SLI vs single card question

[Jacky60]

2x7950 crossfire overclocked will give outstanding performance and value right now and for the next year.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

People thought the same about 6950 cf till a few months back.

 

[Black Octagon]

In my experience, Crossfire is a buggy, stuttering mess. There are many so-called 'fixes' out there but they only mitigate stutter to an extent, and in NO WAY deliver the same level of smoothness as you get from a single Radeon card.

SLI is supposedly a lot better but still not bug or stutter free.

Single card for the win.

 

[john3850]

I loved sli and cf but almost eveyone I ever owned blew a card in my early gaming days.
If I had extra money I would go with sli only if your res is 1920x1200 or higher.

The cards below had very small oc and a ran cool with a cheap gpu only water block and all had to be rma..
sli 7900gtx blew short of 3 months was replaced with newer model that couldnt do sli
sli 8800gtx blew after 2 weeks switch to 8800gt which suked
sli 8800gt blew in a month evga sent a updated model mismatched sli again.
cf 4890 msi no longer made the card so they sent me $200.that was good of msi again no cf.
The cards blew with different systems mb and ps.by the way.

 

[pauldun170]

I skimmed a bit and may have missed it but has anyone reminded the OP that if pursuing SLI\Crossfire they need to also consider their power supply?

 

[RussianSensation]

Getting 2 low-end cards for SLI is not a good option to begin with. HD7950 OC or GTX670 is better than HD7850 in CF for most people.

 

[raghu78]

OP as many people have suggested get the HD 7950 boost at USD 300. matches GTX 670 at stock. overclocks to 1100 - 1150 mhz easily and matches HD 7970 Ghz performance. usd 310 WITH FREE shipping.

www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Radeon-PCI-E...dp/B0098HW1HG/

 

[I.M.Weasel]

Two cards are better than one in the way that they increase performance, some redundancy is there is a card goes bad, though I doubt it will, every single video card has not up and died on me. Slightly longer longevity before upgrading though it's a bit more expensive. One is ok, it's better than no card and should do the thing.

 

[Macgruber]

I asked you what you are going to do with the card, and what your setup is. I think it would be helpful for us to know to recommend you a card. We can list cards all day for you, but until you tell us we're just reading off a list. I didn't give you any unconstructive criticism, I gave you the truth, that there is no 10x jump. Where did I troll you?

For example, if you tell us you have a 720p monitor and you're going to play SC2 and nothing else, there is no reason to upgrade from a 550 Ti.

Because once again, you just ignored all of Russian's talk about 7950s and 670s, and listed a 650 Ti, which is barely an upgrade over a 550 Ti (you might as well keep it in that situation).

What does last more than a year mean to you? My 4890, from 3 years ago, is still running to this day, and I paid $180 back then for it. Price means nothing compared to actual use, and you need to get over that.

hey kid, just because i didnt go and buy the card doesnt mean i ignored him

Hey Gruber, I'm not sure if you are going to be buying a card or not (I doubt you'll buy one since you're just trolling hard) but incase you do I think the EVGA 670 FTW would make you very happy. It has a nice extended PCB like the 680 and it comes with a nice sticker. I got two of those and they are great.

no im not trolling hard at all, its just i get tired of 13 year olds giving me their opinions on things they cant buy.

you dont have to be sure if im buying something, thats not what im asking, if you cant supply a link or relevant information, im not looking to add 2cents to my piggy bank

OP as many people have suggested get the HD 7950 boost at USD 300. matches GTX 670 at stock. overclocks to 1100 - 1150 mhz easily and matches HD 7970 Ghz performance. usd 310 WITH FREE shipping.

www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Radeon-PCI-E...dp/B0098HW1HG/

i compared hd 7950 vs gtx 670 and seems gtx wins in a few areas and 7950 wins in alot more areas
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=664&card2=669

i always read peoples constructive critcism, but i dont take what people say as a stepping stone to buying something, not everyone here is college educated or has a career or a family, its hard to imagine some 13 year old kid tells me to buy something he cant afford himself and im the one paying the price.

Two cards are better than one in the way that they increase performance, some redundancy is there is a card goes bad, though I doubt it will, every single video card has not up and died on me. Slightly longer longevity before upgrading though it's a bit more expensive. One is ok, it's better than no card and should do the thing.

this is an opinion not a fact

 

[I.M.Weasel]

I apologize if you were looking for facts, I think it was a result of things I found.

