To SLI or not to SLI

[Raithe]

Righty-ho, since it looks like my graphics card is starting to flunk out and cause issues I'm poking around to consider replacements...

 

So what do people think, is it better to spend more money on a single oomphy card, or to get two not-so-oomphy cards to run in SLI?

Since I'm working on a budget, I'm not getting two oomphy cards..

 

 

Edit: The card that's flunking out is a GeForce GTS250, and the pc processor is a quad core 2.40Ghz

Edited July 31, 2011 by Raithe

[WDeranged]

I experienced Crossfire with a Radeon 5970, really bad/glitchy performance in most games but it was great with software that supported it, if you're not into playing Crysis and running benchmarks all the time then I say go with a single ballsy GPU.

[Gorgon]

Or a single card with a dual GPU.

[WDeranged]

Unfortunately the dual GPU cards have the same issues as multi card setups.

[Spider]

If you go with two cheaper cards, you will get more bang for your buck, but you will invite issues that comes with SLI/Crossfire (not supporting new games out of the box being the primary one). A single ballsy card will have lower performance but be a tad more stable. it also let's you have an easy upgrade path open (get another one in a while and SLI then), but if that's relevant depends on the life expectancy on the rest of your system.

 

Two cards also puts a higher demand on the cooling of your system, which is also something to keep in mind.

 

Personally, I would go with SLI/Crossfire if you expect to upgrade your entire computer within the next year or so. Otherwise I'd go with a single card and possibly add another one next summer (if prices are favorable enough to justify it).

 

I am running SLI with two 9800gtx and haven't experienced any problems with them.

Edited August 1, 2011 by Spider

[Humanoid]

It's not really a question that can be answered generically - it depends on the particular setups you're comparing and what your display resolution is. Few examples to illustrate:

 

2x GTX560 or 1x GTX580?

Answer is the former in the common case of 1080p, as the price/performance gain of the 580 is laughable. However the 560s may become memory constrained at higher resolutions of with multi-monitor gaming, such that the 50% more memory on the 580 becomes viable. Once you hit multiple high-res panels, the 3GB version of the 580 starts coming into the picture - but with the catch that one nV GPU can only drive two screens.

 

2x GTX 550 or 1x GTX570?

The 570 all the way.

 

And that's just comparing cards from the same vendor - as you can see there's no real rhyme or reason to the naming schemes, you just have to figure out your price point then evaluate your options from there - then it's just a matter of comparing four bench results - the single and dual card options from both nV and AMD.

 

And for the sake of fairness, some common AMD-based comparisons:

 

2x6850 vs 1x6950

The 6850s have a pretty good raw performance lead, but the 6950 is still pretty good price/performance and leaves the option of adding another later. It also has double the memory which is handy in situations mentioned earlier. 50:50 call.

 

2x5770 vs 1x6870

Again the dual-card setup has the speed advantage here, but this time the ceiling is a bit lower and as it'll obsolete sooner, may not be as good an option in a relatively short-to-middle term.

[Raithe]

Thanks for the words of wisdom.. I shall give it some thought.

[Morgoth]

Reading how much trouble SLI/Crossfire often causes, I wouldn't go for it.

[Raithe]

I'm also giving some consideration to getting a non-analogue monitor if I'm going to have to put down the cash on a new graphics card... All the monitors are pretty much dropping to low prices and it seems a bit silly not to take advantage of that slightly sharper dvi connection and hd capabilities.

[WDeranged]

As far as I know Viewsonic have a few of the cheapest IPS panel screens around right now, they're getting good reviews.

 

Try to avoid TN panels if you're doing any professional work, IPS, MVA or PVA are the way to go

 

*edit*

 

Just a little extra thing I gleaned from my time with the dual GPU card, you can technically disable the onboard xfire and use one gpu but the weird issues remain, apparently with two separate cards you can overcome this.

Edited August 2, 2011 by WDeranged

[Raithe]

Well for the random interest.. I ended up picking up an MSI GTX 560 Ti Twin-Frozr which seems to be certainly a lot smoother and quieter then my old card.

 

Also dug into the savings to pick up a nice 24" LED widescreen monitor, and changing to that dvi connection provides a little bit crisper and sharper image.

 

So... I'm happy. If more broke.

[CoM_Solaufein]

Speaking in regards to Crossfire, I never had problems with my old ATI 3870's in that setup. It was the best setup I had until I had to modernize. Back to a single card since I can't afford such toys right now.

[Bokishi]

Not worth it now!