Review: MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming X SLI

Fox2232

2016-06-23 09:03

Professionally done, but where is GTX 980Ti SLI comparison. In the end, GTX 980Ti now Costs as much as GTX 1070. And GTX 980Ti is still widely available in many editions.

#5293822

jase240

2016-06-23 09:09

This is probably the lowest power supply recommendation I have seen from Guru3D so far, 650-700W for SLI. I am really excited to see what Pascal means for laptop gaming soon!

#5293826

Hilbert Hagedoorn

Administrator

2016-06-23 09:15

Professionally done, but where is GTX 980Ti SLI comparison. In the end, GTX 980Ti now Costs as much as GTX 1070. And GTX 980Ti is still widely available in many editions.

No time I'm afraid, in case you missed it .. it's the busiest summer ever with al GFX releases, in order to timely release other articles there is just no time left. I hear ya though - perhaps in a later stage I'll look into a massive mGPU article with different brands and cards all together. No promises though.

#5293827

kaudiyo

2016-06-23 09:15

opssss, I´m missing Witcher 3 benchmark on this SLI review :-( anyway, well done as always.

#5293831

Ziggymac

2016-06-23 09:33

Finally, the test I've been waiting for, those numbers are pretty representative of what we should expect from a single 1080Ti, which is what I'm going to replace my two 970's with.

#5293841

SirDremor

2016-06-23 10:01

Great article - as always! Though I have a feeling something went wrong with "Total War: WARHAMMER" test (or posted result). According to article - in FullHD (1920x1080) SLI works way slower than a single card. Is this correct? 76 FPS (SLI) vs 90 FPS (Single) If this indeed have been the actual test result - a word or 2 on that on the page itself would be helpful.

#5293844

Hilbert Hagedoorn

Administrator

2016-06-23 10:15

Great article - as always! Though I have a feeling something went wrong with "Total War: WARHAMMER" test (or posted result). According to article - in FullHD (1920x1080) SLI works way slower than a single card. Is this correct? 76 FPS (SLI) vs 90 FPS (Single) If this indeed have been the actual test result - a word or 2 on that on the page itself would be helpful.

That behavior is actually described on the conclusion page. Often with multi-GPU solution you can stumble into a bottleneck once you are not GPU bound anymore. The framerates go up higher and higher whereas the graphics driver needs to do it's work twice as hard and thus enforces a much heavier workload on the processor. If that processor cannot keep up you will see negative scaling in lower resolutions, the problem is CPU related and thus a CPU bottleneck.

#5293845

Fox2232

2016-06-23 10:18

No time I'm afraid, in case you missed it .. it's the busiest summer ever with al GFX releases, in order to timely release other articles there is just no time left. I hear ya though - perhaps in a later stage I'll look into a massive mGPU article with different brands and cards all together. No promises though.

Thank You Hilbert. I know it is busy time. I have another unreasonable request to ask: "When you are benchmarking RX-480 for FCAT, can you capture GPU utilization and clock over time too?" Even if only for one game, so we can see if performance we see is all RX-480 can deliver. Because at time Fiji released, I measured so many games where GPU utilization was damn low and fps was not great. But with newer drivers, GPU utilization and fps went up. AMD did not recover all there is to Fiji. GPU is still underutilized in many cases. But at least we can get to know if there is untapped potential. Even something as simple as I did here: WH 40k: Space Marine:[spoiler]Maximum details + Adaptive AA + texture LOD settings "-1" enforced via RadeonPRO. 1080p: 120fps (limit set in RP) 1440p: 108~120fps (limit set in RP) 2160p: 96~120fps (limit set in RP) -------- W10 Driver 15.200.1023.10 Fiji 1080p: 128~205fps 1440p: 130~202fps 2160p: 95~192fps Improvement on lower resolution is notable. At 2160p card is quite utilized, so no improvement there: http://i58.tinypic.com/2rneejl.png It is 3times same section of game where hordes of smaller orks are sieging camp on ground, and then at end there is 1st ground boss fight.[/spoiler] And, you are right below. I should have put it into PM.

#5293846

Hilbert Hagedoorn

Administrator

2016-06-23 10:21

Thank You Hilbert. I know it is busy time. I have another unreasonable request to ask: "When you are benchmarking RX-480 for FCAT, can you capture GPU utilization and clock over time too?" Even if only for one game, so we can see if performance we see is all RX-480 can deliver. Because at time Fiji released, I measured so many games where GPU utilization was damn low and fps was not great. But with newer drivers, GPU utilization and fps went up. AMD did not recover all there is to Fiji. GPU is still underutilized in many cases. But at least we can get to know if there is untapped potential.

