Thursday, May 12th 2016

NVIDIA to Focus on 2-way SLI with GeForce "Pascal"

May 12th, 2016 05:36 Discuss (63 Comments)

At its GeForce GTX 1080 launch event, NVIDIA is said to have told the press that with its GeForce "Pascal" series, the company will focus on 2-way SLI "for maximum performance," implying an uncertain future for 3-way and 4-way SLI. The company's new SLI HB bridge introduced with the GTX 1080, enables higher bandwidth between two graphics cards in SLI, letting them more reliably render games at high resolutions. On the downside, this new bridge occupies both SLI contact points on each card, in 2-way SLI.

It might still be possible to do 3-way and 4-way SLI using a classic 3-way or 4-way bridge included with your motherboard. You'd be at the mercy of applications somehow being able to take advantage of 3-4 GPUs, NVIDIA on its part, will likely only optimize its drivers for 2-way SLI. The knight in shining armour here is DirectX 12 native multi-GPU, which doesn't care how many GPUs you're using, or if they're even the same kind (as long as the GPUs and the app support Direct3D 12).

Source: TechofTomorrow (YouTube)

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63 Comments on NVIDIA to Focus on 2-way SLI with GeForce "Pascal"

medi01

"Buy more cards"

PS
Notable mention:
wccftech.com/amd-radeon-r9-fury-quad-crossfire-nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-quad-sli-uhd-benchmarks/

bug

medi01"Buy more cards"

PS
Notable mention:
wccftech.com/amd-radeon-r9-fury-quad-crossfire-nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-quad-sli-uhd-benchmarks/

Actually stepping back from 3 and 4-way SLI means exactly the opposite. Probably there weren't that many uptakers to worth keeping up the support.

qubit

Overclocked quantum bit

What happened to the advanced SLI that NVIDIA were touting a couple of years ago with Pascal? They actually had an article on their website about it that was reported here. This was going to get rid of duplicated memory so that two 8 gig cards would show as one 16 gig and other improvements to make scaling much better.

All they've done here is slightly improve the current architecture with bigger bandwidth.

@btarunr If you're able to find that article that would be really helpful.

Solidstate89

qubitWhat happened to the advanced SLI that NVIDIA were touting a couple of years ago with Pascal? They actually had an article on their website about it that was reported here. This was going to get rid of duplicated memory so that two 8 gig cards would show as one 16 gig and other improvements to make scaling much better.

All they've done here is slightly improve the current architecture with bigger bandwidth.

@btarunr If you're able to find that article that would be really helpful.

Aren't you talking about NVLink and the ability to communicate between GPUs without going to the CPU first? I think that's what you're referring to, but that isn't about SLI, that's about compute server loads and is only available in IBM POWER configurations.

Caring1

I thought that was HBM where multiple GPU's basically add up the amount of Vram. *shrugs

the54thvoid

Intoxicated Moderator

medi01Notable mention:
wccftech.com/amd-radeon-r9-fury-quad-crossfire-nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-quad-sli-uhd-benchmarks/

It's no secret quad sli doesn't work. It wasn't supported by Nvidia at driver level, IIRC.

Chaitanya

the54thvoidIt's no secret quad sli doesn't work. It wasn't supported by Nvidia at driver level, IIRC.

Other than computes, when it comes to gaming the more gpus you have gains go down quite a bit. Beyond 2 Gpus there are very little gains to be had from multi gpu setups.

PP Mguire

ChaitanyaOther than computes, when it comes to gaming the more gpus you have gains go down quite a bit. Beyond 2 Gpus there are very little gains to be had from multi gpu setups.

All depends on the game.

acperience7

You can only make chips so small, and only so power efficient, and only so powerful. How is there not more focus on multi GPU configurations?

#10

Gamer_Gr

Nice sli bridge

#11

TheinsanegamerN

SLI was already a niche of the GPU market, supossedly with only 1-2% or users using it. triple sli was a mere fraction of that, and quad sli was a fraction of THAT. It wouldn't surprise me if they dropped support for more than 2 way SLI.

