priced at Over $1500 usd, and if you want to have two of them.... you need a lot of money, and even if you get the graphics card, you still have to do so many more things.

 

@kais91, Hopefully a slight mod to the P870DM can fit the bill.

I know this doesn't directly answer your question, but a GTX980 SLI laptop should be coming in one shape or form: "Nvidia also told us that like with the 980M, there will be SLI configurations of the full-size 980 in laptops, too" - http://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-is-putting-desktop-caliber-gtx-980-gpus-in-laptops/

 

If you look at the GPU details, you will see the GT80S 980 SLI is running stock, no OC, and the 980 SLI GPU numbers are way higher than the 980m SLI GPU numbers - and the 980m SLI GPU's are highly Overclocked.

Spoiler

The 980m SLI overall scores are only close to the 980 SLI due to their very high CPU component scores skewing the Overall Score high.

Based on GPU score alone, the GT80S 980 SLI is much faster.

Apparently the GT80S 45w CPU isn't holding back the 980 SLI from outperforming the 980m SLI GPU scores.

When the GT80S 980 SLI GPU's have been OC'd to run their maximum on 1 330w PSU, it will widen the GPU score gap even further.

The full potential of the 980 SLI can't be realized in the GT80S with only 1 330w power supply, and it doesn't support a 2x 330w configuration.

If the P870DM was tuned to run the same 980 SLI, supporting 2 x 330w power supplies, it would be well worth the effort. I wish they would have done it.

With Pascal coming, it's likely better to put development efforts behind a faster 2 x Pascal solution in an 18" SLI frame.

 

Stock MSI GT80S 980 base clock is 1064Mhz with the Turbo set to 1140Mhz and a vRAM of 1750Mhz. (With the ASIC ranger allowing a maximun "automatic OC" of up to 1228Mhz).

So that bench @ 1300/1900 is a 160+/150+ overclock, the No.1 FS score for all of GT80S SLI 980 and has an only roughly 1k (5%) higher "GPU score" over the 980M SLI in GPU Score...

Here two single 980 results to demonstrate what these cards are capable of when not being crippled:

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/8110562/fs/8109224

A properly working OCed 980 SLI should be 20% higher and well over 30k+ GPU score and not just 26k...

 

The 980m SLI OC's are much higher, and the 980 SLI GPU score is still higher. The 980 SLI could OC further, which will widen the gap, but I think the 980m SLI OC's are at maximum.

The GT80S SLI 980 is faster in GPU score than the 980m SLI, but that isn't the point.

The point is that the 980 SLI in a P870DM with 2 x 330w power supplies enabled would be worth implementing.

As you say, a 30k GPU score is attainable, well worth it

 

Exactly and they can't do that as those boards where build for 980M SLI (power design & cooling) and then simply outfitted with two 980.
They put the those board limiter in place simply to keep them alive...

BTW, two 330W are not even enough to fuel unlocked SLI 980:

https://polldaddy.com/poll/9372297/

 

I voted for the 900w + 2x450w for flexibility when traveling

MSI could do the same thing, given changes to support the higher power, but for whatever reason they won't fully unleash the 980 SLI.

I assume MSI just doesn't want to spend the $ on a larger PSU, or to do the work to support ganging 2x PSU's.

Let's hope someone does

 

Plus.... what are you planning to run on that machine? Not everything uses SLI... probably just a few games, no video postproduction or graphics editing software to the moment uses SLI

 

True. Most professional software in general runs on a single card. More and more games are including SLI/Crossfire support, at least.

 

Oddly on topic, MSI has a new SLI Desktop using the MXM 980 Mobile "Desktop" GPU that was announced at CES 2016, that is just shipping now.

It has all the components that would fit in a GT80S 980 SLI all packed into a cool "Vortex" Cooling design.

The MSI Vortex G65 only has a 450w built in power supply... sigh. IDK why they didn't include a 1000w power supply, except for size constraints, but they should have built around that power requirement.

No benchmarks yet, but here is a new video:

Spoiler

The surprise part, it's got a socketed 6700K CPU

I wonder if that socketed CPU will make it into the next GT80 series models?

MSI says it will support socketed Kaby lake CPU's in the Vortex G65.