This thread is not at all about RX 480 so please stay on-topic. I'll indulge one reply though, AMD decided not to include a DVI connector (needed) on that card, FCAT is impossible until an AIB partner supplies one with a DVI connector.

#5293862

Emille

2016-06-23 11:16

That's quite a selection of relatively untaxing games you have benchmarked. Some more demanding games worthy of these cards would have been great, Rise of the Tomb Raider etc. Especially seeing as the old 2013 Tomb Raider was part of your regular benchmark suite.

#5293863

Solfaur

2016-06-23 11:21

As usual, great scaling on GTAV/frostbyte engine games, not so much on the rest. Maybe drivers will improve this, maybe not, but to have the latest DX12 games not support even 2way GPUs is quite a disappointing...

#5293864

Ziggymac

2016-06-23 11:22

Some more demanding games worthy of these cards would have been great, Rise of the Tomb Raider etc. Especially seeing as the old 2013 Tomb Raider was part of your regular benchmark suite.

Rise of the Tomb raider doesn't support SLI.

#5293865

Toli001

2016-06-23 11:25

You need to test it against other SLI or CF configurations, especially 980 SLI and 390x CF. 2x 390x (700Euro) vs 2x 1070 (1000Euro), that's more than 40% difference and I doubt that 1070's are 40% faster.

#5293868

Noufel

2016-06-23 11:36

This thread is not at all about RX 480 so please stay on-topic. I'll indulge one reply though, AMD decided not to include a DVI connector (needed) on that card, FCAT is impossible until an AIB partner supplies one with a DVI connector.

Didn't know that FCAT needed a DVI connector, thnx for the info Hilbert 🙂

#5293873

Koniakki

2016-06-23 11:51

Great review Hilbert! Dang those GTX 1070's fly! I've never seen so much CPU bottleneck in just one article! :P

#5293886

moab600

2016-06-23 12:46

Not impressive at all, probably due to cpu overclock. SLI 1070 means only if u at 4k, only then it match or exceed 60 fps, still not 4k ready though.

#5293890

eclap

2016-06-23 13:00

Not impressive at all, probably due to cpu overclock. SLI 1070 means only if u at 4k, only then it match or exceed 60 fps, still not 4k ready though.

Huh? And only at 4k does it match or exceed 60fps? Again, huh? Anyway, nice review HH, some really nice scaling in some games and some not so good but still, this would be my choice if I was at 4k. Much cheaper than 1080 Sli yet capable of 60fps most of the time.

#5293893

moab600

2016-06-23 13:08

Huh? And only at 4k does it match or exceed 60fps? Again, huh? Anyway, nice review HH, some really nice scaling in some games and some not so good but still, this would be my choice if I was at 4k. Much cheaper than 1080 Sli yet capable of 60fps most of the time.

I meant to say that two 1070 seems to match 60 fps or exceed it at 4k, yes in other resolutions too, but i'm talking about 4K now. If u have 4k monitor it seems worth it, if your target fps is around 60, but we far from being 4K ready... i wonder how many years till we get card that cost 200$ and can give at least 60 fps at all games on 4K.

#5293895

Hilbert Hagedoorn

Administrator

2016-06-23 13:11

That's quite a selection of relatively untaxing games you have benchmarked. Some more demanding games worthy of these cards would have been great, Rise of the Tomb Raider etc. Especially seeing as the old 2013 Tomb Raider was part of your regular benchmark suite.

I understand that the youtube generation is used to just watching stuff, however this is Guru3D.com and we actually write stuff. How about instead of complaining I may offer the suggestion that you maybe actually read the content, honestly the answer you seek is in there. I'll even go as far as to give you a hint: last page, where I mention Tomb Raider ... twice.

#5293903

BlueRay

2016-06-23 13:29

I meant to say that two 1070 seems to match 60 fps or exceed it at 4k, yes in other resolutions too, but i'm talking about 4K now. If u have 4k monitor it seems worth it, if your target fps is around 60, but we far from being 4K ready... i wonder how many years till we get card that cost 200$ and can give at least 60 fps at all games on 4K.

Give it at least 6 more years. And being so cheap another 5-6. It will take more than 10 years for 4K to become mainstream. The hardware and software are not yet ready. (games not optimized for 4K yet, scaling in Windows is simply non existent, hardware is too expensive to become relevant for the average consumer.) People with 4K pc monitors are like what 1%-2% of the total market? We are still long way from 4K to be mainstream.