980 Ti SLI- Good enough for Vive Pro or is upgrade recommended?

[SyringeTip]

I worked at a warehouse for a couple months and managed to grab two 980 Ti's with some of the money I made before crypto started to make a huge impact.

For those of you who use Vive's with high end hardware/gpu's and have looked over the specs of the Vive Pro, would you estimate that two of these cards could run 2880 x 1600 smoothly? Or would I need to upgrade to something like a Volta Ti gpu whenever that releases?

(Disclaimer: I've never bought a headset before and have pretty much no idea how well specific cards run VR as a whole; I've also only experienced VR once at an outlet mall)

Specs:

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/ColloquialDuck/builds/#view=xZtJ7P

[The Maddog]

Virtually (pun not intended) no VR games use SLI at this time...so here and now, you wont see any gains in VR with 2 cards unless you are playing the following titles:

- Eve Valkyrie

- Raw Data

- Serious Sam VR The Last Hope

- Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter

- Serious Sam VR: The Second Encounter

- Serious Sam 3 VR: BFE

- The Lab (Robot Repair)

- The Talos Principle VR

There's also a couple of demos that utilize it:


- Star Wars Trials on Tatooine Experience

- Steam VR Performance test

- Nvidia VR Funhouse
(If you've got two identical GPUs and a GeForce GTX 980 Ti, or higher, dedicated to PhysX, VR Funhouse will activate VR SLI)


As you can see, it's not a big list.


That all said, a 980 ti will work fine with a Vive Pro. I'm using a 980 ti myself on the Vive and it's fine. Upgrading to a Pro for higher resolution is only going to tax the card an extra 3% to 5.2% at most and the 980 ti wont struggle with that. Obviously one day it will hit a wall when you'll need something better but for some time you'll be fine with a 980 ti.

[SyringeTip]

Thanks for the replies guys; I had no idea VR games didn't utilize SLI, and now I've got an incentive to upgrade. I'm in no rush to get a headset atm, but when I do, defnitely gonna be prepared. So, with that in mind, if I find a 1080 Ti for a reasonable price, should I get it? And if not, what card would you recommend I get instead or wait for?

[SyringeTip]

Okay sounds good mate; I guess unless we get those better prices back I'll just wait for Volta to come out before I upgrade. If the architecture really makes that much of a difference then I won't mind waiting a bit longer for an 1180 or 1180 Ti

[Sacred Myths]

Originally posted by robs2010mazda6s:

Originally posted by ColloquialDuck:

Thanks for the replies guys; I had no idea VR games didn't utilize SLI, and now I've got an incentive to upgrade. I'm in no rush to get a headset atm, but when I do, defnitely gonna be prepared. So, with that in mind, if I find a 1080 Ti for a reasonable price, should I get it? And if not, what card would you recommend I get instead or wait for?

Trying to get a 1080ti is a nightmare right now due to mining inflating prices... Thats what I have and there is no way im letting it go LOL... I'd say for now if you are happy enough just hold out for the next gen stuff. I had a 980ti for a long time and it was an awesome GPU in desktop games but when I finally got a vive I realized I needed more.... I sold it and got a regular non ti 1080 and the diff was night and day for vr games.... not even close. The 1080ti is obviously better in vr than my 1080 was but its not the kind of diff that I got when I went from the 980ti to the 1080 for VR and keep in mind I had my 980ti running on a modded bios that never throttled and a locked 1550mhz core overclock.

If OP lurks hard enough he can grab one retail from Evgas website. That's how I got my 1080ti SC2 Hybrid then i sold my regular 1080 and made profit due to all this mining lol

[The Maddog]

Originally posted by robs2010mazda6s:

LOL.... it will be a lot more than a 3% to a 5% hit when you go to the pro from a standard vive... is it only a 3 to 5% performance hit when you go from 1080p to 1440p? no, it isnt.. its a LOT more than that and that is essentually whats going on here.

