No 3 and 4 way SLI with GTX 1080 / 1070
"IMPORTANT UPDATE: After writing this story, but before publication, we went to NVIDIA for comment. As we were getting ready to publish, the company updated me with a shift in its stance on multi-GPU configurations. NVIDIA will no longer require an "enthusiast key" to enable SLI on more than two GPUs. However, NVIDIA will also only be enabling 3-Way and 4-Way SLI for a select few applications. More details are at the bottom of the story!
You'll likely recall that during our initial review of the GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition graphics card, we mentioned that NVIDIA was going to be moving people towards the idea that "only 2-Way SLI will be supported" and promoted. There would still be a path for users that wanted 3 and 4 GPU configurations anyway, and it would be called the Enthusiast Key.
As it turns out, after returning from an AMD event focused on its upcoming Polaris GPUs, I happen to have amassed a total of four GeForce GTX 1080 cards."
Comments
Based on the performance they showed of the cards, this doesn't surprise me, along with the fact games are not properly supporting SLI these days.
There's just no point anymore to SLI, I mean it's fun, but when games dont support it... naw screw it, I'm not wasting the money.
Harder for me to speak on SLI since I have only built a few Crossfire rigs. Crossfire support sucks now though. It's a shell of it's former promise. Just when they finally were scaling at a rate that made sense, developers abandoned it. My next GPU purchase is going to be a single card, probably along with a smaller motherboard and case to shrink my system footprint down a bit.
I never really thought the price to performance ratio ever hit a sweet spot, even with AMD's almost always better price points. If SLI/Crossfire went away and both teams were able to refocus their assets in those areas to other things, say power management or something to get us crazy power efficient cards, I would be completely behind this.
Fixed. Same goes for multi-monitor and non-standard resolution support.
Meh. I think the console market needs to exist to help drive competition, though I am pained to say it. The performance per watt metric helps drive console sales by making them smaller, faster and cooler.
I had nothing but pain trying to get Crossfire + Eyefinity to work correctly in Skyrim. Bethesda's response when I contacted them? Not supported.
Well, obviously. It was more a complaint than a support request, Bethesda.
Edit: in fairness, Crossfire support did improve, but it was like a year after release.