CF/SLI worth it at what Resolution

[bakes0310]

As title i keep seeing people make threads about adding another card or wanting to go CF/SLI. Then they get asked what res they playing at, then most of the time they get told not worth it.
So im kinda curious what res minimum should you start considering adding another card.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

I usually wouldn't bother with it until you're hitting 1920x1080/1200 or have a fetish for pushing a lot of AA.

 

[Rroff]

General rules for multi GPU:

3 and 4 way setups are rarely worth it ever.

Generally not required purely on a performance basis unless your running resolutions over 1920x where the current fastest single card doesn't cut it.

There are some exceptions where resolution doesn't come into play however i.e. with the GTX470 where 2 of them in SLI is both considerably faster than the top end cards at the time and similiar in price to just one of those cards.

Multi GPU with mid-range cards often isn't a great idea as theres usually a single card thats just as fast as 2 mid-range cards at the same kinda cost as the multi GPU setup, sometimes however it can make sense i.e. picking one up first then getting a 2nd when prices come down or because of poor availability of the faster card.

 

[mattjd]

1920x1080/1200 - If you're an FPS nut or you want to max out the more demanding games.

2560x1440/1600 - To actually make the games playable at high graphics settings.

Eyefinity/Nvidia Surround - For Nvidia's solution you have to have SLI for it to work. For Eyefinity it's basically the same for the larger resolutions.

3D - Same as the larger resolution's.

 

[hyperst]

it will depend if you want to max everything and play above 60fps, I dont think any single top end cards can do this so going crossfire/sli is a way around it, at 1920x1080(most common nowadays?)

 

[bakes0310]

My res is 2560x1440 so by the sounds of its worth it for me. But i dont think so cause every 2-3 years i buy whatever the top end card is. I like everything at max settings and a high fps and i think i have no problem yet with that.

 

[setter]

Running 1920x1200 here, a single 470 gtx coped well enough at this res, though as they had a nice price drop i purchased a second, allows me to max out details and use high amounts of aa. After selling my old gtx 275's the 470's worked out at £260.00 ono, no high end single card could offer me the performance to price ratio at that time.

 

[hyperst]

My res is 2560x1440 so by the sounds of its worth it for me. But i dont think so cause every 2-3 years i buy whatever the top end card is. I like everything at max settings and a high fps and i think i have no problem yet with that.

well that's a little confusing, any how I notice you run a 5970 which is in fact 2 gpu's on one card so you kinda all ready get crossfire performance

 

[bakes0310]

well that's a little confusing, any how I notice you run a 5970 which is in fact 2 gpu's on one card so you kinda all ready get crossfire performance

Yeah i should have worded that better. Im just saying that i upgrade to a high end card every 2-3 years so i dont know if it would be worth it for me.

 

[hyperst]

Yeah i should have worded that better. Im just saying that i upgrade to a high end card every 2-3 years so i dont know if it would be worth it for me.

well you all ready got crossfire performance, and I could be wrong but I don't think 2x5970 scale very well with it being 4 GPU's

 

[413x]

2 5970s is crazy, i see people with 1 5970 and 1 5870 but thats three cards and diminishing returns really

i game at 2560 and have just added a second 6950 flash [so in a essence 2x6970] the only game with an issue at that resolution is metro 2033 max everything, im still tweaking the CF overclock on it to get this game working.. but its only this game!