Also maxwell is garbage for vr... you can get upset or whatever but its the truth. For example while a 980ti and 1070 might be close in desktop games its a whole nother ball game in vr as pascal blows it away and has special vr optimizations.

Not only that but there are a number a games for VR that a 980ti already constantly runs into reprojection with and thats without using any SSAA at all.... To think this gpu will be fine for a vive pro when its already struggling with the current headset its a damn pipe dream.

LOL indeed.

Couple of questions for you.

1) Isnt comparing monitor upscalling from 1080p to 1440p (which inclusdes a Hz jump) to a 78% HMD resolution jump a bit of a apples to oranges comparison? The changes are not exatly the same.

2) Does the Samsung Odessy, a headset that already has the same resolution (if not the exact same panels) that the Vive Pro has, throw out a huge performance hit on GPU's? Or does it work on exactly the same hardware as the Vive and just tax it a little more....say in the 3% to 5% range. The proofs already out there so I'll let you do your own research on that.


3) If you already have capable top end a Maxwel card, why pay for Pascal card when you might as well wait for the next gen? 980 ti's are fine if it's what you already have. Also..why would anyone get upset about you claiming Pascal are better than Maxwell cards? If I could justify the upgrade, I'd do it but it's not worth it to me.

4) Where are these games with Reprojection? Aside from Elite and Fallout (one being extremely taxing on high to ultra settings and the other being not so well optomised) I've had no issues with my 980 ti. It's worked fine in every title I've played and in the case of Elite, I wouldnt have even known if not for looking at my framing afterwards.


Now I'm prepared to conceded peformance will vary on all the diffrent PC builds, especially if you're playing CPU heavy games and have an older CPU, but you are litterally the first person I've seen reporting issues about performance on 980 ti's when it comes to general performance. I want to know what titles to watch out for.

[Bob]

While its true the 1070 pascal supports multi-projection and lens matched shading technology for faster frame rendering , it is a very similar technology to that of VR SLi , the developer has to implement it within the game , much the same as VR SLi , it must first be hard coded into the game engine.

As The Maddog pointed out there are very few games which use VR SLi. but those that do benefit greatly from VR SLi. (I wish there were more)

The onus here is on both Unity and Unreal developers to include both VR SLi and also Multi-projection matched lens shading technologies within their games, unfortunately not many do.
(a lot more work obviously)

The games which The Maddog mentioned are some of the most popular titles in VR and they do support VR SLi , I can confirm this, the GTX 980Ti in VR SLi enabled games, will easily out perform a single 1080 , only the 1080Ti will render frames faster.

I have yet to see any reprojection in any VR SLi enabled game, they are simply the best experiences you can currently have in VR.

Hope that info helps.

VR SLi https://developer.nvidia.com/vrworks/graphics/vrsli

LMS https://developer.nvidia.com/vrworks/graphics/lensmatchedshading

[SyringeTip]

The Talos Principle VR was one of the games that was on my mind as far as VR goes, so if I happen to get the headset before I upgrade, I guess I can at least play that since it's got VR SLI

[Bob]

Cool , hope you find the links informative.

[maldorf]

Wow, youre not kidding on the prices! I just bought a new pc at microcenter with a really nice I7 processor and a 1080 ti for $1800. Now justt the GPU costs $1400! That happened in about 2 weeks. i was there just about 1 week ago and prices werent this high. If you look on the page it says you can go into the store and talk to the managger for a better price. Probably get a better deal if you buy a lot and build a pc with them. Crazy prices. The sales guy told me that there is a mining motherboard that holds 10 GPUs. One guy wanted to buy 3500 AMD GPUs.
http://www.microcenter.com/search/search_results.aspx?N=4294966937+4294946479+4294840906&NTX=&NTT=&NTK=all&page=1&sortby=pricehigh

Build your own discount at store, maybe some of you might use this so should check it out:

http://www.microcenter.com/site/customer-support/VideoCardMessage.aspx

[Vidicus]

SLI is a waste of money. Invest in a good single card, 99.9% of VR does not support SLI.

