SLI and Crossfire, really that terrible?

SpringWater

SpringWater

Member
Is it really true that SLI and Crossfire usually don't work as they are intended to, and because of that it is better to go with a single more powerful video card?
 
Wll if you already have a cheaper single card and want to upgrade with out spending to much. Crossfire/SLI will help. There is some shuttering in some games, but not as bad as some will leave you to be believe. But if your just starting out, it is always better to get a better single card and maybe SLI/CF with it later on when the prices go down.
 
Well, all I have is a gts 250, but I want to have dx11. Unfortunately my budget will be something like 160-180$. I realized that if i do a little hunting on ebay I might be able to get two gtx550tis, or two hd5830s...and many other older-mid-range-cards. For 160-180$ all I can get is something like a new 650ti, which probably won't beat two 5830s or gtx 550tis...
 
wolfeking said:
If I were you, I would look for a GTX 560ti. There are some going for a little under $150. http://www.ebay.com/itm/PNY-RVCGGTX...262?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item5898e14d46 Or you can grab HD6970s for about $170.

Then use your 250 for a physx card.

The 550ti is nothing more than a GTS450 with a touch wider memory bandwidth. They went from 128 bit to 192 bit. IT is a bottom of the bin card as far as gaming is considered. 2 will have a lot of microstutter.
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I don't think you got what I meant, I can get two gtx550tis for 180$ (so its like 70$ each) And how about the 5830 in crossfire? Are they decent cards? or maybe even two 6850s or 6870s, would they be a powerful setup? I was also looking at the nvidia 400 series cards, they're pretty cheap too. I could get two 470s... last combination that might be an option for me is two 560s/maybe 560tis...
 
I think you are missing the point entirely. If you get say 2 550ti's, then you have a 460 more or less when running in SLI. If your game does not support SLI, then you are stuck with a 550ti performance, which is not worth the price.

5830 is not that great anymore. 5870 would be about minimum, and it is less than stellar with DX11 performance. A 6970 is about the same price and does much better performance.

Start with one big card. Then go to CFx/SLI later. It will be far better in the long run than 2 medium cards in SLI/CFx right now.
 
In this case would a gtx 660 be capable of running new games at max settings, or would a gtx 570 be better? Or maybe hd 7850? (By new games I mean games like Crysis 3.)
 
Max settings, no. The newest news on Crysis is calling for 7970s/680s and a quad core for a max setting system. You might be able to do high.

But for all means, do not get a 660. Get either a 7850 or a 7870.
 
wolfeking said:
Max settings, no. The newest news on Crysis is calling for 7970s/680s and a quad core for a max setting system. You might be able to do high.

But for all means, do not get a 660. Get either a 7850 or a 7870.
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I see what you mean, the gtx 660 is really terrible in terms of price/performance, but the 7850 looks like a nice card for the price. Would it be able to catch up to the 7870 if I overclock it? because I heard that the 7870 is just an overclocked 7850, or is it? And even if I can't max out Crysis 3 on the 7850, I can always grab another one in the future, put them in crossfire, and get a significant performance boost, right? I think I begin to understand the whole deal with buying a single new powerful video card vs two mid-range older ones...:D
 
The 7870 is more powerful not only because of its clock speed (1GHz), but also because it has more cores. You can match a 7870 performance with a 7850, if you OC it to the max, but you will not do it in crossfire (due to temps).

The best thing to do is either grab a 7870 and OC it a bit, or grab a 7950 and be good. You will benefit from the extra vRAM on a 7950, but that is way more expensive. The 7870GHz is where it is at for price to performance (aka $/frame).
 
I just found a 560ti 448 made by ASUS (with this really beefy cooler) for 180 dollars wchich is in the price range of an hd 7850, and I was just wondering, is it better than hd 7850, or not?
 
Looks like the OP is trying to decide between the likes of the 560 Ti and the 570 and the 7870 here. The 7870 wins every time. Forget about the older cards now unless you are on a strict budget or get a great deal on one second hand. Certainly the older cards do have an issue these days with RAM, most only having about 1GB. 1GB is just about enough for 1080p, but you can't really go any higher than that without losing out on FPS or without lowering the settings of the game, and then it doesn't look as good.

I own a 5870 myself and personally I don't have any problems with it, but it is very true that even most mid-high end cards are faster than it these days. The 5870 is still a good card though, but it would be better to go for a 7850 or a 7870, not only as they are faster GPUs, but they have double the RAM. All 5870s have 1GB of RAM (unless you get an Eyefinity 6 one which has 2GB), but most of the 7850s and 7870s have 2GB. Wouldn't even consider the 5830 or the 5850 these days.

As for the 68xx and 69xx cards, again, take the 78xx cards over them.

It's better to get one big card than two smaller ones. Reasons being is there is a less heat and power consumption, and also no risk of microstutter. It would be better to get one 7870 over say two 7770s.
 
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Okay...I would like to get a card under $200, and I guess in this case a 7850 is my best shot, although I will consider adding a few dollars to my budget because the hd 7870 is quite a bit more powerful than the 7850. Are there any other cards that are around $200 (it would be great if under) that I should look at?
And if let's say I will choose not to buy a card over $200, would it be smart to get ASUS GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 1.2GB DDR5, instead of the 7850 because the only sub $200 2gb 7850s are the powercolor ones, and I don't think that powercolor is better than asus...:confused:
 
The 560 448 is a solid card but Spirit is right. The memory limitation will be a problem. 1.25gb is nice to have but will run into problems with future games. Even now in BF3 my 560TI will use 1500mb in a match. I would keep to the current generation if you have the budget for it.
 
I'm pushing towards nvidia because I want to use my old gts 250 as a dedicated physx card...gtx 570s are like $180 on ebay, they are more powerfull then the 560ti 448... the only problem is the ram... I guess that another good sub $200 card would be the 6950/70 because there are 2gb models and they are pretty powerfull.
 
SpringWater said:
I'm pushing towards nvidia because I want to use my old gts 250 as a dedicated physx card...gtx 570s are like $180 on ebay, they are more powerfull then the 560ti 448... the only problem is the ram... I guess that another good sub $200 card would be the 6950/70 because there are 2gb models and they are pretty powerfull.
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Eh the trouble is the NVIDIA cards are quite expensive right now. I just looked and the 660 Ti is about 300 bucks or so (give or take depending on brand). Really, having a PhysX card doesn't make a lot of difference at all really, and it's just another slot taken up on your board and more power used and more heat produced.

Honestly, I'd just get a 2GB 7850 and be done with it. For 200, that is the best you can do http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150609
 
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