The Power of Multi-Adapter Gaming: A Experiment with High-Performance Cards

I recently had the opportunity to experiment with multi-adapter gaming using two high-performance graphics cards, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 TI and AMD Radeon RX 480. The idea behind this setup is to pair a powerful card with another card that can keep up with its performance, resulting in improved frame rates and smoother gameplay.

When I tried pairing the 980 TI with my GTX 1060 (not 210 but 1060), as promised, I was disappointed to find that it was unable to open the game. However, when I paired the RX 480 with the 980 TI, things improved significantly. The TX 980 Ti still held its own and didn't slow down the RX 480 to any substantial extent, but the RX 480 prevented the 980 TI from rendering tiles at full speed.

To better understand the performance of this setup, I decided to pair the 980 TI with the RX 480 in a different configuration. In this arrangement, the 980 TI was inserted into the top slot, and the RX 480 was inserted into the lower slot. The display cable was plugged into the 980 TI, which became the primary display device. To ensure that both cards were functioning properly, I had to reinstall both sets of drivers.

It is recommended to install drivers in a specific order to achieve optimal results. When installing the primary display driver first and then the secondary card's drivers, you may experience a better overall performance and frame rate gain. However, it is worth noting that this setup didn't result in significantly better performance than expected.

To further test the capabilities of multi-adapter gaming, I paired the 980 TI with an AMD Radeon RX 9380 and found similar results to those obtained from pairing the X480 with the 980 TI combination. Although the total price of the AMD set was significantly lower than the NVIDIA setup, both configurations offered impressive performance gains.

The potential for multi-adapter gaming is vast, and it appears that using EMA (Enhanced Multi-Adapter) can be more efficient than current SLI and Crossfire systems. By pairing two cards with similar compute performance together, you can achieve better results and smoother gameplay. However, it's essential to note that this setup requires careful planning and configuration to ensure optimal performance.

