The Limits of Triple-GPU SLI: A Hands-On Experiment

In this article, we'll delve into the world of triple-GPU SLI and explore its limitations when it comes to gaming performance. We'll take a closer look at our hands-on experiment, which pitted three mid-range graphics cards against each other in a battle for supremacy.

Our setup consisted of three mid-range NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970s, connected via SLI technology. We ran the games Dirt Showdown, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, and BioShock Infinite, as well as Tomb Raider, to test the performance of our triple-GPU configuration. Our goal was to see if the added power of three graphics cards would translate into a significant boost in gaming performance.

As expected, our results were somewhat underwhelming. In Dirt Showdown and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, we didn't notice any noticeable hitching or stuttering, even at high frame rates. However, Tomb Raider did exhibit some minor stuttering at 2560x1440 resolution, which was more pronounced when playing at 444 Hz or 4K resolution.

While our triple-GPU setup didn't quite meet our expectations, we were surprised by the lack of significant performance gains in Dirt Showdown and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. These games are often cited as good candidates for SLI testing, but even with three mid-range graphics cards, we only saw minor benefits.

In contrast, the performance advantage was more noticeable when playing Tomb Raider, especially at higher resolutions. However, this came at a cost – our system's power consumption increased significantly due to the additional load on the three graphics cards. Our temperature readings were also spiking, particularly for the middle card in the SLI setup.

One of the most significant drawbacks of triple-GPU SLI is its impact on system airflow and noise levels. With two cards taking up two expansion slots, it can be challenging to fit other components into your system's case, such as PCI Express SSDs or sound cards. Our own experience with a 970 rig was that it was much louder than our dual 980 setup, despite having the same overall power draw.

Our experiment has some important implications for gamers who might consider upgrading their systems to take advantage of SLI. While triple-GPU SLI may offer some benefits in certain games, they are likely to be outweighed by the additional cost, noise, and heat generated by this configuration.

That being said, there are still scenarios where triple-GPU SLI can make sense – such as 3D rendering or cryptocurrency mining, where the added processing power can be beneficial. However, for most gamers who want to play at high resolutions or frame rates, a dual-GPU setup is likely to be sufficient and more cost-effective.

In conclusion, our experiment has shed some light on the limitations of triple-GPU SLI in gaming performance. While it may offer some benefits in certain situations, the added complexity and cost are likely to outweigh any advantages for most gamers. As with any technology, it's essential to weigh the pros and cons before deciding whether or not to invest in a multi-GPU setup.

Online Sponsor: Tech Tips

As we continue to explore the world of computer hardware, we're proud to partner with Tech Tips, a company that helps you better understand the guts of your electronic devices. Whether you're a seasoned DIYer or just starting out, their expert guide and tear-downs can provide invaluable insights into the inner workings of your gear.

From phone repairs to iMac retina 5K upgrades, Tech Tips has got you covered. Their Pro Tech Toolkit is an essential tool for anyone who wants to tinker with electronics – featuring 70 tools, including a 54-bit driver kit, precision tweezers, and anti-static wrist straps. Plus, their toolkits come with a lifetime warranty.

We recently used the guide provided by Tech Tips to create our upcoming video on upgrading the internals of an iMac retina 5K. Their teardowns are incredibly detailed and informative, making it easier for us to share our knowledge with you – our readers.

