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1080 And 4K Performance ?

Dicehunter

Dicehunter

Dicehunter

Soldato
Joined
19 Feb 2007
Posts
15,339
Location
Northampton
So I got myself a 43" Phillips IPS monitor and it's gorgeous, Bigger really is better when it comes to 4K.

Anyway, I'm currently running it off a Gigabyte GTX 770 OC 4GB, Not exactly powerful I know.

I'm looking at either getting an aftermarket 1080 such as Zotacs top end card, The Zotac Amp Extreme OR waiting for AMD's 480X to drop and get 2 x of those for a lot cheaper and get roughly the same performance as a 1080 based on the VERY early numbers.

Question is, How well does crossfire work nowadays ? Last I tried Crossfire was with 2 x 6970's and it was horrible, Performance gain was tiny and the extra heat just made it perform badly due to throttling.

Any input is appreciated :)
 
Crossfire itself is great, and has come on leaps and bounds during the R9 era. However, the problem is that currently a lot of games are being designed with extra bells and whistles on top of the "standard" DX11 features and these are breaking multi-GPU compatibility. For example, Just Cause 3 does not support multi-GPU at all and (unless a miracle happens) never will. On top of that, Crossfire doesn't work on non-DX titles, so the new Doom only runs on one GPU.

With DX12 and Vulkan, the onus is on the game developers to explicitly support multi-GPU, and my gut feel is this won't happen for a long time but I would REALLY like to be proven wrong on this.

If the games you play support multi-GPU, then Crossfire is brilliant and I thoroughly recommend it. If the games you play don't support multi-GPU, or you're looking at future AAA game releases, then I'd say always go for the single GPU option.
 
Go for a 1080 mate. Single card performance. Seems like the much better option to me.

Atleast you will be getting 100% perf all the time rather than having to use a single card or low scaling.

Was a big jump going from a GTX 770 to a 980 nevermind a 770 to a 1080.
 
I got an Asus FE 1080 the other day to pair with my XB321HK and am finding it fantastic overall!! Only really hammered the Division but I was able to raise the settings over my Ti and it's giving me improved framerates :)

I do have Gsync however, which I'm sure is helping me when it's dipping during intense firefights :cool:

It'll last me until the 1080Ti is out ;)
 
Crossfire has been pretty bad for the last year or so. That's not to say it won't get better but if i was buying now it would probably be the gtx1080 at this minute.
 
I have the Ben Q IPS 32 inch monitor would love a bigger IPS one
how is it did it get good reviews?

Also i would go for a 1080

I had 2X T-X hits 60fps in all games.. Sold one and now i still get 50-60 FPS in games like witcher with AA off and one or 2 settings turned down so im happy
i do have a big OC on the card also
 
TheRealDeal said:
Crossfire has been pretty bad for the last year or so. That's not to say it won't get better but if i was buying now it would probably be the gtx1080 at this minute.
Click to expand...

To be fair, not just crossfire, SLI support has typically been something thats come to a game months after Ive stopped playing, fastest single card is where I will be at from now on.
 
Dicehunter said:
So I got myself a 43" Phillips IPS monitor and it's gorgeous, Bigger really is better when it comes to 4K.

Anyway, I'm currently running it off a Gigabyte GTX 770 OC 4GB, Not exactly powerful I know.

I'm looking at either getting an aftermarket 1080 such as Zotacs top end card, The Zotac Amp Extreme OR waiting for AMD's 480X to drop and get 2 x of those for a lot cheaper and get roughly the same performance as a 1080 based on the VERY early numbers.

Question is, How well does crossfire work nowadays ? Last I tried Crossfire was with 2 x 6970's and it was horrible, Performance gain was tiny and the extra heat just made it perform badly due to throttling.

Any input is appreciated :)
Click to expand...

still too soon to invest in multi-gpu right now, it could be better next year who know, AMD seem to be working towards that at least.
480 isn't a good choice for 4k, not enough grunt and bandwidth, if money is no issue, a good custom 1080 is the fastest solution for now,or another almost as good option would be 1070/980Ti 2nd hand for half the price if money is somehow an issue, hopefully next year ti/Vega will break the 4k60fps wall in most games.
 
Bear in mind a single 1080 will see you getting between 30-60 fps in top games with max settings excluding max aa.