 

With two auxiliary power connectors on the MB, wasn't the 870dm designed to support 180w GTX 980 SLI? I can't see any other reason for including two power ports . . . unless nvidia plans on releasing a TitanX mxm module =P.

 

Flexibility of design, two power connectors helps reduce the current at the MXM connectors if they did have two higher power GPUs.

 

I dunno what you would really need that much power for...benchmarking maybe? as it is right now I can pretty much play any game max settings and have the game locked in at whatever refresh rate I set my display to (with vsync on) and I have found no reason to OC them either but I have tried and you can really OC the heck out of the 980m and still have low temps....now why 980m by it self let alone SLI 980m's aren't labeled as VR ready is upsetting, because I feel that for most games it would do fine for VR...

 

At the end of the day, it's the overall score. So The gt80 still loses.

 

To the non-gamer that has the 40 core CPU, I would expect that view

The point of the SLI of the GPU is the GPU, the GPU score, not the CPU.

And, as I mentioned earlier, all those CPU Cores, and high CPU GHZ core speed, and high CPU OC, didn't make the slower GPU SLI faster than the faster GPU SLI with the lower TDP CPU.

 

In this case, isn't it better to just buy GTX 980m sli laptop, and overclock the gpu? Is there going to be a noticeable difference in gaming scenario?

 

To the person who has no clue how two 980's are suppose to run, I would expect that reply.

The point of sli is to work. Not just sit and look cute. Not sure who thought that was the way of things.

And Your GT80 is about about 4k to 6k GPU points off. If you want to know the truth about it.

Me personally, I would have gave it back since that is flat out ridiculous. That's like bragging about owning a lamborghini, but yet you can't get out of 2nd gear on the autobahn. And that is the state of the GT80.
Way to much money for a locked down system, which is what most are arguing. We understand you are happy about it and that is perfectly fine. Nothing wrong with that for you. Now the rest of us want what we paid for, not what they think we should have for what we spent.

You don't need to overclock 980M's to play games.

 

The GT80S 980 SLI with a mild OC is working well enough to outperform 980m SLI at an extreme OC, with a socketed CPU at high OC, all sitting on top of an air-conditioner for extreme cooling

That's kinda even worse, right? A crippled 980 SLI outperforming a fully realized 980m SLI?

The GT80s 980 SLI performance may not be fully realized, while the P870DM 980 SLI isn't at all real, yet.

It will be fun to see which one releases soonest with enough power to stretch it's 980's / Pascal GPU's fully.

 

That's actually easy. The P870DM has the power. What it might lack is the ability to cool it under better than normal conditions.

 

negative...

 

Not Negative "B", it's just the way it is

For now the GT80S 980 SLI is the fastest SLI gaming laptop; highest GPU scores, all on 1 330w PSU + Battery Boost, with a BGA 45w CPU.

It will be fun to see what comes next.

 

I have to agree with this. Going by those scores....The max GPU score should be round 32K. And the better than average is about 31k to 31.5K
OR
Graphics Test 1
125.87 fps
Graphics Test 2
105.22 fps

Should be closer to
Graphics Test 1
155.00 fps
Graphics Test 2
125.00 fps

Now 20 plus FPS is worthy, 2 to 5....not so much unless it's ultra...

 

If ~+1-4fps with added power consumption/heat is worth it, is up to you. I don't overclock anything on the laptop for normal use or gaming.


The desktop stays at 4.5Ghz cpu but I have c-states, speedstep, etc enabled. The gpu in the desktop stays stock as well for gaming.

Only for benching do I overclock. I don't see it as worth it unless the game I'm playing gets a big advantage from an overclock.

 

980
2048 - unified
Core Speed * 1126 - 1228 (Boost) MHz
Memory Speed * 3500 MHz

vs

980M
1536 - unified
Core Speed * 1038 - 1127 (Boost) MHz
Memory Speed * 2500 MHz

 

and they say 980m SLI isn't validated for the Vive or Rift....has anyone with 980m or 980m SLI had a chance to report how these laptops do in the real world?

 

Not many people have the headsets yet, you could try looking out for 970/SLI desktop results and taking a bit off.

 

The headsets are just releasing now, so watch Youtube / etc for uploaded video's for 980m / SLI results, so far I haven't seen any.

