SLI/Crossfire Vs. Single GPU Gaming

[Vertikull]

Vertikull here, 

Can you guys help me out? I'm wanting to build my own PC. I already have a gaming pc but i'm wanting a dope RGB PC (first world problems,huh?). Still unsure on one thing, what the heck is a dual GPU system for? What is its advantages over a single gpu system?

 

Thx everyone.

[79wjd]

SLI/Crossfire offers more power than a single GPU. It, however, does suffer from scaling and support issues and so it is generally only recommended to go with SLI/Crossfire after you're already using a flagship GPU.

[Zyndo]

5 minutes ago, Vertikull said:

 what the heck is a dual GPU system for? What is its advantages over a single gpu system?

The benefit is that you have potentially twice the GPU horsepower as you would with a single card.

 

The caveat is that its "potentially" twice the power. depending on what you're doing, and often down to a per application/program use-case, the actual amount of performance benefit you get from having that second card can vary EXTREMELY from one situation to the next. Sometimes and some games you get a near perfect 100% scaling. Other times you get zero performance benefits (or in some cases even performance deficits). It's usually reliable enough to see a moderate performance bump in a chunk of AAA titles available today, but due to its highly variable nature and inconsistent results, its usually recommended that you only add multiple GPU's to your system if you're using the best-of-the-best GPU. Doesn't make sense to use two 1070's when a single 1080ti costs roughly the same amount, even though in some very specific game titles a 1070 SLI can beat out a 1080ti, simply because the 1080ti will give you more consistent results.

 

The other benefit is that SLI is the only way to get next gen performance before next gen stuff gets here... and of course it makes your rig look badass. The drawbacks, other than what was listed above, is a much higher pricetag with a much lower performance return on your investment. Also, going SLI will draw much more power, and likely will require you to spend additional funds on your PSU to fuel it and fans to cool it.

 

So unless you know exactly what you need your second (or more) GPU for, or just have a ton of money laying around, I would highly recommend just getting the single best card you can afford and call it a day.

[SquintyG33Rs]

don't do it.... don't bother. unless you have 10k burning a hole in your pocket and your only goal is getting the bragging rights.

[Mick Naughty]

I always do it, as its always worth it. Get tired of buying and selling because something "better" came out. Two is better than one. Depends on your needs and wants.

[Frankenburger]

Going CFX/SLI will let you push above the limits of a single GPU system. It's good for graphical mods, ultra settings, custom settings, DSR, SSAA, etc. The only real drawbacks are increased power draw and not all games scale the same.

[Kc7vwc]

10 hours ago, Mick Naughty said:

I always do it, as its always worth it. Get tired of buying and selling because something "better" came out. Two is better than one. Depends on your needs and wants.

If you buy & sell this often, you have other issues.

@Vertikull SLI hasn't been worth it for a couple generations. Unless you're trying to game at 4k, a single card is plenty & you won't have the headache of getting SLI to work - many games don't even have official support for it. 

[Mick Naughty]

1 minute ago, Kc7vwc said:

If you buy & sell this often, you have other issues.

@Vertikull SLI hasn't been worth it for a couple generations. Unless you're trying to game at 4k, a single card is plenty & you won't have the headache of getting SLI to work - many games don't even have official support for it. 

Most do have that issue. Every time a card comes out there are a hundred posts about moving up to the next one. SLi has been worth it for many generations. But ive only been doing it since the 5xx series. Only game that has been crap is pubg. A single card isn't enough for everyone unless you want to make sacrifices in gameplay.

[Kc7vwc]

6 minutes ago, Mick Naughty said:

Most do have that issue. Every time a card comes out there are a hundred posts about moving up to the next one. SLi has been worth it for many generations. But ive only been doing it since the 5xx series. Only game that has been crap is pubg. A single card isn't enough for everyone unless you want to make sacrifices in gameplay.

There's ZERO reason to upgrade every cycle. Anyone doing that is just throwing money away. Especially on a new build. SLI is designed to extend the life of a build, you know, so people aren't wasting $ every GPU cycle. 

Personally I've had about 50% success rate with SLI/CFX. Most of the non-AAA titles i play wouldn't support my old dual 970s. Going back to dual HD 6850s, I would get texture issues with WoW! And none of my Wargaming.net titles support it.  PubG is still in beta, btw.

And I'm still running an R9 390 and pushing all my games 90-120fps. I'm just not stupid enough to try gaming at 4k.

 

SLI is just adding another complication that only a niche market needs. Even Jay doesn't recommend it anymore. 

If you want to throw money at it, fine. Just don't recommend for someone starting relatively new.

