Lauren Taylor' Post

Multiple GPUs in SLI: Working Harder, Not Smarter

Photo by Coaster J

SLI (Scalable Link Interface) is a marvelous technological innovation that allows two or more graphics cards to be simultaneously utilized to gain an overall boost in performance. It can handle 2 to 4 GPUs at once, and it is NVIDIA’s equivalent to AMD’s Crossfire technology. Technically, most of the information in this article will be applicable to both Crossfire and SLI, but the specific topic of this post will be SLI.

SLI gained popularity in recent years largely due to the bitcoin mining craze, but also because of a certain class of gamers who are determined to squeeze every drop of possible performance out of their rigs. But how useful is SLI—and, more importantly, is it worth going all-out and building a rig with four GPUs running in sync?

The short answer is no. It is not worth building a rig with 4-way SLI. And the answer for 3-way SLI is much the same. But depending on your needs and approach, it may sometimes be worth going for 2-way SLI. For more details and specific reasoning, read on:

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Building a PC with the GTX 1660 Ti

building-pc-gtx-1660-ti

NVIDIA’s newly-released GTX 1660 Ti behaves almost like a new and improved GTX 1070. It comes with the new Turing architecture found in the RTX series, but without the ray-tracing and Deep Learning Super Sampling technology; these premium features are still in the early stages of adoption, and aren’t useful or economical for a mid-tier GPU. The GTX 1660 Ti offers the advantages of new architecture without the expense and burden of superfluous features.

The GTX 1660 Ti achieves framerates at resolutions and settings roughly comparable to the GTX 1070. It doesn’t reach the level of a GTX 1080, but it’s an affordable upper-mid-range graphics card that will meet the needs of gamers and digital artists alike.

What would a versatile, powerful, balanced PC build look like with this GPU?

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An Intel Workstation CPU Showdown: Comparing the i9-9900k to the i7-9800x

i9-9900k vs i7-9800x

Two new high-end, arguably-professional-grade Intel CPUs made their debut in late 2018: the i9-9900k and the i7-9800x, which come endowed with higher core counts, higher thread counts, and higher price tags than the previous generation of Intel CPUs.

They offer different features and are designed for compatibility with different chipsets. New Intel builders with hefty budgets and those looking to upgrade their high-end Intel workstation desktops will want to take a close look at these options.

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Choosing A (Thermally) Cool Case: My Top Three

top-3-cases-for-cooling

When it comes to selecting a computer case, there are a number of considerations each buyer has to weigh. The placement of USB ports, LED control options, the number of drive bays, and whether the case comes with a glass side panel are just a few elements that can factor into a buyer’s decision.

But there is one part of the case that should be of universal concern: cooling.

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