This is how the geforce rtx 2080 ti performs at nvlink

With the new GeForce RTX 20, NVLink technology has entered the gaming world. This new technology comes to replace SLI bridges, and make communication between several graphics cards on the same PC much faster and more efficient. Gamersnexus has laid hands on several GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, and have done several tests in NVLink configurations to see how this technology works. This is how the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti performs at NVLink.

What is NVLink and how does it work?

NVLink is a new feature for Nvidia's GPUs, which aims to dramatically improve performance by increasing total bandwidth between the GPU and other parts of the system. In modern PCs, GPUs and many other devices are connected by PCI-E lines to the CPU chipset or motherboard. For some GPUs, using the available PCI-E lanes provides enough bandwidth so that a bottleneck does not occur, but for high-end GPUs and multiple GPU configurations, the number of PCI-E lanes and the width Total bandwidth available is insufficient to meet needs and can cause a bottleneck.

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NVLink is the world's first high-speed interconnect technology for GPUs, and enables data to transfer between the GPU and CPU 5 to 12 times faster than by PCI-E. Nvidia also claimed that the performance of the application that NVLink uses can be up to twice as fast, relative to PCI-E. According to Nvidia, an application used to study the behavior of matter by simulating molecular structures, called AMBER, gains up to a 50 percent performance increase with NVLink. Because the cards no longer need to communicate using the low PCI-E bandwidth, this frees up additional bandwidth for the CPU to send data to the GPUs.

NVLink performance in games and synthetic tests

The following tables summarize the data obtained by Gamernexus in its tests with the GeForce GTX 2080 Ti in NVLink configurations:

GeForce RTX 2080 Ti NVLink synthetic tests
	NVLink x16 / x16	NVLink x16 / x8	NVLink x8 / x8
Ashes of the Singularity	47.7	46.9	40.9
Time Spy Extreme GFX1	82.3	82.0	82.1
Time Spy Extreme GFX2	75.0	74.4	74.6
FireStrike Ultra GFX1	90.2	89.9	89.4
FireStrike Ultra GFX2	54.3	54.5	53.8

As we can see, in these synthetic tests there is no difference between using NVLink 16 / x16, x16 / x8 and x8 / x8 configurations, suggesting that the bandwidth of a PCI Express 3.0 x8 slot is sufficient for a range graphics card current registration. By using the NVLink bridge, the amount of data that is sent over the PCI Express bus is reduced, reducing bandwidth consumption.

GeForce RTX 2080 Ti NVLink in games
	GeForce RTX 2080 Ti NVLink	GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
F1 2018	168.6	99
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	147	67.3
GTA V	132	77.2

If we pass the games, we see how NVLink technology scales very well in all the tested cases, with very substantial performance improvements in all cases. These results seem to show that NVLink technology has great potential and is a great successor to SLI. Despite this, it is still too early to say for sure, we first need to have more data to reach a more decisive conclusion.

What do you think of these GeForce RTX 2080 Ti NVLink tests?