So you would also need a gsync monitor to stop the frame rate flipping between 30 and 60 fps with vsync enabled
 
Confused Stu said:
Crossfire itself is great, and has come on leaps and bounds during the R9 era. However, the problem is that currently a lot of games are being designed with extra bells and whistles on top of the "standard" DX11 features and these are breaking multi-GPU compatibility. For example, Just Cause 3 does not support multi-GPU at all and (unless a miracle happens) never will. On top of that, Crossfire doesn't work on non-DX titles, so the new Doom only runs on one GPU.

With DX12 and Vulkan, the onus is on the game developers to explicitly support multi-GPU, and my gut feel is this won't happen for a long time but I would REALLY like to be proven wrong on this.

If the games you play support multi-GPU, then Crossfire is brilliant and I thoroughly recommend it. If the games you play don't support multi-GPU, or you're looking at future AAA game releases, then I'd say always go for the single GPU option.
Click to expand...

I watched a vid about this, think it was an nvidia engineer. And the consensus was that a lot of game engines were using certain rendering methods that i think he referred to as "inter-frame dependency". Which is bad for multi gpu, in so much as it doesn't support SLI at all. I don't understand enough about the technical aspects to know if a solution to that will ever be found.
 
4K without G-Sync/Freesync is a big no-no in my opinion. Once you experience silky smooth 1440p/21:9 with it, you just can't stomach 4K, even with the improved image quality. That Phillips is a great monitor, but be prepared to notch quite a few settings down if you want a smooth playable experience on all games, even on a 1080.
 
Dicehunter said:
I'm looking at either getting an aftermarket 1080 such as Zotacs top end card, The Zotac Amp Extreme OR waiting for AMD's 480X to drop and get 2 x of those for a lot cheaper and get roughly the same performance as a 1080 based on the VERY early numbers.
Click to expand...

Even for £100 - £150 extra i would still rather have the 1080, assuming Xfire 480's are similar in performance.

Much better to have the single card solution for compatibility, heat, noise power e.t.c.
 
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Go 1080, well worth the extra. Less compatibility issues, noise, heat (likely). The only benefit would be cost given that freesync is cheaper as well as the cards, however you have a screen sorted.
 
Legend said:
4K without G-Sync/Freesync is a big no-no in my opinion. Once you experience silky smooth 1440p/21:9 with it, you just can't stomach 4K, even with the improved image quality. That Phillips is a great monitor, but be prepared to notch quite a few settings down if you want a smooth playable experience on all games, even on a 1080.
Click to expand...

Agreed, should be able to run Medium settings pretty much to lock it at 60fps. Gsync allows me to turn a few settings up and still make it smooth and responsive :)


edit - Dicehunter, I forgot about the new Fast Sync tech on the 1080's, that may be useful for someone in your position! Def worth keeping an eye out for info
 
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I'm moving to a single card now. Can't bear X fire anymore. My second card spends most time deactivated because of some intolerable XFire issue preventing games from running properly. The last 2 games I've played have faced issues - the Division (no driver updates to address the issue even after 2 months from release); Dark Souls 3 (horrible stuttering). Not even bothered to enable XFire for Total War... I expect it will have bugs...
 
Jenkinio said:
I'm moving to a single card now. Can't bear X fire anymore. My second card spends most time deactivated because of some intolerable XFire issue preventing games from running properly. The last 2 games I've played have faced issues - the Division (no driver updates to address the issue even after 2 months from release); Dark Souls 3 (horrible stuttering). Not even bothered to enable XFire for Total War... I expect it will have bugs...
Click to expand...

dont use crossfire on ubisoft games, take it as rule from me.
darksouls 3 is capped to 60fps you and dont need crossfire and it's supported, it runs on 380/960 at 60 fps
total war they will add crossfire with dx12 patch
 
Thanks for the replies all, Looks like I'll be going the 1080 Zotac Amp Extreme route then when they are in stock :)

JediFragger said:
Agreed, should be able to run Medium settings pretty much to lock it at 60fps. Gsync allows me to turn a few settings up and still make it smooth and responsive :)


edit - Dicehunter, I forgot about the new Fast Sync tech on the 1080's, that may be useful for someone in your position! Def worth keeping an eye out for info
Click to expand...

I'm looking forward to seeing how this Fast-Sync works :)
 
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