#12

trog100

i tried two separate ribbon cables on my pair of 980ti cards.. as much for appearance sake as anything else.. but i had to takes the second one off.. two produced a strange interference like line pattern in 3d gaming mode..

i dont know exactly why but i guess at some kind cross chatter between the two cables.. but ether way it didnt work that well.. he he

way back in the day the idea with multiple cards was a simple one.. start off with one and then as need or finance permits add more cards.. a very good idea that in practise didnt work out as intended.. :)

trog

#13

medi01

That goes in contrast with what AMD is pushing for ("multi GPU aware" development, dafuq that means)

#14

bug

trog100i tried two separate ribbon cables on my pair of 980ti cards.. as much for appearance sake as anything else.. but i had to takes the second one off.. two produced a strange interference like line pattern in 3d gaming mode..

i dont know exactly why but i guess at some kind cross chatter between the two cables.. but ether way it didnt work that well.. he he

way back in the day the idea with multiple cards was a simple one.. start off with one and then as need or finance permits add more cards.. a very good idea that in practise didnt work out as intended.. :)

trog

If it's long enough, twisting the cable (twice) will make it cope better with interference. Otherwise, parallel cables tend to work like an antenna.

#15

spectatorx

Changelog for nvidia driver v376.66:
-removed support for 3 and 4 gpu sli configurations to improve compatibility between supported operating systems.

P.S.
Yes, i'm making fun of nvidia which removed in one of linux drivers support for more than 3 displays.

#16

peche

Thermaltake fanboy

in "Pascal Cards" video cards, 2 video cards controls you ....

#17

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder

My question is, where can we buy these new bridges and how much are they going to charge? I know normally the bridge comes with the motherboard, but most people buying pascal already have motherboard, and the motherboards for sale right now aren't coming with them either. So are they going to bundle them with the cards?

I'd be nice if nVidia would just send you one for free, or extremely cheap like $5, if you provide proof of buying two 1080/1070 cards.

#18

PP Mguire

newtekie1My question is, where can we buy these new bridges and how much are they going to charge? I know normally the bridge comes with the motherboard, but most people buying pascal already have motherboard, and the motherboards for sale right now aren't coming with them either. So are they going to bundle them with the cards?

I'd be nice if nVidia would just send you one for free, or extremely cheap like $5, if you provide proof of buying two 1080/1070 cards.

Off their site, and more than likely going to cost 40 bucks like their last set of bridges.

#19

nickbaldwin86

Love that bridge with those cards... not sure how it will flow with "after market" cards. EVGA will surely bring a Pascal SLI bridge that will flow with their cards! and same as ASUS and MSI and Gigabyte...such...

#20

Casecutter

With TPU... If this Article was about RTG the title would be more.
"Radeon No Longer Supports C-F above 2-Way for Polaris; Kaput and Abandoned, Suspect sustaining on Previous Cards"

But here for Nvidia it's spun as a positive! Almost advertisement for a probably $50 widget, that RGT figured out how to do away with.

#21

nickbaldwin86

CasecutterWith TPU... If this Article was about RTG the title would be more.
"Radeon No Longer Supports C-F above 2-Way for Polaris; Kaput and Abandoned, Suspect sustaining on Previous Cards"

But here for Nvidia it's spun as a positive! Almost advertisement for a probably $50 widget, that RGT figured out how to do away with.

Go spin on your head

#22

Casecutter

^ Truth.

#23

Prima.Vera

If they make the new SLI implementations for dual setups from current 70% more to, let's say, 90%, I would call this a success.

#24

HisDivineOrder

The majority of gamers running SLI ran 2-card SLI. I think if they focus on making that a more optimized option, that'd be good.

I suspect, however, the future of SLI is in each card producing an image for an eye on VR setups.

#25

bug

HisDivineOrderThe majority of gamers running SLI ran 2-card SLI. I think if they focus on making that a more optimized option, that'd be good.

I suspect, however, the future of SLI is in each card producing an image for an eye on VR setups.

That could be suboptimal. Think about a flight sim in space, where you're flying close to a planet. You look one way, the planet is on the right, space and stars on the left: one card has lots of stuff to render, the other is mostly idling. Then you turn your head in the opposite direction and the situation reverses. I think cards will always be used to split the work.

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NVIDIA to Focus on 2-way SLI with GeForce "Pascal"

63 Comments on NVIDIA to Focus on 2-way SLI with GeForce "Pascal"

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