Have you run the SteamVR Performance Test? It's about all we have now to pre-test for VR compatibility.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/323910/

My 980m SLI score was 9.8, which is near the top of the Green range, and you can still run VR Low all the way to the bottom of the Yellow range, so I wouldn't worry about it.

Spoiler

To test an SLI GPU you need to set a command line argument, -multigpu by right clicking on the SteamVR Performance Test entry in Steam=>Library, then Click General Tab => Set Launch Options:

Spoiler

Please post your scores to:

SteamVR Performance Test
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/steamvr-performance-test.788566/

Update:
Ahh, now I see you have uploaded a result of 9.3 back on 3/2/2016:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/media/2016-03-02.1289/

I don't think SLI 980m will have any problems running VR at some settings, maybe not Ultra, as a 980ti benchmarks at 10-11, which maximum single card performance, until Pascal.

This performance analysis with GTX970 + GTX980ti is the first I have seen try to quantify metrics for measuring VR performance:

Measuring VR Performance and Experiences with the HTC Vive - A Prologue

Spoiler

Even the 970 seems limited in it's ability to push much past Low quality. But, even so the end view to the VR headset wearer seems well protected, even when game output drops from 90 fps vsync to 45 fps vsync, the "desktop" still syncs at 90 fps.

 

Tom's hardware also has a chart:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/steamvr-performance-test-gpu-comparison,review-33488.html

 

Thanks for that list, I was wondering what the SteamVR score was for a 970, it's 6.9...my single GPU 980m OC score is 6.1 with SLI enabled without -multigpu set, and 6.2 with SLI disabled.

Spoiler

CPU OC 40x cores, 34x cache, GPU OC +135 Core +300 VRAM
SLI Enabled, -multigpu not set so only 1 GPU was used.


CPU OC 42x cores, 36x cache +110mV, GPU OC +135 Core +400 VRAM
SLI Disabled so only 1 GPU was used.

 

The score is basically a chopped FPS graph where you score nothing below a certain FPS.

 

The full details for a SteamVR PT test run shows if there were any frames that dropped below 90 fps, and there are 0 even though the 980m score of 6.1 is below the 970 the visible result should be the same.

The PCPER video discusses what causes visible differences in performance through the headset, and it seems that as long as the 10ms-11ms/frame creation time, your experience is going to be indistinguishable whether they used a 970, 980ti, or Fury X - 980m?

 

The variable detail settings do complicate things a bit (which is why it is scored rather than given an FPS) but you could translate it to FPS given one of the cards FPS at a fixed detail setting pretty accurately I think.

 

It's interesting, with VR, it's all about vsync 90 fps, or 45 fps vsync if it takes too long to create a frame. And, although you can make that 45 fps vsync sequence show it's drops, you may not notice it during normal play.

The other thing affecting perception, is that the "desktop" or "hardware mouse" is fixed at 90 fps vsync - with apparently highest priority - to keep the VR effect alive even with drops in the "content" frame rate.

The PCPER video shows this effect, 970 pushed to High - dropping to 45 fps depending on where you are looking - vs 980ti/Fury X on High.

 

Everyone I waited quite some time for the gt80s titan 980 just like the oculus rift. It's a product that sounds great but the advertising voodoo poo poo has far out misinformed the public of any benfits they have to offer. Then you weigh in the price point and for it to be crippled in more than one way is a total let down.

Again it could be great but it's a product the true enthusiast will look down upon and say shame on you MSI for trying a executing a half baked idea.

If you only want a gt80 to play games buy the 980m version. If you want the full espresso buy the p870dmg, I have owned both. Put them side by side and I would choose the P870dmg every time.

As for the 980 180w cards in the p870 if I had to guess and if they do try it. It won't be released unless it can carry out the job adequately which we can all respect.

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Thanks for sharing your experience. That's pretty awesome that you've tried both. I was considering the GT80S with SLI desktop 980 but it seems, like you said, like a half baked idea. I won't consider unless they release some sort of fix for that battery drain silliness. On another note, I'd like to know how you feel about other aspects of the two laptops in comparison, aside from their GPU situation. For example, how is that nice cherry mechanical keyboard compared to the one is the p870dm. How do the speakers compare? Overall build quality? Did you get to try the "super raid 4" by chance and if so, is it really much faster? If you've posted about this elsewhere, let me know.

