Can you Crossfire/SLI with different cards?

[IlDuceSaint]

i don't know if this is a noob question, but anyway i want to learn, that i have seen crossfire with 2 7970, sli's with 2 770, but i havent seen crossfire or sli with 2 different cards. like for example, sli with 1 770 with 780, or crossfire with 7970 and 7950, etc. so this can happen?, its better to Crossfire/SLI with same card?.

 

Thanks for reading.

i appreciate your answers.

[Askew]

SLI is only compatible with cards using the same GPU and VRAM quantity (I hear that if you put for instance a 2GB and a 4GB 770, the SLI configuration will detect both as 2GB but I have not personally tested this) they can be from different manufacturers but they must be the same card.

 

I believe Xfire has some exceptions, like the ablility to Xfire a discrete card with an APU ect, some of the more knowledgable AMD users will come in for the Xfire part.

[HutchisonSorbo]

[Morpheus]

not with nvidia cards but amd sometimes you can depends

[Emperor_Piehead]

nvidia cards only work with the same type with the same amount of memory, but amd works with any 2 cards of the same gpu core

[FatalWaffles]

Here is a image you can use for reference when it comes to AMD's Crossfire: http://sites.amd.com/PublishingImages/Public/Graphic_Illustrations/WebBannerJPEG/AMD_CrossfireX_Chart_1618W.jpg

 

With nvidia's SLI you can only put two of the same card in SLI

[whatthe_fuzz]

7970 and 7950 can

 

a 7970 and a 280X can

[beefalo]

7970 and 7950 can

 

a 7970 and a 280X can

7850 and 7870 as well.

[whatthe_fuzz]

7850 and 7870 as well.

 

And 7790 and 7770 ghz ed and 7770 and 7750

[-rascal-]

AMD's CrossfireX is a lot more flexible than NVidia's SLI.

 

The graph provided by @FatalWaffles pretty much sums it up.

 

7970 works with:

- 7990

- 7970

- R9-280X (essentially an overclock HD 7970 GHz Edition)

- 7950

 

The reason why you don't see a lot of 7970 + 7950 in the wild is because....it will perform less than 2 x 7970's.

The performance will be in between 2 x 7970 and 2x 7950.

7970 + 7970 (fastest)

7970 + 7950 (mid)

7950 + 7950 (slower of the combos)

 

This is quite old...since this was 5870 + 5850 mixed Crossfire...but it's still quite applicable to this day.

http://www.legitreviews.com/ati-radeon-hd-5870-5850-crossfire-mixing-video-cards_1107

 

Different, but similar in some ways; HD 7000 series and R200 series Crossfire testing

http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-radeon-7000-radeon-r200-series-mixed-crossfire-testing_126124

[beefalo]

And 7790 and 7770 ghz ed and 7770 and 7750

I don't know about 7790 with those; it's a different gpu.  7790 with 260x will work though.