Looking to buy a laptop-- 1080 gtx single///SLi setup.

[Deathsupply]

Hey all, I'm looking to buy a laptop at the end of the year sometime. I'm looking for something that will handle future games, VR and 3ds Max, cryengine 5, and other design software. I am a heavy gamer, I'm looking at shelling out money for a 1080 SLI setup, but I'm not sure whether it's worth it, getting an SLI setup over a single 1080.

I enjoy playing all sorts of games and am looking at buying ashes of the singularity: escalation when it comes out. I've seen lots of benchmarks made using ashes. I don't need a whole lot of portability, but I will be taking the laptop to classes with me... classes being game design related. I don't mind too much if I'm carrying a behemoth with me. Eventually I want to pick up a VR headset as well, depending on the cost of this, could be picking it up with the laptop. I've heard that VR hasn't quite caught on yet with the masses but I do want to be ready for it with a portable laptop solution.

My budget is around $4,000 or so, and I might want to pick up a nice 4K stand alone monitor for home usage. I have about 34 inches of desk space for a large monitor, or maybe two... could use some recommendations for that as well Also, I want to be able to switch between my desktop PC and my laptop on my monitor and TV. I am also looking at getting a laptop docking station, if needed. I think it would just make it easier to plug//unplug the laptop into the monitor, keyboards/mouse setup that I have.

I think that covers the info... Let me know if you would like any other information, so I can make a good decision, since I'm spending thousands of dollars

Thanks for your time and consideration!

 

[Purpletalon55]

SLI isnt perfrect and a lot of games may perform worse with sli gpus than with a single gpu, a single 1080 is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay fast enough to play most games at 4k even at high fps. I would recommend sticking with one for the sake of better driver support.

Also go with 32gb ram max anything more is overkill and wont be used for gaming for probably 10-20 years. As it took over 15 for 8gb to become the standard for gaming.

 

[cilliers]

SLI isnt perfrect and a lot of games may perform worse with sli gpus than with a single gpu, a single 1080 is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay fast enough to play most games at 4k even at high fps. I would recommend sticking with one for the sake of better driver support.

Also go with 32gb ram max anything more is overkill and wont be used for gaming for probably 10-20 years. As it took over 15 for 8gb to become the standard for gaming.

I would like to mention that it depends what kind of games the OP is playing. If he is playing 4K ultra with a 144Hz monitor, then he will most definitely need a GTX 1080 SLi setup to push the fps over 100 fps in games like BF1. If he is playing BF4 at 1080p then, yes a single GTX 1080 will suffice.

The statement about RAM is debatable. Most recent gaming trends suggest that it took only 3 years for 8GB of RAM to be replaced with the new standard of 16GB. So there is a doubling in requirement within 3 years. It depends how long the OP wants to use his laptop.

 

[cilliers]

If you have $4k to burn, then hell yeah. Get the most over the top system specs in a laptop that you can find for the money!

 

[Purpletalon55]

SLI isnt perfrect and a lot of games may perform worse with sli gpus than with a single gpu, a single 1080 is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay fast enough to play most games at 4k even at high fps. I would recommend sticking with one for the sake of better driver support.

Also go with 32gb ram max anything more is overkill and wont be used for gaming for probably 10-20 years. As it took over 15 for 8gb to become the standard for gaming.

I would like to mention that it depends what kind of games the OP is playing. If he is playing 4K ultra with a 144Hz monitor, then he will most definitely need a GTX 1080 SLi setup to push the fps over 100 fps in games like BF1. If he is playing BF4 at 1080p then, yes a single GTX 1080 will suffice.

The statement about RAM is debatable. Most recent gaming trends suggest that it took only 3 years for 8GB of RAM to be replaced with the new standard of 16GB. So there is a doubling in requirement within 3 years. It depends how long the OP wants to use his laptop.

SlI will probably s give lower fps because nvidia doesn't support it as well these days. And let's face it 8gb of ram is all you need for gaming I've never seen a game use over 4 ever. And I play a lot of high end games.

 

[rgd1101]

there are some game that use more then 4GB ram, some newer game said to recommend 16GB system

 

[Deathsupply]

Thanks for your responses everyone, I appreciate it.

Concerning games, I want to be able to play bf1, star citizen, and other high quality games in 4K on ultra settings. I do a lot of multitasking as well, such as having multiple editing software (3ds max, cryengine, maya) open, so I can easily access them when I need to switch over to a different software, to export/import, for example.

For longevity, I would want something that will last a few years.

 

[Purpletalon55]

4k at ultra isettings really tough even today we're not quite at that point. As to cryengine cool yeah I developed games on it for a while but unreal engine 4 is a lot better optimized got sick of having crashes in cryengine when working with it and left.

SLI is where both gpus render at the same time but if one is delayed it can cause massively lower fps so sli works but it's not as great as a single gpu hands down.

 

[Deathsupply]

4k at ultra isettings really tough even today we're not quite at that point. As to cryengine cool yeah I developed games on it for a while but unreal engine 4 is a lot better optimized got sick of having crashes in cryengine when working with it and left.

SLI is where both gpus render at the same time but if one is delayed it can cause massively lower fps so sli works but it's not as great as a single gpu hands down.

Ok, I was unaware of the requirements of gaming at 4K, I have not done a PC upgrade for several years. I'll give ue4 a go, see how I like it. Thanks for a quick response.

Edit: So, I shouldn't worry too much about an SLI setup, If you were to make a judgement, how long do you think that a single 1080 would hold up against the ever evolving tech world? I am looking for this laptop as my main machine for atleast a year or so, until I obtain a better desktop setup.

 

[Purpletalon55]

4k at ultra isettings really tough even today we're not quite at that point. As to cryengine cool yeah I developed games on it for a while but unreal engine 4 is a lot better optimized got sick of having crashes in cryengine when working with it and left.

SLI is where both gpus render at the same time but if one is delayed it can cause massively lower fps so sli works but it's not as great as a single gpu hands down.

Ok, I was unaware of the requirements of gaming at 4K, I have not done a PC upgrade for several years. I'll give ue4 a go, see how I like it. Thanks for a quick response.

Edit: So, I shouldn't worry too much about an SLI setup, If you were to make a judgement, how long do you think that a single 1080 would hold up against the ever evolving tech world? I am looking for this laptop as my main machine for atleast a year or so, until I obtain a better desktop setup.

i would say that a single 1080 would last at least 3-4 years playing games maybe not at the highest of settings, naturally as we have no way of knowing what the future holds. But it is a safe bet to guess at least 2 years of mostly ultra or high.