In conclusion, multi-adapter gaming is an exciting area of development, and experiments like the one I conducted can provide valuable insights into its potential. By pushing the boundaries of what is possible with high-performance graphics cards, we can create more immersive and engaging gaming experiences.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enlet's continue our thorough investigation of the rx480 amd's newest release I've already uploaded my initial review of the rx40 check it out right here as well as a discussion on the power draw issue which I experienced firsthand by the way and an ultra cheap PC simulating a sharp CPU bottleneck indulge yourself in those Curiosities once this first card moves out of the way now remember what the intent of the rx480 is not was but is nothing has changed since the release date this video card exists for the sake of budget conscious gamers in both 1080P and 1440p AMD also claims that VR is a possibility with this card if paired with an adequate platform but I'm not big into vrs of yet and experiences for the most part are fairly subjective so what I decided to do in this video was pair the card with my GTX 980ti now I've already discussed explicit multi- adapter in Grand detail in a video you can check out right here but something I did not mention because I accidentally edited that segment of the video out before the Final Cut Is that GPU order matters and what I mean by that is that the card arrangement in terms of which is placed in the top pcie slot and which is placed underneath subsequently can dramatically affect performance this is why I placed my 980 TI in the top slot when I ran it simultaneously with the GTX 1070 The 980 TI was the better performer and theoretically had I rotated the two frame rates would have fractionally diminished with this combination however I'm just morbidly curious clearly the 980 TI is the all-around better card and according to these independent tests that is with only one card in the test bench at a time the 9 TI yielded twice the frame rate of the rx480 across the board but what will happen when we place the rx480 in the top slot like so and the GTX 90 TI which is in the rate currently underneath it mid-range card with one of the best available and then again in Reverse what will happen when we place the 980 TI on the top and the rx480 underneath enough the chitchat on my end let's find out first up was the rx480 in the top slot keep in mind this is also the card from which our display cable will run I had to install both the AMD Crimson driver for the 480 as well as the Nvidia driver from scratch these weren't plug andplay once both cards were installed and detected I hopped into ashes of the singularity direct X12 mode and enabled multi-gpu support the results shocked me a bit in all honesty I expected the frame rates to fall somewhere just above the 980 TI's independent frame rates but that was not the case at all in fact in two of the three batches and the average overall the combo didn't keep up with a single TI disappointing given the fact that the combo hypothetically would have cost an additional 33% here in the US so what this is telling me is that explicit adapter is leveraging the primary display device much more heavily than I presumed it was I actually came up with an analogy to help explain this a little better y bear with me on this one but I want you to picture a wagon got it a wagon and a gentleman by the name of rx480 up front he's a fairly fast fellow not the quickest but efficient and productive he's pulling the wagon at his usual Pace again quickly but not the quickest now imagine a second gentleman or woman I suppose in this case pushing the same wagon from behind her name is gtx980ti now she is quick I'm talking you saying both quick and she uses her insane speed to push the wagon from behind as fast as she can well she wants to but there's a problem she's being held up by the RX 480 up front she'll give the 480 a boost and force him to pull a good bit faster but if she pushes too fast she'll topple the 480 and tear some flesh off his bones equivalent to the massive screen tearing see what I did there you would experience if a very weak card was paired with an overpowered one and this is why it's recommended that two cards of similar compute performance be paired together otherwise you'll have one card rendering individual Tiles at Lightning Fast rates and the other card lagging far behind with its tile rendering hence the screen tearing by the way I tried pairing the 980 TI with my g210 as promised that's a card with 2,816 cacor paired with a card boasting only 16 of those but was unable to open the game the rx480 thankfully is nowhere near this week it still holds its own it doesn't slow down the 980 TI to any substantial extent however it is worth noting that the 480 did prevent the 980 TI underneath from rendering tiles of each frame at its full speed following suit we have the 980 TI paired with the rx480 in which the ti was inserted into the top slot and the rx480 was inserted into the one underneath the display cable was plugged into the 980ti the primary display device I should note at this point that I had to reinstall both sets of drivers the computer freaked out booted into its ultra low resolution mode and prompted for driver updates when I switched them so I uninstalled everything and reinstalled both sets starting first with the primary display driver it is recommended that you install in this order and as for the results better not significantly better but better overall and and across the board we're looking at around 15 to 20% frame rate gain still not enough in my opinion to justify the second card's existence but I expect better optimization in the future to increase these margins also keep in mind that ashes is currently the only game that officially supports explicit multi- adapter so unless you plan on playing only ashes of the singularity on your bright and shiny new rig which I highly doubt don't go this route in this case the 90 TI was pulling the wagon from the front at its usual lightning fast pace and was being aided by the rx480 from behind in this Arrangement the 980 TI wasn't being held back by the 480 rather the ti was forcing the 480 to keep up and every now and then a few steps of the 480 would push the wagon even faster remember the efficiency of this directx12 technology depends almost entirely on the performance gap between the two cards being paired AMD cards appear to do a bit better than Nvidia in this regard thanks to Hardware based asynchronous compute and reduced driver overhead and again cards of similar compute performance work better in tandem I tested an r9380 with the rx480 and found that the results of this pair weren't far from those obtained from the x480 plus 980ti combination although the total price of the AMD set was significantly lower likewise pairing the GTX 980 TI with the GTX 1070 yielded massive gains as well 50% overall from just a single 980 ti so here it is folks the current state of explicit multi-adapter let's hope this trend continues in future direct X12 titles the possibilities are endless here and it appears as though EMA is as efficient if not more efficient than the current states of both SLI and Crossfire if you like the experiments conducted in this video be sure to give this thing a thumbs up give it a thumbs down if you feel the complete opposite or if you hate everything about life be sure to follow me on Twitter at scst Salazar I've got the little yeah just look at that right there it's also in the description as well along with my Facebook and Instagram handles and I guess URL for the Facebook thing uh be sure to suggest future video ideas in the comment sections below remember I read all comments I really do I scroll I actually today I scroll through like 230 of them and replied to about 20 there's about a 10% chance I'll respond if you respond a day after the video's been posted I tend to read most of my comments uh immediately after the video has been uploaded I just stick around so I'll upload the video and then I'll refresh the page every minute or so and respond to as many of them as I can so if you catch the video early you might be able to talk with me a little bit more uh be sure to stay tuned for we're going to do one more experiment with the rx48 I'm going to pair it with the fx6300 should be interesting being that that right now is a pretty good sweet spot for the average CPU uh in a gaming rig and so I'll be able to throw that in there we'll see