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How Reliable is Crossfire/SLI v Single-GPU?

I didn't even say anything and you think I'm bias? lol love how people call me bias for the slightest possible of slights towards ATI when I'm equally positive and negative towards both sides :S whos the fan boi now.
 
Micro stutter.. never noticed it myself

it happens when your fps are around 30-40 apparently (i'm not sure if this is 100% correct or not) from what i've been reading recently, it makes you perceive lower fps than it actually is. So as long as you are getting over 60 (which will be very difficult at high resolution anyway) you would be fine.

Bit disappointing since it's hard to maintain a high FPS on new titles especially at high resolutions, but as long as you don't go crazy high i would have thought it would be fine.

There have been times when i was a bit disappointed in SLI, like COD4 ran well until i got to an outdoor map 2nd or third level or something? where the FPS dipped to 20 and you could see it lag..
 
Microstutter Is more apparent at lower framerates as the difference in the time between frames is much longer and so much more obvious. In a properly setup system with decent drivers you shouldn't get microstutter however.


EDIT: Theres a bug in COD4 on some hardware where especially in areas with lots of foliage framerate will drop to 20 or so when moving or when another player is moving, but if you stand still it will run 100+fps... unfortunatly if your affected by it the only cure seems to be to either drastically change your hardware config or use a different PC as it seems to be related to interupt sharing or something.
 
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To a degree you can if the workload of one card becomes outdated... but for the most part its not really noticeable.
 
Perfect_Chaos said:
Micro stutter.. never noticed it myself

it happens when your fps are around 30-40 apparently (i'm not sure if this is 100% correct or not) from what i've been reading recently, it makes you perceive lower fps than it actually is. So as long as you are getting over 60 (which will be very difficult at high resolution anyway) you would be fine.

Bit disappointing since it's hard to maintain a high FPS on new titles especially at high resolutions, but as long as you don't go crazy high i would have thought it would be fine.
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Click to expand...

It would be worse with low fps but I thought you could get microstutter even with high fps. This is what worries me, where dual-gpus sometimes produce larger intervals in between the individual frames:

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,631668/Video-proof-Micro-stuttering-may-destroy-the-performance-gains-from-current-multi-GPU-technologies/Grafikkarte/Test/
 
Rezident said:
It would be worse with low fps but I thought you could get microstutter even with high fps. This is what worries me, where dual-gpus sometimes produce larger intervals in between the individual frames:

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,631668/Video-proof-Micro-stuttering-may-destroy-the-performance-gains-from-current-multi-GPU-technologies/Grafikkarte/Test/
Click to expand...

That article is quite out of date and somewhat more off putting than it should be, i don't have the links to hand but after recently skiving at work reading everything i could regarding micro stutter the new generation dual GPU's/doubled up GPU's aren't as bad. The 3870X2 was a lot worse by comparison in such articles.

It does exist though, i believe the general conensus is that if frames are high enough and stable enough you shouldn't notice a thing.

For what it's worth, as picky, fussy and anal as i am about things i'm taking the plunge soon with a GTX295.
 
Sweeney said:
That article is quite out of date and somewhat more off putting than it should be, i don't have the links to hand but after recently skiving at work reading everything i could regarding micro stutter the new generation dual GPU's/doubled up GPU's aren't as bad. The 3870X2 was a lot worse by comparison in such articles.

It does exist though, i believe the general conensus is that if frames are high enough and stable enough you shouldn't notice a thing.

For what it's worth, as picky, fussy and anal as i am about things i'm taking the plunge soon with a GTX295.
Click to expand...

yes new hardware does seem to be better alright.
 
If i could remember the better of the articles (honestly, i spent almost 5 hours just reading, looking at line graphs and watching youtube videos lol) you would see just how much it has improved compared to the older solutions.
 
I have XFX 4890 XTs here and the power is great. Crysis everything on High a smooth 50-60 FPS, 1920x1200. I can play at Very High at around 38-44 FPS so still nice and playable but heavy enemy activity slows it down a little...

With regard to "Micro-stutter" I really can not say I have every experienced this I'm normally fare to immersed in the game to be bothered by such things. Previously I have had a 7800GTX SLi setup and again even though that was relatively near the beginning of the Crossfire/SLi generation it ran perfectly.

I would say if you can afford to get 2 cards then get two cards, the scaling on the 4800 platform is really good which ATi did promise and really its only going to get better.

XD-3
 
my experience with dual GPU with Nvidia so far is pretty bad... especially with dual display :( Its the most horrible experience I've ever had with dual display :( Shouldn't have swapped the HD 4850 for the 9800GX2... I didn't take it just for the extra performance.. I took it for the sake of getting a better resale value of the graphics card :p
 
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