Is & why is Crossfire better than SLI?

[Guest]

I have a g-sync monitor

for my next upgrade should i wait for pascal (feels like the gtx 970 is getting weak) or get an r9 390 and maybe crossfire that?

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the title question

[don_svetlio]

Crossfire scales better since the SLI bridge hinders performance and CrossFire is done via the PCIe bus.

[Bittenfleax]

I would wait for Pascal. 

 

And @don_svetlio said.

[AresKrieger]

Wait for pascal due to the monitor, the sli bridge hurts performance potential, xfire doesn't have that issue

[pagani123]

I have a g-sync monitor

for my next upgrade should i wait for pascal (feels like the gtx 970 is getting weak) or get an r9 390 and maybe crossfire that?

+

the title question

wait for pascal

[don_svetlio]

Wait for pascal due to the monitor, the sli bridge hurts performance potential, xfire doesn't have that issue

Yep - the SLI bridge was introduced in the 90s by 3DFX - it's outlived it's usefulness

[don_svetlio]

wait for pascal

 

I would wait for Pascal. 

 

And @don_svetlio said.

Pascal is Q3 2016 for gaming and Q1 2016 for Quadros

[Kobathor]

Crossfire scales better since the SLI bridge hinders performance and CrossFire is done via the PCIe bus.

^^^ this

 

NVidia is stupid and uses a proprietary connector for SLI.. Making it slow and stuttery. Crossfire-X uses the PCI-E bus which is how ever many times faster than the SLI fingers. That's why it scales way better even with only two GPUs.

About your monitor, I'd wait for Pascal if you want a better GPU. That, or you could buy another 970 now. But be wary, the 3.5GB frame buffer kinda suffers in some games..

[Nexxus]

^^^ this

 

NVidia is stupid and uses a proprietary connector for SLI.. Making it slow and stuttery. Crossfire-X uses the PCI-E bus which is how ever many times faster than the SLI fingers. That's why it scales way better even with only two GPUs.

About your monitor, I'd wait for Pascal if you want a better GPU. That, or you could buy another 970 now. But be wary, the 3.5GB frame buffer kinda suffers in some games..

id hardly call it slow and stuttery it might be technically inferior to sli currently but as someone who runs SLI it still performs quite well if the game is set up for it.

[AresKrieger]

Pascal is Q3 2016 for gaming and Q1 2016 for Quadros

Yes but he has a gsync monitor already (which as you know aren't cheap) so either he waits or gets a 980ti which is the only nvidia gpu I'd still recommend over a AMD model based on performance (though that is 600 bucks which he may not have)

[pagani123]

Pascal is Q3 2016 for gaming and Q1 2016 for Quadros

still i would wait im using 1 780 and i am waiting although when is the titan coming out is that q3

[don_svetlio]

Yes but he has a gsync monitor already (which as you know aren't cheap) so either he waits or gets a 980ti which is the only nvidia gpu I'd still recommend over a AMD model based on performance

I missed that - yeah, wait for Pascal. 1080 Ti will leave the 980 Ti in the dirt

[don_svetlio]

still i would wait im using 1 780 and i am waiting although when is the titan coming out is that q3

Titan is Q1 2017 likely. Like the other titans before it

[Bittenfleax]

Pascal is Q3 2016 for gaming and Q1 2016 for Quadros

Yeah, under a year? I would wait before splashing a few hundred.

[Samfisher]

Crossfire scales better since the SLI bridge hinders performance and CrossFire is done via the PCIe bus.

 

 

^^^ this

 

NVidia is stupid and uses a proprietary connector for SLI.. Making it slow and stuttery. Crossfire-X uses the PCI-E bus which is how ever many times faster than the SLI fingers. That's why it scales way better even with only two GPUs.

About your monitor, I'd wait for Pascal if you want a better GPU. That, or you could buy another 970 now. But be wary, the 3.5GB frame buffer kinda suffers in some games..

 

This is just plain wrong.  SLi bandwidth is not limited by the SLi bridge, and performance is equal to the PCIE implementation that AMD currently has.   Faster connections between the 2 GPUs does NOT increase performance, cos it was never a bottleneck to begin with.  AMD's Crossfire bridge however was much slower than the SLi bridge, and that forced a move to the XDMA standard cos they couldn't fix the dual GPU stuttering any other way.

[pagani123]

Titan is Q1 2017 likely. Like the other titans before it

i thought it was going to come out early to compete with amds stuff

[Enderman]

Crossfire scales better since the SLI bridge hinders performance and CrossFire is done via the PCIe bus.

except pascal will use nvlink, which is better than both SLI bridge and PCIe

[don_svetlio]

i thought it was going to come out early to compete with amds stuff

When has Nvidia ever been competitive with the Titans? It will likely be 1500$ since HBM2

[don_svetlio]

except pascal will use nvlink, which is better than both SLI bridge and PCIe

Isn't Nvilink done via PCie anyway?

[AresKrieger]

This is just plain wrong.  SLi bandwidth is not limited by the SLi bridge, and performance is equal to the PCIE implementation that AMD currently has.   Faster connections between the 2 GPUs does NOT increase performance, cos it was never a bottleneck to begin with.  AMD's Crossfire bridge however was much slower than the SLi bridge, and that forced a move to the XDMA standard cos they couldn't fix the dual GPU stuttering any other way.

Wait so why does it scale better, is it simply more optimized? I also thought it was the bridges fault, or is the performance scale difference a myth.

[MEC-777]

First and foremost, since you have a Gsync monitor, stick with Nvidia. 

 

Secondly, what others have said is true with crossfire vs SLI scaling (CF scaling is a little better). However; I'm currently running crossfire 290's and am in the process of getting out of this setup. In games that do take proper advantage of CF, the performance is really good (like >980Ti good). But, the number of games that do properly support CF vs the number that don't make it not worth it, IMO, based on my own experience. This is why I'm ditching the CF 290's for a single, more powerful GPU.

 

So here's what I would suggest; take the money you would be spending on a 390, sell your 970 and get a 980Ti instead. Better, more stable performance in most games and better overall user experience.  

[AllHokage]

I'd wait, In about 2-3 years 4k will be a possibility. And card's then will be the same price and outperforming 970/390 by a long shot. Thats my idea anyway (saving up now for awesome watercooler custom rig). 

 

Anyway If you can't wait get another 970 (since you already have 1)

[Enderman]

Isn't Nvilink done via PCie anyway?

http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/11/14/what-is-nvlink/

doesnt sound like it...

 

they say its faster and more efficient that PCIe, so it must use some other kind of interconnect

[pagani123]

When has Nvidia ever been competitive with the Titans? It will likely be 1500$ since HBM2

never said the price is competitive

[don_svetlio]

http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/11/14/what-is-nvlink/

doesnt sound like it...

 

they say its faster and more efficient that PCIe, so it must use some other kind of interconnect

I find it sketchy - I hope we don't go back to the era of proprietary GPU boards. That would suck