techpowerup NVIDIA GeForce 456.38 WHQL Released: Ampere Support, SLI Finally Dead

[axipher]

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NVIDIA today released the latest version of GeForce Game Ready software. Version 456.38 WHQL comes with support for the new GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 "Ampere" graphics cards. The mammoth software release also adds optimization for "Fortnite" with RTX and DLSS on all GeForce RTX GPUs. The new NVIDIA Reflex technology is formally launched, with support for "Fortnite" and "Valorant." Reflex is supported on all NVIDIA GPUs going back to the GTX 900 series "Maxwell." Optimizations are also added for "Halo 3: OSDT" and "Mafia: Definitive Edition." Also introduced are the NVIDIA Broadcast app, and a host of new GeForce Experience features, including in-game performance/overlay, one-click performance tuning, HDR ShadowPlay Capture, AV1 decoding, support for new G-SYNC compatible displays.

Buried in the bowels of the driver change-log is a big disclosure, that the RTX 30-series "Ampere" GPUs don't support SLI (as in implicit multi-GPU), only explicit multi-GPU through modern APIs such as DirectX 12 and Vulkan (if supported by the game). NVIDIA has already restricted the NVLink interface needed for SLI only to its topmost RTX 3090 SKU, so the lack of implicit multi-GPU effectively marks the end of SLI for future GPUs. That said, the technology itself is very much present on all GPUs that support it, provided games do. NVIDIA announced the GeForce RTX 30 series "Watch Dogs: Legion" + GeForce NOW bundle. Buying a new GeForce RTX 30-series graphics card now comes with a year's membership of the GeForce NOW cloud gaming service, plus you get the next chapter in the Watch Dogs franchise, which supports a ton of NVIDIA RTX features, possibly including DLSS 8K.

 

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How can we have Crysis 8k Remaster without 4-way SLI rigs

[ENTERPRISE]

Well there you have it I guess. The nail in the coffin really moving forward. I was curious when I saw the only GPU capable of MULTI-GPU was the 3090 and I took from that a possible continued phasing out of it. 

[Supercrumpet]

I wonder if there was extra push to remove multi-GPU support from all but the 3090 this time around to remove the ability of dual 3080s getting close to the performance of the 3090. I think we'd hypothetically see more than the 20-ish% boost from the 80 to 90 for the same price, between two cards and a bridge.

If I remember correctly we had a similar situation with the 10XX series, as two 1060s would have likely been very competitive value-wise with the 1080, and that was the first generation we only had SLI for the 70 cards and above.

Edited September 18, 2020 by Supercrumpet

[axipher]

What I can't stand is SLI/NVLink was a perfect solution for Game streamers to have dual GPU's, one for the gameplay and one for just encoding/decoding.

 

Now the only options really are:

• Use Encode/Decode engines on the gamins GPU itself which does have a performance hit
• Use a second GPU/Software in the same system where now you have more traffic over the PCIe bus, again a performance hit
• Build a second streaming rig with a capture card and deal with some potential HDCP and quality issues

[ENTERPRISE]

5 hours ago, Supercrumpet said:

I wonder if there was extra push to remove multi-GPU support from all but the 3090 this time around to remove the ability of dual 3080s getting close to the performance of the 3090. I think we'd hypothetically see more than the 20-ish% boost from the 80 to 90 for the same price, between two cards and a bridge.

If I remember correctly we had a similar situation with the 10XX series, as two 1060s would have likely been very competitive value-wise with the 1080, and that was the first generation we only had SLI for the 70 cards and above.

I think that is part of the motivation for sure .