Performance - 2-way SLI GPU - Thief

GeForce GTX 980 2-way SLI DX11: Thief 2014

Thief is a series of stealth video games in which the player takes the role of Garrett, a master thief in a fantasy/steampunk world resembling a cross between the Late Middle Ages and the Victorian era, with more advanced technologies interspersed. Thief is the fourth title in the Thief series, developed by Eidos Montreal and published by Square Enix. The story is set several hundreds of years after the events of the original series in the same universe (clues to the backstory are hidden among documents, plaques, and letters). The original master thief Garrett's (known as the legendary master Sneak Thief) iconic Mechanical Eye is one of the hidden Unique Loots in the game (and can be found inside of a prison complex he apparently failed to escape). Other iconic factions such as the Keepers and Hammerites and other old gods have been outlawed, and now lie in ruins throughout the city and beneath.

Above the results at the best image quality settings. We are testing at 2560x1440 (WHQD).

Image Quality Settings:

• DX11
• Very High Image Quality
• 8x Anisotropic Filtering
• Screenspace reflection on
• Parallax Occlusion mapping on
• FXAA on
• Contact Hardening Shadows on
• Tessellation on

With one card Thief already was the one title that was showing the most benefit of a faster PCIE bus. With SLI that is all the more important, from moving from a PCIe Gen 1.1 x16 slot to a Gen 3.0 one at x16 shows a close to 20% differential, which is really significant. Comparing in-between Gen 2.0 and 3.0 however shows that familiar 5% differential. 

• Grey line - GTX 980 @ x16 Gen 1.1
• Dark green line - GTX 980 @ x16 Gen 2.0
• Light green line - GTX 980 @ x16 Gen 3.0

Our FCAT FPS percentile chart backs up what we have just read-out from the internal benchmark, there is a clear and visible performance pattern noticeable with the fastest Gen 3.0 slot. 

Unfortunately one HUGE stutter in the 3rd second messes the chart up a bit as the (ms) scaling goes through the roof. However the latency on the 1.1 slot definitely is higher.

I should hope that all of you guys with SLI or Crossfire are at the very least on PCIe Gen 2.0 by now. And from that slot configuration looking at PCIE Gen 3.0, is much much less dramatic at 5%