If you're interested in upgrading your own system or learning more about computer hardware, we recommend checking out Tech Tips' Pro Tech Toolkit. With a special offer just for our readers, you can get started with the toolkit for only $64.95 – plus a 10% discount when using our exclusive code LINUS.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwelcome to the dual gtx 980 versus triple gtx 970 showdown both of these solutions cost over a thousand dollars for the video cards alone and bring a monstrous amount of gaming horsepower to the table but only one can be victorious today stay tuned for the stunning conclusion and also don't miss our journey back to the parking lot where it all started for an outdoor unboxing of the phanteks and through evolve old school ltt style from december 13th to 20th 2014 you can save on select intel cpus nux and ssds with special holiday rebates from select retailers click now to learn more now i often get misquoted as saying that you shouldn't buy two graphics cards if there's a more powerful single gpu option available but and we've talked a fair bit about sli scaling recently including in this video right here there is one exception to this rule that almost always holds true the second tier the one just under the flagship graphics card is usually based on the same processing core is cut down in a way that doesn't affect performance too dramatically it overclocks like mad and is much less expensive so if you can stretch your budget two of those sometimes doesn't cost much more than one flagship card because they don't carry that best of the best price premium but linus what if one top of the line or even two second fiddle graphics cards just isn't enough gpu for me well my first response to that would be why the heck not that's an awful lot of video card power and my second response would be i'm just kidding i know you can never have enough video card power especially if you want a game at 4k or at very high frame rates i was just messing with you guys so let's take a look at the contenders today nvidia's top of the line uber card du jour is the gtx 980 it features a base clock of 11 26 megahertz a boost clock of 1216 megahertz four gigs of gpu memory clocked at seven gigahertz and 2048 cuda cores sounds awesome right well it should because it costs over 550 dollars each to pick up one of these puppies and just over eleven hundred dollars for the two of them that you'll need to take advantage of that rog swift 1440p 144 hertz monitor or that brand new 4k 60hz gaming monitor if you want to play the latest aaa titles but maybe there's another way the gtx 970 by comparison is clocked at 10 50 megahertz on the core has a boost clock of 1178 megahertz also features 4 gigs of gpu memory clocked at 7 gigahertz and has 16 064 cuda cores less than the gtx 980 but it's not exactly a slouch either and it weighs in at only 340 meaning that three of these would actually cost less than two gtx 980s so let's start with the raw fps data here shall we across the board average frame rates were really close between our two test configurations on our core i7 5960x extreme edition test platform tomb raider continues to be the poster child for multi-gpu gaming with about a 20 performance advantage at a ten percent lower cost for the three-way setup booyah far cry 3 and crysis 3 tell a different story however both show solid results for the triple config if we just look at the charts but while sitting in front of them at 1440p was fine so you high refresh rate gamers would be happy with this config at 4k the stuttering and hitching was unbearable with three graphics cards and dual 980s delivered a much smoother gaming experience the rest of our games dirt showdown middle-earth shadow of mordor and bioshock infinite didn't have noticeable hitching or stuttering but also didn't demonstrate the same performance advantage as tomb raider for our three-way configuration something i would have had to see if i was going to recommend 3-way sli for folks who play more than just the games that happen to run really really well on it especially when you consider that a triple graphics card configuration has other disadvantages as well in-game power consumption was actually closer than i expected probably because the utilization of the third gpu is never going to be as much as the second which is never as much as the first so this was basically a draw but both the temperatures at which our cards were running and the experience of sitting there next to them were a little bit uncomfortable for me our 970 rig was much louder and especially the middle sandwiched gpu ran much hotter than either of our better space 980s and that's with a fan blowing directly over top of them not to mention that two cards will take up fewer of the available expansion slots on your motherboard that you might like to use for pci express ssds sound cards or other fancy new functionality for your system as it becomes available so what's conclusion time for gaming i just don't think the added bang for the buck of the three-way config of second-tier cards compensates whoops for the disadvantages associated with this kind of a setup you could possibly make an argument for it if you were planning to use your system for things other than gaming like 3d rendering or cryptocurrency mining or