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Determining the performance gain of SLI/Crossfire
Muriden
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I'm a bit confused on how you determine the performance gain vs cost when considering an SLI/Crossfire set up compared to a single higher model card?
Say the performance difference between two GTX560s compared to a GTX580?
Say the performance difference between two GTX560s compared to a GTX580?
Muriden on
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You can also use Anandtech's Bench Tool, to get the performance numbers for different configurations, and get the scaling percentages yourself.
Tom's also has recommended graphics cards every month, and it will often listen two cards as being more cost effective for the performance gains.
Pirusu just nailed it all on the head in one simple post that covers all the bases.
I use Tom's Hardware and Anandtech and between the two you can figure out what's the best bang for your buck. I personally prefer to buy a good single card (not cutting edge) that offers great bang for your buck on it's own, and at the same time isn't TOO old, plus has the SLI/Crossfire option. Then in a year if I need more fire power I can pick up a 2nd of that same card for MUCH cheaper and then put them in tandem for a performance boost.
The Anandtech benchs are tremendously helpful.
Do be aware that SLI/Crossfire issues do tend to be one of the more commong things that crop up when a game has any sorta bugginess. Even in games that run fine for most everyone, SLI/Crossfire will still sometimes give you some grief. I kinda prefer the "one really big video card" solution in order to avoid all of that and still get great performance.
I ended up with SLI because I was already familiar with it (I'd been interested in Crossfire for years beforehand), and I had a motherboard with 3 PCI-Express slots anyway. Unfortunately, I have a case with a really awesome hard drive rack in it that means I can't put in some of the freakishly long high-end models that I was interested in, so SLI with two smaller models was the only option (I barely managed to fit those in too).
Though with a massively huge dual chipset card, you don't have to worry about the SLI/Crossfire Bridge screwing up. I had a bridge go bad, and it caused more than half of games I ran to crash at startup for no apparent reason. Didn't realize it until I turned SLI off, and everything went back to normal.
I do plan on stuffing an nvidia card into my rig at some point so that I can use it as a PhysX accelerator via a driver hack, but I need a new mobo first. My trusty ole Asus P6t SE's PCI slots are too close and I don't feel comfortable having another card parked right next to that 5970.
The SLI boost is not always be as high as I'd like depending on the game (for example, it's only about 45% for Shogun 2), but then again, many games don't play well with GeForces or Radeons specifically anyway. I've never had any games slow down from SLI anyway, which is a common complaint when something goes wrong.
I jumped onto the Fermi wagon a bit late, plus EVGA has a rep for being really anal about putting out driver patches in addition to Nvidia's own (presumably, you could use them with any card of identical make, though EVGA says "DON'T"...), so I've been shockingly glitch free for a 3 - 4 year card shift. All I did was update my drivers.