how that works out and I'm just kind of babbling on at this point because I want the video to seem longer than it actually is this is science Studio video thanks for learning with uslet's continue our thorough investigation of the rx480 amd's newest release I've already uploaded my initial review of the rx40 check it out right here as well as a discussion on the power draw issue which I experienced firsthand by the way and an ultra cheap PC simulating a sharp CPU bottleneck indulge yourself in those Curiosities once this first card moves out of the way now remember what the intent of the rx480 is not was but is nothing has changed since the release date this video card exists for the sake of budget conscious gamers in both 1080P and 1440p AMD also claims that VR is a possibility with this card if paired with an adequate platform but I'm not big into vrs of yet and experiences for the most part are fairly subjective so what I decided to do in this video was pair the card with my GTX 980ti now I've already discussed explicit multi- adapter in Grand detail in a video you can check out right here but something I did not mention because I accidentally edited that segment of the video out before the Final Cut Is that GPU order matters and what I mean by that is that the card arrangement in terms of which is placed in the top pcie slot and which is placed underneath subsequently can dramatically affect performance this is why I placed my 980 TI in the top slot when I ran it simultaneously with the GTX 1070 The 980 TI was the better performer and theoretically had I rotated the two frame rates would have fractionally diminished with this combination however I'm just morbidly curious clearly the 980 TI is the all-around better card and according to these independent tests that is with only one card in the test bench at a time the 9 TI yielded twice the frame rate of the rx480 across the board but what will happen when we place the rx480 in the top slot like so and the GTX 90 TI which is in the rate currently underneath it mid-range card with one of the best available and then again in Reverse what will happen when we place the 980 TI on the top and the rx480 underneath enough the chitchat on my end let's find out first up was the rx480 in the top slot keep in mind this is also the card from which our display cable will run I had to install both the AMD Crimson driver for the 480 as well as the Nvidia driver from scratch these weren't plug andplay once both cards were installed and detected I hopped into ashes of the singularity direct X12 mode and enabled multi-gpu support the results shocked me a bit in all honesty I expected the frame rates to fall somewhere just above the 980 TI's independent frame rates but that was not the case at all in fact in two of the three batches and the average overall the combo didn't keep up with a single TI disappointing given the fact that the combo hypothetically would have cost an additional 33% here in the US so what this is telling me is that explicit adapter is leveraging the primary display device much more heavily than I presumed it was I actually came up with an analogy to help explain this a little better y bear with me on this one but I want you to picture a wagon got it a wagon and a gentleman by the name of rx480 up front he's a fairly fast fellow not the quickest but efficient and productive he's pulling the wagon at his usual Pace again quickly but not the quickest now imagine a second gentleman or woman I suppose in this case pushing the same wagon from behind her name is gtx980ti now she is quick I'm talking you saying both quick and she uses her insane speed to push the wagon from behind as fast as she can well she wants to but there's a problem she's being held up by the RX 480 up front she'll give the 480 a boost and force him to pull a good bit faster but if she pushes too fast she'll topple the 480 and tear some flesh off his bones equivalent to the massive screen tearing see what I did there you would experience if a very weak card was paired with an overpowered one and this is why it's recommended that two cards of similar compute performance be paired together otherwise you'll have one card rendering individual Tiles at Lightning Fast rates and the other card lagging far behind with its tile rendering hence the screen tearing by the way I tried pairing the 980 TI with my g210 as promised that's a card with 2,816 cacor paired with a card boasting only 16 of those but was unable to open the game the rx480 thankfully is nowhere near this week it still holds its own it doesn't slow down the 980 TI to any substantial extent however it is worth noting that the 480 did prevent the 980 TI underneath from rendering tiles of each frame at its full speed following suit we have the 980 TI paired with the rx480 in which the ti was inserted into the top slot and the rx480 was inserted into the one underneath the display cable was plugged into the 980ti the primary display device I should note at this point that I had to reinstall both sets of drivers the computer freaked out booted into its ultra low resolution mode and prompted for driver updates when I switched them so I uninstalled everything and reinstalled both sets starting first with the primary display driver it is recommended that you install in this order and as for the results better not significantly better but better overall and and across the board we're looking at around 15 to 20% frame rate gain still not enough in my opinion to justify the second card's existence but I expect better optimization in the future to increase these margins also keep in mind that ashes is currently the only game that officially supports explicit multi- adapter so unless you plan on playing only ashes of the singularity on your bright and shiny new rig which I highly doubt don't go this route in this case the 90 TI was pulling the wagon from the front at its usual lightning fast pace and was being aided by the rx480 from behind in this Arrangement the 980 TI wasn't being held back by the 480 rather the ti was forcing the 480 to keep up and every now and then a few steps of the 480 would push the wagon even faster remember the efficiency of this directx12 technology depends almost entirely on the performance gap between the two cards being paired AMD cards appear to do a bit better than Nvidia in this regard thanks to Hardware based asynchronous compute and reduced driver overhead and again cards of similar compute performance work better in tandem I tested an r9380 with the rx480 and found that the results of this pair weren't far from those obtained from the x480 plus 980ti combination although the total price of the AMD set was significantly lower likewise pairing the GTX 980 TI with the GTX 1070 yielded massive gains as well 50% overall from just a single 980 ti so here it is folks the current state of explicit multi-adapter let's hope this trend continues in future direct X12 titles the possibilities are endless here and it appears as though EMA is as efficient if not more efficient than the current states of both SLI and Crossfire if you like the experiments conducted in this video be sure to give this thing a thumbs up give it a thumbs down if you feel the complete opposite or if you hate everything about life be sure to follow me on Twitter at scst Salazar I've got the little yeah just look at that right there it's also in the description as well along with my Facebook and Instagram handles and I guess URL for the Facebook thing uh be sure to suggest future video ideas in the comment sections below remember I read all comments I really do I scroll I actually today I scroll through like 230 of them and replied to about 20 there's about a 10% chance I'll respond if you respond a day after the video's been posted I tend to read most of my comments uh immediately after the video has been uploaded I just stick around so I'll upload the video and then I'll refresh the page every minute or so and respond to as many of them as I can so if you catch the video early you might be able to talk with me a little bit more uh be sure to stay tuned for we're going to do one more experiment with the rx48 I'm going to pair it with the fx6300 should be interesting being that that right now is a pretty good sweet spot for the average CPU uh in a gaming rig and so I'll be able to throw that in there we'll see how that works out and I'm just kind of babbling on at this point because I want the video to seem longer than it actually is this is science Studio video thanks for learning with us\n"