Is adding more videocards really worth it?

[Judist]

What's sad is 4k's current max is 60hz until display port 1.3 is released, which may take a year or two.

[Gauzl]

I will always have 2 high end GPU's in my PC as I want to achieve high frame rates at 1440p which current my 780's can do on most games today, also a 3rd GPU will give me some benefit at 1440p but definately wouldn't be worth the money to performance increase ratio, however if I was to go with a 3 monitor set up it absolutely would be worth it as scaling gets much better as you get more pixels. But 4 GPU's is just for bragging rights really.

[Gauzl]

What's sad is 4k's current max is 60hz until display port 1.3 is released, which may take a year or two.

And until then we can't enjoy even 60fps at 4K anyway.

[Judist]

Even if pushing 4k close to 120fps is a pipe dream, I wouldn't buy anything less than 120hz as it'll represent a future investment.

I always feel a little sad knowing people jumped on the 30hz 4k monitors that initially came to market. It's their $ but that's a crap limitation considering the expense.

Personally I bought a Sony 65" 4k tv and regret not waiting. 4096x2160@24p is garbage.

[I/O]

What's sad is 4k's current max is 60hz until display port 1.3 is released, which may take a year or two.

what's real sad is the fact that you can't even get 60fps @[member='4k let alone more

[Humbug]

120Hz IPS for 1080p is not even common place.

Let along 4K.

[Judist]

A good reason not to run 3+ gpus.

Of course if someone is running tri-quad SLI I'd think they'd have a 120hz+ panel.

[Tam3n]

It's probably not "worth it", but if you are going for the ultimate rig, you'll squaze all those GPUs in.

[itroitnyah]

Now that I've woken up, I've come back to this thread and it's a lot of people talking about monitors. 

 

And what I've taken from it is that adding more cards while playing at higher resolutions such as 4K will improve performance significantly more than if you were playing at 1080p and were adding more cards. How true is this? I don't quite see how this works out.

[Judist]

Now that I've woken up, I've come back to this thread and it's a lot of people talking about monitors. 

 

And what I've taken from it is that adding more cards while playing at higher resolutions such as 4K will improve performance significantly more than if you were playing at 1080p and were adding more cards. How true is this? I don't quite see how this works out.

 

Oh you'll gain performance at all resolutions.

 

However at 1080p you'll wont notice the performance gain unless you have superhuman vision. 100fps or 1000fps, its all the same. Of course its moot because your limited by your monitors refresh rate. Depending on the game, 1 or 2 high-end GPUs can already max 120hz or 144hz monitors @ 1080p. Adding more would accomplish nothing.

 

Using GPUs for production is a different matter. Time is money and the more horsepower the more productivity.

[JDS]

2 cards, yes. 3 cards, eh. 4 cards, no.

[Najuno]

When you use multiple cards you can use high level AA like Edge Detect sexy sample AA 24x and still maintain a nice framerate above 60fps.

 

Maybe when you run 1080p @ 60Hz with older games... hate to tell you you are wrong. I use a watercooled 780 Ti SLI OCed balls to the wall in 1440p and yes for sure you'll get more FPS and you can crank up the details a notch but dreaming of using such high AA settings is what it is... a dream.

 

Play games like WatchDogs or Arma and see what you will get, the result will surprise you. Even in 1080p in WatchDogs, with its shitty code, high AA settings cause performance issues.

 

In 4K (that's the only reason for a 3 or 4 way SLI/CF) you can't use high/ultra settings and think about using AA. At this point it is just way too demanding.

[itroitnyah]

However at 1080p you'll wont notice the performance gain unless you have superhuman vision. 100fps or 1000fps, its all the same. Of course its moot because your limited by your monitors refresh rate. Depending on the game, 1 or 2 high-end GPUs can already max 120hz or 144hz monitors @ 1080p. Adding more would accomplish nothing.

Yes, but I'm not exactly speaking realistically. Going back to rhetorical land, if you had a 4k monitor and 1080p monitor with unlimited hz, then would 4 videocards have a better impact on the performance at 4k resolution than at 1080p?

 

Set aside the solid numbers and go to performance percents i.e. If using four cards at 1080p increases performance by 4% over using two videocards, then would using four cards at 4k increase performance by 12%, or would the results just mirror over and the performance increase over two cards not be impacted by resolution?

[I/O]

Maybe when you run 1080p @ 60Hz with older games... hate to tell you you are wrong. I use a watercooled 780 Ti SLI OCed balls to the wall in 1440p and yes for sure you'll get more FPS and you can crank up the details a notch but dreaming of using such high AA settings is what it is... a dream.

 

Play games like WatchDogs or Arma and see what you will get, the result will surprise you. Even in 1080p in WatchDogs, with its shitty code, high AA settings cause performance issues.

 

In 4K (that's the only reason for a 3 or 4 way SLI/CF) you can't use high/ultra settings and think about using AA. At this point it is just way too demanding.

Well naturally games that are coded shitty like the aforementioned ones and older ones like GTAIV etc can't run great no matter whats settings and hardware used. I rather the choice to crank up the sexy settings and high end Super Sexy Sampling AA forced through NV CP and CCC when the game permits. I don't care whats been going around the Internets lately about how some people try to claim that AA blurs the image but they might want to get there eyes checked and stop using that ugly FXAA crap. As for 4K ya it's not viable to run high level AA or even high end graphical settings now in days and it probably won't be till one generation after next generation of GPUs until gamers can really crank up the sexy at that resolution LOL. Even say Witcher 2 which is a decently coded game now in day's chokes on the in game Uber Sampling setting even on today's high end cards but my does it look gorgeous.

[Najuno]

Well naturally games that are coded shitty like the aforementioned ones and older ones like GTAIV etc can't run great no matter whats settings and hardware used. I rather the choice to crank up the sexy settings and high end Super Sexy Sampling AA forced through NV CP and CCC when the game permits. I don't care whats been going around the Internets lately about how some people try to claim that AA blurs the image but they might want to get there eyes checked and stop using that ugly FXAA crap. As for 4K ya it's not viable to run high level AA or even high end graphical settings now in days and it probably won't be till one generation after next generation of GPUs until gamers can really crank up the sexy at that resolution LOL. Even say Witcher 2 which is a decently coded game now in day's chokes on the in game Uber Sampling setting even on today's high end cards but my does it look gorgeous.

 

Haha and here's the problem, when you crank up these settings so hard (and yes AA doesn't blur... at least I never see that ) you will see a massiv drop in FPS. Personally I'd never sacrifice that much performance even though I like using AA.

[I/O]

Haha and here's the problem, when you crank up these settings so hard (and yes AA doesn't blur... at least I never see that ) you will see a massiv drop in FPS. Personally I'd never sacrifice that much performance even though I like using AA.

I haven't had high end hardware since 09 but back then I just forced 24x Edge Detect Super Sample AA via CCC and was still getting 60fps Vsync in all games I played except Crysis. I think it was even higher than 24x SS AA cause when I upgraded to a dual card setup it unlocked even higher levels of AA in the CCC.

[MonkeyFace]

Depends on the person, and their setup, and their tolerance for diminishing returns. 

[Zeruel]

For a normal person on a 60HZ monitor one GPU should be enough. But for those who are running 120hz monitors two GPUs is a good idea.