something like that but frankly even then the higher clock speed and additional cuda cores of the 980s means that unless the 970s are scaling nearly perfectly the performance is going to be similar anyhow and by the time you're spending a thousand dollars on gpus what's another 100 bucks to get a much more elegant solution so that's all there is really to it this was a fun experiment but the conclusion didn't shake the foundations of the pre-existing knowledge we had on the topic it just gave us a clear understanding of what folks who want to run at 2560 by 1441 444 hertz or 4k 60hz need to power their setups speaking of clearer understanding we have a new sponsor online as tech tips that helps you better understand the guts of all your electronic devices i fix it you may know i fix it from their tear downs of a multitude of gadgets like their phones like the imac retina 5k their guide for which i actually followed to create my upcoming imac 5k internals upgrade video but what you may not know about them is that they also have a full lineup of professional electronics tools the cornerstone of their tool lineup is the pro tech toolkit which includes 70 tools to assist you with any mod or malfunction on one of your little electronic gizmos the protec tool kit includes a 54-bit driver kit which features standard specialty and security bits it's got esd safe precision tweezers an anti-static wrist strap or you can wear it on your ankle like i do uh prying a bunch of prying tools and both nylon and metal spudgers i never leave home without my protect tool kit as i can always find a use for it when i'm working with electronics and you can purchase the kit over at ifixit.com linus where it's available for only 64.95 which by the way includes a lifetime warranty i actually didn't know that but wait if you use our offer code linus you can actually save 10 bucks on the protect tool kit or any other purchase over 50 bucks so if i fix it you can fix it yourself and if you guys don't believe this obviously written by nick so like very strong endorsement if i fix it it's actually all true in this case um i bought my my protect tool kit myself i paid my own real money for it over a year ago and uh it's just a fluke that they advertise with us now i absolutely love my kit and they're great guys over there so uh i think that's pretty much it guys like the video if you liked it dislike it if you just liked it leave a comment if your feelings are more complicated than this also check out the link in the video description to support us you can buy a cool t-shirt like this one give us a monthly contribution or change your amazon bookmarked one with our affiliate code so we got a small kickback whenever you buy new graphics cards or whatever else the case may be thanks again for watching and as always don't forget to subscribewelcome to the dual gtx 980 versus triple gtx 970 showdown both of these solutions cost over a thousand dollars for the video cards alone and bring a monstrous amount of gaming horsepower to the table but only one can be victorious today stay tuned for the stunning conclusion and also don't miss our journey back to the parking lot where it all started for an outdoor unboxing of the phanteks and through evolve old school ltt style from december 13th to 20th 2014 you can save on select intel cpus nux and ssds with special holiday rebates from select retailers click now to learn more now i often get misquoted as saying that you shouldn't buy two graphics cards if there's a more powerful single gpu option available but and we've talked a fair bit about sli scaling recently including in this video right here there is one exception to this rule that almost always holds true the second tier the one just under the flagship graphics card is usually based on the same processing core is cut down in a way that doesn't affect performance too dramatically it overclocks like mad and is much less expensive so if you can stretch your budget two of those sometimes doesn't cost much more than one flagship card because they don't carry that best of the best price premium but linus what if one top of the line or even two second fiddle graphics cards just isn't enough gpu for me well my first response to that would be why the heck not that's an awful lot of video card power and my second response would be i'm just kidding i know you can never have enough video card power especially if you want a game at 4k or at very high frame rates i was just messing with you guys so let's take a look at the contenders today nvidia's top of the line uber card du jour is the gtx 980 it features a base clock of 11 26 megahertz a boost clock of 1216 megahertz four gigs of gpu memory clocked at seven gigahertz and 2048 cuda cores sounds awesome right well it should because it costs over 550 dollars each to pick up one of these puppies and just over eleven hundred dollars for the two of them that you'll need to take advantage of that rog swift 1440p 144 hertz monitor or that brand new 4k 60hz gaming monitor if you want to play the latest aaa titles but maybe there's another way the gtx 970 by comparison is clocked at 10 50 megahertz on the core has a boost clock of 1178 megahertz also features 4 gigs of gpu memory clocked at 7 gigahertz and has 16 064 cuda cores less than the gtx 980 but it's not exactly