To SLI or not SLI...

[mistercrabby]

that is the question.

I have this in my rig now. Should I pair it up at approx 100 bucks or get a new single card?

recommendations please?

EVGA 012-P3-2066-KR GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 448 Cores FTW 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI

 

[Lil'John]

You might want to include intended games and resolution.

I ran things like Civ 5, Borderlands 2, Lego Marvel Super Heroes, plus a few I can't recall on SLI'd ASUS 560ti Direct Cu's with no noticeable problems on max settings at 1080P.

But some people have issues with SLI... more sensitive eyes

I recently upgraded to a pair of 970s in SLI mostly for giggles

The pair of 560s will be going into my wife's computer that will look similar to yours(4790k)

 

[kasakka]

For 1080p not much point in SLI. I'd probably just sell the 560Ti and get a 970 (or the upcoming 960).

 

[stahlhart]

Seconded. You'd get roughly a little more than a single 580 in terms of raw performance, but 1.25Gb seems low for current games, even at 1080p.

 

[n0x1ous]

Time to move on my friend......290

 

[netxzero64]

970 SLi is bang for the buck if you're looking for some good upgrades. though still consider what games you'll be playing and on how much level of detail you would prefer playing.

 

[HumblePie]

My vote goes to the GTX 970. Deals are around now making them sub $300. I picked up two at $298 shipped each. A single card would be more powerful than two 560 TI cards in SLI. As well as quieter, cooler, and less power draw.

 

[Rvenger]

I tried for weeks to get a sub $300 GTX 970. You really can't find them anywhere if it's bundled with the games.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Going sli/crossfire with anything under 3gb these days is looking more and more like a waste.You drop settings and a 2gb is good for games but going sli with a 2gb card and you got more power but lack the vram to even enable higher settings.

Anyone with a 2gb or lower card pretty much would be wasting their time grabbing a identical card,unless they play a special game they love that doesn't push 2gb but requires more performance.

 

[toyota]

SLI brings even more problems so zero point in fooling with it if you can buy a single card that as fast. 560 ti SLI is poor option anyway as 1.25 GB of vram is not enough plus that card is outdated and only going to get farther behind with newer games.

 

[HumblePie]

I tried for weeks to get a sub $300 GTX 970. You really can't find them anywhere if it's bundled with the games.

I got two of them for $298 with the nvidia pick your path bundles on each. I even posted the deal in hot deals when it happened.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2410910

No one seemed to think much of it when I made the post.

 

[WittyRemark]

Get a new single card like GTX970 or a cheap R9 290.
Let that 560ti Rest In Piece.
There's no point in SLI'ing it.

 

[poohbear]

i had gtx 670s SLI for 2 years, and when i upgraded to one GTX 970 card i realized all this time they've had massive micro-stuttering and all kinds of issues that i assumed was game based, but turns out it was a result of SLI. Games i've revisited play so smooth now and the main game i upgraded to (dragon age inquisition) runs so much smoother without SLI. FPS does NOT tell the whole picture as there are texture flickering, microstuttering, and strange crashes. Nvidia simply hasn't been giving it the attention it needs and worse of all new games are hit and miss with SLI support. Really not worth it in my opinion, especially @ 1080p as u simply don't need it at that rez. SLI is for 1440+, but i'm done with it and never doing it again.

 

[netxzero64]

^ no stuttering for me. I had tested my setup on a lot of games. namely tomb raider, ghost recon (latest one), splinter cell blacklist, hitman absolution, HoN, LoL, Mechwarrior online and watchdogs.

Truly, i know SLI has its problems but from what i am seeing, it gets better but still needs a lot of work. my friend used to have a setup like yours with the 670 in SLI and its more problematic than my 970 SLI. So could this be also architecture related or purely drivers? that I don't know.

 

[HumblePie]

Never had any stuttering problem with my 6970s in crossfire nor my 5970s in crossfire before them. I have played around a bit with my 970's in sli and not noticing any stutter at all in various games. I tried comparing them running in SLI enabled and disabled to see if there was a difference and beyond a drop in framerate, as long as the framerate was smooth the gameplay was smooth in either setup.

Not sure what to say about the microstutter issue. I have seen it in older card configurations so it's not like something I don't know how to recognize. I do see it in SLI/Xfire configs if the framerates drop below 40 in some games. Where a single card will still look fairly smooth from 30-39 frames per second, an SLI config can look a bit choppy at that some same framerates I saw in some MMO games.