[SyringeTip]

It was a waste of money at the time, and it's even more a waste of money now, but atm I guess I'm stuck with it lol

Plus, that good single card is what I want out of the next architecture hopefully, when it comes out that is. Sure, the 1080 Ti is great, but I wouldn't mind waiting for more. Power that is.

[Vidicus]

Nothing out can push 4k VR anyways, so there is no harm in waiting.

[⚡Snake⚡Plissken⚡]

Sell both 980s and get a single GPU, as others have said, SLi is a waste of time

[Bob]

Originally posted by Snake Plissken:

Sell both 980s and get a single GPU, as others have said, SLi is a waste of time

VR SLi is limited to a few games (we know that), as discussed above, but for general gaming especially True 4K QHD, QFHD, UWHD and multiple monitors and surround (triples) , a SLi system offers the best performance over any single card, thats why all Premium motherboards still support SLi and CFX.

Single GFX cards have become more powerful over the last few years , SLi is not as popular or required as much as it once was , however I can tell you in my own experience it does give any system more longevity and when games support it or are made to support it, nothing can touch it for performance and framerates.

You're entitled to your own opinion , but that is the opinion of someone who obviously does not own a SLi system. If the next generation of motherboards and GFX support it I would definitely still invest in a multi-GPU SLi or CFX system. I will also point out , the most expensive and best performance motherboards all support SLi and CFX in 2018.

example:

ROG RAMPAGE VI EXTREME

Supports NVIDIA® 4-Way SLI™ Technology *
Supports NVIDIA® 3-Way SLI™ Technology
Supports NVIDIA® 2-Way SLI™ Technology
Supports AMD 4-Way CrossFireX Technology *
Supports AMD 3-Way CrossFireX™ Technology
Supports AMD 2-Way CrossFireX Technology
* 28-LANE CPUs can only support up to 3-Way SLI™/ 3-Way CrossFireX™

Hardly a waste of time considering this board has legendary status within ROG

RRP £599

[⚡Snake⚡Plissken⚡]

Originally posted by Bob:

Originally posted by Snake Plissken:

Sell both 980s and get a single GPU, as others have said, SLi is a waste of time

VR SLi is limited to a few games (we know that), as discussed above, but for general gaming especially True 4K QHD, QFHD, UWHD and multiple monitors and surround (triples) , a SLi system offers the best performance over any single card, thats why all Premium motherboards still support SLi and CFX.

Single GFX cards have become more powerful over the last few years , SLi is not as popular or required as much as it once was , however I can tell you in my own experience it does give any system more longevity and when games support it or are made to support it, nothing can touch it for performance and framerates.

You're entitled to your own opinion , but that is the opinion of someone who obviously does not own a SLi system. If the next generation of motherboards and GFX support it I would definitely still invest in a multi-GPU SLi or CFX system. I will also point out , the most expensive and best performance motherboards all support SLi and CFX in 2018.

example:

ROG RAMPAGE VI EXTREME

Supports NVIDIA® 4-Way SLI™ Technology *
Supports NVIDIA® 3-Way SLI™ Technology
Supports NVIDIA® 2-Way SLI™ Technology
Supports AMD 4-Way CrossFireX Technology *
Supports AMD 3-Way CrossFireX™ Technology
Supports AMD 2-Way CrossFireX Technology
* 28-LANE CPUs can only support up to 3-Way SLI™/ 3-Way CrossFireX™

Hardly a waste of time considering this board has legendary status within ROG

RRP £599

Excelent post to why no one should adopt SLi or Xfire, teh OP has 2 980Tis who he should dump for 1 1080Ti thus giving himself optimal performance across the board for every application, not just for a few applications that use either SLi or Xfire
This is not an opinion, it is a fact

OP should invest in a single GPU based on what they own now, we are not here to listen to your whismical wants, it's the OP's needs
Ground yourself for a minute and try not to get too excited when some actual positive information is given