a slouch either and it weighs in at only 340 meaning that three of these would actually cost less than two gtx 980s so let's start with the raw fps data here shall we across the board average frame rates were really close between our two test configurations on our core i7 5960x extreme edition test platform tomb raider continues to be the poster child for multi-gpu gaming with about a 20 performance advantage at a ten percent lower cost for the three-way setup booyah far cry 3 and crysis 3 tell a different story however both show solid results for the triple config if we just look at the charts but while sitting in front of them at 1440p was fine so you high refresh rate gamers would be happy with this config at 4k the stuttering and hitching was unbearable with three graphics cards and dual 980s delivered a much smoother gaming experience the rest of our games dirt showdown middle-earth shadow of mordor and bioshock infinite didn't have noticeable hitching or stuttering but also didn't demonstrate the same performance advantage as tomb raider for our three-way configuration something i would have had to see if i was going to recommend 3-way sli for folks who play more than just the games that happen to run really really well on it especially when you consider that a triple graphics card configuration has other disadvantages as well in-game power consumption was actually closer than i expected probably because the utilization of the third gpu is never going to be as much as the second which is never as much as the first so this was basically a draw but both the temperatures at which our cards were running and the experience of sitting there next to them were a little bit uncomfortable for me our 970 rig was much louder and especially the middle sandwiched gpu ran much hotter than either of our better space 980s and that's with a fan blowing directly over top of them not to mention that two cards will take up fewer of the available expansion slots on your motherboard that you might like to use for pci express ssds sound cards or other fancy new functionality for your system as it becomes available so what's conclusion time for gaming i just don't think the added bang for the buck of the three-way config of second-tier cards compensates whoops for the disadvantages associated with this kind of a setup you could possibly make an argument for it if you were planning to use your system for things other than gaming like 3d rendering or cryptocurrency mining or something like that but frankly even then the higher clock speed and additional cuda cores of the 980s means that unless the 970s are scaling nearly perfectly the performance is going to be similar anyhow and by the time you're spending a thousand dollars on gpus what's another 100 bucks to get a much more elegant solution so that's all there is really to it this was a fun experiment but the conclusion didn't shake the foundations of the pre-existing knowledge we had on the topic it just gave us a clear understanding of what folks who want to run at 2560 by 1441 444 hertz or 4k 60hz need to power their setups speaking of clearer understanding we have a new sponsor online as tech tips that helps you better understand the guts of all your electronic devices i fix it you may know i fix it from their tear downs of a multitude of gadgets like their phones like the imac retina 5k their guide for which i actually followed to create my upcoming imac 5k internals upgrade video but what you may not know about them is that they also have a full lineup of professional electronics tools the cornerstone of their tool lineup is the pro tech toolkit which includes 70 tools to assist you with any mod or malfunction on one of your little electronic gizmos the protec tool kit includes a 54-bit driver kit which features standard specialty and security bits it's got esd safe precision tweezers an anti-static wrist strap or you can wear it on your ankle like i do uh prying a bunch of prying tools and both nylon and metal spudgers i never leave home without my protect tool kit as i can always find a use for it when i'm working with electronics and you can purchase the kit over at ifixit.com linus where it's available for only 64.95 which by the way includes a lifetime warranty i actually didn't know that but wait if you use our offer code linus you can actually save 10 bucks on the protect tool kit or any other purchase over 50 bucks so if i fix it you can fix it yourself and if you guys don't believe this obviously written by nick so like very strong endorsement if i fix it it's actually all true in this case um i bought my my protect tool kit myself i paid my own real money for it over a year ago and uh it's just a fluke that they advertise with us now i absolutely love my kit and they're great guys over there so uh i think that's pretty much it guys like the video if you liked it dislike it if you just liked it leave a comment if your feelings are more complicated than this also check out the link in the video description to support us you can buy a cool t-shirt like this one give us a monthly contribution or change your amazon bookmarked one with our affiliate code so we got a small kickback whenever you buy new graphics cards or whatever else the case may be thanks again for watching and as always don't forget to subscribe\n"