 

[Macgruber]

I apologize if you were looking for facts, I think it was a result of things I found.

no harm man, i appreciate you posting

i just get fed up with people telling me to buy stuff they cant afford and dont buy themselves and get mad at me when i tell them i want some statistic fact based knowledge to help me add to my research(like russian did)

im here for opinions, but i get tired of unconstructive crticisim, its not like i come here questioning peoples education levels, jobs, careers, and question their PC before they tell me what to buy

 

[tulx]

sli 2 good cards or get 1 beast card?


whats your pick for nvidia and amd?

whats the best card you can get under 200$ and what about 300$?

you think two decent 150$ cards will outrun 1 boss 300$ ?

Currently AMD outperforms Nvidia at almost every price point - from entry level to top-end, so that would be the best choice. I'm always advising people to buy the one fastest card they can afford, since that's definitely the most future-proof choice. Buy one 7970 or 7870 now and add another identical one for Crossfire after 1-2 years when they cost half as much. Then, when the crossfires setup ages and you're no longer able to play the games you want at the quality you want, repeat the cycle.
Take my 5870 setup for example: I bought the first one just as it came out - it was the fastest consumer graphics card in the world at that time and quite expensive (~320 € if I'm not mistaken) and, naturally, ran every game perfectly. Then, after about 2~2,5 years, I bought another 5870 off Ebay for 150€ and now have a crossfire setup that can still max out BF3 at 60-120 FPS (except AA - I don't use that to save VRAM and I don't feel like I need it too much on a 24'' screen @ 1080p)
This has allowed me to skip two generations (6 and 7) and I'll probably replace it with the 9870 or whatever the series will be called (8xxx is an OEM only rebrand of 7xxx).
When buying the card, do make sure you have ideally 3GB VRAM, so you don't run out of it two years down the line - this is the only caveat of my crossfire setup - the 1 GB is not quite enough for the most demanding games today.

 

[sobe88]

^ Agreed with the above, a single fast video card now, then you can sell for half the price down the road to repeat the process

 

[tulx]

In my experience, Crossfire is a buggy, stuttering mess. There are many so-called 'fixes' out there but they only mitigate stutter to an extent, and in NO WAY deliver the same level of smoothness as you get from a single Radeon card.

SLI is supposedly a lot better but still not bug or stutter free.

Single card for the win.

This might have been the case three years ago, but definitely not now - every game which really needs crossfire (meaning not Farmville & Co) does support it. I've had a crossfire setup for more than a year now and the drivers haven't let me down a single time. Only Skyrim, when it came out, didn't properly support multi-card setups, but that was the games issue and was patched by the developer soon enough. My brother has a SLI setup and has had a similarly good experience.

 

[Gikaseixas]

OP right now i would say go with AMD HD7950 or Nvidia GTX 670. Both are solid performers and will give you plenty FPS in today's games

 

[Black Octagon]

This might have been the case three years ago, but definitely not now - every game which really needs crossfire (meaning not Farmville & Co) does support it. I've had a crossfire setup for more than a year now and the drivers haven't let me down a single time. Only Skyrim, when it came out, didn't properly support multi-card setups, but that was the games issue and was patched by the developer soon enough. My brother has a SLI setup and has had a similarly good experience.

No, I disagree. I am talking about 2 7970s, not cards from 3 years ago.

And while I agree that scaling is quite good (I get massive fps increases in all games I play), the SMOOTHNESS does not go up in a way that it should with higher fps. It stutters, and in many cases is less smooth than when I run a single 7970.

 

[Keysplayr]

no harm man, i appreciate you posting

i just get fed up with people telling me to buy stuff they cant afford and dont buy themselves and get mad at me when i tell them i want some statistic fact based knowledge to help me add to my research(like russian did)

im here for opinions, but i get tired of unconstructive crticisim, its not like i come here questioning peoples education levels, jobs, careers, and question their PC before they tell me what to buy

Then this is the wrong place for you. You seek opinions, but here, opinions are severely slanted either way. Your best bet is to do what any level headed potential consumer might do when looking to purchase a GPU. There are literally dozens of review sites out there. Google them, find them, read them and learn what you need to learn to make your decision that way.
You won't find your answer here.