 

[Mick Naughty]

1 minute ago, Kc7vwc said:

There's ZERO reason to upgrade every cycle. Anyone doing that is just throwing money away. Especially on a new build. SLI is designed to extend the life of a build, you know, so people aren't wasting $ every GPU cycle. 

Personally I've had about 50% success rate with SLI/CFX. Most of the non-AAA titles i play wouldn't support my old dual 970s. Going back to dual HD 6850s, I would get texture issues with WoW! And none of my Wargaming.net titles support it.  PubG is still in beta, btw.

And I'm still running an R9 390 and pushing all my games 90-120fps. I'm just not stupid enough to try gaming at 4k.

 

SLI is just adding another complication that only a niche market needs. Even Jay doesn't recommend it anymore. 

If you want to throw money at it, fine. Just don't recommend for someone starting relatively new.

 

Yea I wouldn't get a new pc person to try it yet either but everyone should try stuff at some point. When they make a card that can do what I want then I will stick to one card. So that means I would have to waste money again. I still use my old cards as well but I couldn't use an old card for the gaming I do unless its on a single 1080/1440 monitor which isn't fun. I was new to pc's and still went sli. Learned early how much better it is over a single card. Also learned the importance of getting a single higher card to begin with though.

 

Jay is too biased to even consider his opinion. Learned that in his surround gaming video. But everyone is entitled to an opinion, just hate it getting carried so much because they have a video on youtube.

[ShredBird]

I've had plenty of experience with Dual GPUs:

2x ATI Radeon HD 4870s in Crossfire.  At the time, two of these were a good deal faster and cheaper than a single Nvidia GTX 280.  Bought both from the get go.

2x Radeon HD 7870s in Crossfire.  I started with a single HD 7870 which served me well and added a second down the line when I found a really good deal on a second card.

2x GeForce GTX 970 in SLI.  Again, started with one card and added a second down the line when certain titles I played were not performing as well as I wanted them to.  At the time, 2 970s in SLI easily outperformed a GTX 980ti and costed less.

In almost every instance I've used mGPU, two mid/high tier GPUs outperformed the highest performing single GPU for less money.  Also, adding a second card down the line when I needed it helped me add more performance for far cheaper than buying a single GPU solution.  I think with the exception of Nvidia's 10 series, this has always been true, I don't think 2x GTX 1070s outperform a 1080ti.

That being said I have had problems.  Some games straight up don't support SLI/Crossfire.  For me, the games that do not already run extremely well with a single GPU.  Scaling isn't always perfect and you don't always get good support on day one.  Nvidia is actually a lot better than AMD/ATI was at getting an SLI profile out on day one, but it's hit and miss sometimes.  Also, some graphical features are incompatible with dual GPU setups.  Deus Ex Mankind Divided for example, the temporal AA method used in the game is utterly broken for dual GPU leaving you with limited options for effective antialiasing.  Heat and noise, an SLI setup is easily going to put you in the 300-400W under full load range and one card is going to be about 10 degrees hotter than the other and its fan is gonna ramp up constantly.  My GTX 970 STRIX cards were virtually silent even when overclocked and run as a single card, but in SLI one card always ran hot and ramped up the fan.

Lastly, I just gave up my SLI setup because the latest Windows 10 update broke the way my motherboard allocated PCIe lanes to two cards.  This isn't a fault of SLI/Crossfire itself, but when you have more components in a system you're likely to encounter more issues.  That's just true of any system.

In conclusion, there are some quirks, but depending on pricing and timing you may be able to get flagship like performance at a cheaper price, or add some extra power down the line when you need it.  Just depends on your needs for the system and what you can afford at the time.  I don't regret using dual GPU, but I wouldn't go back to it if a single GPU solution makes more sense economically/financially at the time.

[Frankenburger]

5 hours ago, Kc7vwc said:

Personally I've had about 50% success rate with SLI/CFX. Most of the non-AAA titles i play wouldn't support my old dual 970s.

There will always be games that don't work with CFX/SLI. Though whether user plays either compatible or incompatible games is purely subjective. It's entirely possible to get CFX/SLI working in many games that don't support it natively. For example, Tera Online doesn't work with SLI by default, but you can enable SLI support by switching the SLI bits to the Max Payne 3 bits with Nvidia Inspector. Just because a game doesn't work with SLI by default doesn't mean it won't work at all. Unfortunately, most reviewers don't cover manual driver fixes, and as a result it seems a lot of people who disapprove of SLI are unaware that you can increase compatibility with a few extra clicks.

 

That said, the majority of the games that I personally play either work with SLI, or can be configured to work with SLI through driver tweaks.