 

Just so we are clear and I am not misleading anyone, I waited for the GT80S/980 as I already owned the GT80/980m and I did not purchase it due to the price and skepticism. Around the same time of GT80s/980 rumors I saw the projected delivery on the P870dm and seeing who was supporting the efforts I knew that I was going to be in a better place. I pushed my GT80/980m to its knees with a score of 16900 in firestrike at 4.2 ghz ( http://www.3dmark.com/fs/5422608) but wanted more especially from the CPU (limited gaming due to power restrictions) so I made my decision and purchased the P870dmg. It was a great decision, owning a Prema vendor supported machine is worth every penny because you know that the development is around enthusiast expectations. Several individuals have offered exceptional feedback and performed an abundant amount of testing to make this machine what it is today and because Prema understands the limits and how to code them to be used correctly. It is just want several of us have wanted for the past few years and we finally have it.

The issues I see what the GT80/980 , and that existed on my GT80/980m
1- The power limit, I understand why they did this but it is a complete cripple to the machine I feel they could have widened the power to at least allow what the 980m version would use.
2- Just as you said the battery supplementation for power, causing a drain and then degrading the system during longer gaming sessions. I suggested someone cross wire the power charge/draw and supplement their own but no one has attempted but it could be worked around.
3- The heat from 980 cards is abundant and I don't feel the GT80 can deal with it very well, I really feel they could have made some changes to make things better easily but the didn't to save money.
4- The CPU, it is bga and power limited, its better than previous for sure but with no IHS it shouldn't run as hot as it does, again they could have made changes but didn't to save money.
5- The PCIE ssd setup, for me it made no sense to change the drive configuration the way they did, I don't even care about PCIE ssd as I am not sold on them but to change the config for individuals that wanted to upgrade and still use 4xssds it adds more cost.
6- The 18 screen, the colors just aren't that great once you own a really good panel, no matter what type of software they try and strap you too.
7- The mouse pad and buttons, still feel very cheap and very small. They should have taken the feedback and made some changes to make it better because in its current form its a joke.
8- The sound quality, its just very average I felt the sub woofer wasn't even used really.

The only thing I can say that I like better about the GT80 was the keyboard for the reason of heat and size. The P870dm keyboard doesn't seem to heat up really, nothing like my AW18 or AW17 would so the heat is barely noticeable actually but the GT80 there is none it doesn't exist due to the placement of the components which I like. Next the size, several people don't like the size of the P870dm keyboard, for me I can't notice any problems with it of any kind but a full size mechanical keyboard is just better so there is nothing to compare. The fact it came with a backpack, I really feel more vendors should do this. But that's it that is the only thing it has going from my ownership.

But I want everyone to keep in mind here, right now is a time that we have several great systems to choose from so please don't look at this review as a "Glass half empty" situation because its exactly the opposite. A few years ago we didn't have these choices and now we do!

 

I think you have some valid points about both computers in there, there are some key differences between the two and reasons to get either model, while pointing out why the P870dm was the better choice for you personally. I'd completely agree with you that there are some nice options out there when looking at high end systems. Good, thorough ideas on both systems really.

 

This is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for. Thank you. And yes, even though there are some things that each system could improve on, there are some amazing systems available right now. Just makes it hard to choose...or maybe I should just wait for pascal, argh!

 

Summer is coming, the nice weather is on the way

Maybe invest in some nice outdoor recreational equipment, learn a new outside endeavor, meet fun people that are outdoors for fun too.

Then, just before everyone goes indoors for the Winter, look up what is available online, catch up on the current state of all the top models, and order one to bed down with for the long haul through the cold season.

Probably cheaper than getting geared up and traveling for Winter Skiing

 

For us, it usually means triple digits (Fahrenheit). I'd prefer to bunk down then and emerge from the den during Winter.

 

Detach from the City of Industry, and hit the Beaches!

The Best 10 Beaches in City of Industry, CA
http://www.yelp.com/search?cflt=beaches&find_loc=City+of+Industry,+CA

 

Don't you know it! I'm actually quite fond of Seal Beach (the pier). Thanks scott!

 

I'm on that map.

 

Me too I like the nearby exploratorium museum too!