 

[Lepton87]

hey kid, just because i didnt go and buy the card doesnt mean i ignored him

no im not trolling hard at all, its just i get tired of 13 year olds giving me their opinions on things they cant buy.

i always read peoples constructive critcism, but i dont take what people say as a stepping stone to buying something, not everyone here is college educated or has a career or a family, its hard to imagine some 13 year old kid tells me to buy something he cant afford himself and im the one paying the price.

this is an opinion not a fact

This is asinine thinking. Why can't a 13 year old kid give you a good advice? Why would someone need a college education to give such an advice? The line about career or family is even worse, it's got nothing to do with the topic at hand. By your line of thinking Bill Gates must be a dumb-ass because he never finished college. It's nothing technical it's just looking at gaming benchmarks, everyone can do it. Anyway, in terms of price-performance 7950 seems to be the sweet spot.

 

[Durvelle27]

OP, a single card will always be better than 2x lower or midrange cards as CFX & SLi both come with problems if its not drivers then its no support from the game which can bring down performance. In my opinion i think you should get a HD 7950 as its the best bang for your back considering price/performance. At stock it matches and or even beats a GTX 670 while being $100 less and once OC'd its performs on par with a GTX 680 and HD 7970.


HD 7950 w/Boost vs HD 7970

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/645?vs=508

 

[Midwayman]

I think people sometimes forget that when you build a dual gpu rig you have to buy a bigger more expensive power supply. You have to get a more expensive motherboard that supports more than one card. You have to have a case that can accomodate two or more cards. There is a lot of expense in just being able to run a second card. For that you get a solution that doesn't always scale well and sometimes has technical glitches like stutter, etc. Plus when you go to sell in a year or two its probably easier to sell what was a high end card than a couple mid range cards.

Unless you're trying to do something that you can't meet your performance needs with one gpu a single gpu solution is better.

 

[moonbogg]

This is asinine thinking. Why can't a 13 year old kid give you a good advice? Why would someone need a college education to give such an advice? The line about career or family is even worse, it's got nothing to do with the topic at hand. By your line of thinking Bill Gates must be a dumb-ass because he never finished college. It's nothing technical it's just looking at gaming benchmarks, everyone can do it. Anyway, in terms of price-performance 7950 seems to be the sweet spot.

For crying out loud, hes trolling. Why in the hell can't people see that? Good god.

 

[Eureka]

For crying out loud, hes trolling. Why in the hell can't people see that? Good god.

I'm not so sure he's trolling. I think he just doesn't want to listen to other people (which is pointless considering he's asking for help on a forum).

If you've read his other threads, he goes and asks for product advice, and buys the first thing that he likes and disregards everyone else. If you try to talk him out of it he goes on about 13 year olds and asks about your pedigree.

 

[Keysplayr]

I'm not so sure he's trolling. I think he just doesn't want to listen to other people (which is pointless considering he's asking for help on a forum).

If you've read his other threads, he goes and asks for product advice, and buys the first thing that he likes and disregards everyone else. If you try to talk him out of it he goes on about 13 year olds and asks about your pedigree.

expected something like that from his personality type.
/thread

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

I'd go with Nvidia or AMD. Never heard of boss.

 

[Macgruber]

I'm not so sure he's trolling. I think he just doesn't want to listen to other people (which is pointless considering he's asking for help on a forum).

If you've read his other threads, he goes and asks for product advice, and buys the first thing that he likes and disregards everyone else. If you try to talk him out of it he goes on about 13 year olds and asks about your pedigree.

there seems to be incompetent people that dont realize im using your opinion to help my research and my own opinion

do you think i go by what 3 people on a forum say? when they say different things? do i question your education level and pay grade before asking you for advice? no

so dont get mad when i rule out your opinion and see your computer build and wonder why you tell people to buy things you cant afford

Rule of thumb -> dont tell people to buy things you dont have first hand experience from, noone wants to hear about how alcohol makes you feel when youve never took a sip of beer

expected something like that from his personality type.
/thread

judging me or questioning my personality by words on the internet shows the true level of your intelligence.
/college