• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

SLI or Xfire???

katana6434

katana6434

katana6434

Associate
Joined
6 Oct 2006
Posts
375
Location
Luton
Hi

I want to get a SLI or Xfire setup. What is the better choice at the moment?

How well supported are both options and what would people reccommend to go for.

i have generally used nvidia in the past but am not adversed to go to AMD if that is the better way to go.

Cheers
 
I have always been Nvidia until recently. Moving to CF 7970's now.
However, I only did that as the cards were cheap vs some 680's (saved around £250 total).

My expectations are similar performance but slower to get there. I.E expect driver quirks for longer than you would wait with Nvidia.

I think that if you want new games to run well on dual GPU out of the box then go Nvidia as it is more likely (not guaranteed eg far cry 3).

But I think I can put up with some niggles.

I am informed that radeon have done a lot to catch up with Nvidia regarding drivers and onward support.

Edit*

I have also seen many benchmarks suggesting Cf scales much much better than SLI. I.E some games get 100% boost from 2nd card.
 
nVidia are slightly more robust for multi GPU set ups IMO.

Not enough to warrant a large price premium though if you're on a budget.
 
I be playing at 2560x1440. I will be playing FPS, RPGS and strategy mainly. I have no plans at the moment to go 3d, although if they start to do 3d that resolution I might be tempted. I also might plan to add another monitor but if I dothat will not be for a while.

I have heard that amd for price/performance is good, but that nvidia have better support, which has been mentioned above. Also been told that dual AMD 7950's are a good setup.

I have not thought about physx to be honest. Do I need to? Will a dual GPU setup take care of that aspect?
 
Last edited:
I'm considering selling my 670 and going to 7970 CF soon, AMD have really upped their game recently and drivers have been spot on. As well as them getting in with many developers to get optimisations for AMD hardware, also 3gb VRAM and the 384bit mem bus width is solid future proofing.

At the time of buying Nvidia, it was the best choice around. Now I feel like an idiot heh.
 
illuz said:
At the time of buying Nvidia, it was the best choice around. Now I feel like an idiot heh.
Click to expand...

On that basis you'd have been an idiot for going with AMD when you got your 670s as they were probably cheaper than the 7970 and performed on par. :D

There's nearly always a slightly better option in hindsight but nobody saw the better drivers really coming... steady improvements were being made by not like the jump 12.11 provided in the big games from the this/last year.

The memory bandwidth and VRAM only really become noticeable above 1080p for future proofing. If you're at 1920*1080 I really wouldn't recommend upgrading especially to 7970 CF as both GPUs won't be anywhere near fully utilised and will be somewhat wasted.
 
Yeah that's true haha! They were, but yeah 12.11 was a game changer definitely.

I am at 1080p and I will be staying here for a while, however I'm a 120hz goodness freak and I know the CF will provide enough GPU grunt until the next generation (Nvidia maxwell, hopefully).

Rusty - convince me to go nvidia and 3D? I want to stay but I feel like an idiot for doing so, and I don't know if these cards will last til maxwell.
 
Last edited:
So will 670 SLI and cheaper as well :)

(if you consider the loss you'll make on selling up)

Also, nVidia multi GPU I generally consider to be a slightly better experience. Not enough to sway me either way unless everything else was even but worth bearing in mind.
 
Yeah, my budget can fit CF 7970 OR SLI 670 + Fans + 3D Vision kit. I guess I'd be the idiot going to CF overall... Decisions decisions hah.
 
Rusty0611 said:
So will 670 SLI and cheaper as well :)

(if you consider the loss you'll make on selling up)
Click to expand...

+1

The only way to go without making a loss would be to sell up and go 7950 CrossFire@£480 for the IceQ's, should break even at least, while the performance difference not being noticeable@1080p unless you bench.

Tridef/AMD 3D is pretty good too without the cost of the 3D vision kit, but I don't think your monitor supports native 3D. :)
 
At the moment I am thinking about going CF 7950. I'm not really worried about 3D yet, although I might go multi monitor at some point next year.

Is that the best performance for your pound at the moment. I could be tempted to go CF 7970 but if I don't need to spend the money I won't, although it might future proof it a bit more I suppose.

What do you think?
 
katana6434 said:
At the moment I am thinking about going CF 7950. I'm not really worried about 3D yet, although I might go multi monitor at some point next year.

Is that the best performance for your pound at the moment. I could be tempted to go CF 7970 but if I don't need to spend the money I won't, although it might future proof it a bit more I suppose.

What do you think?
Click to expand...

From this post I get that you want to go CF 7970, but you don't need it yet. If I were you, I'd wait until the next series come out and see if the 7970s drop in price. Then go CF.

However, definitely go with AMD as they're better at higher resolutions and if you do want to go triple screen, it's AMD who steals the show again.
 
Sounds like a good plan. I assume that most games will run fine with a single 7970 at 1440p resolution?

If that is the case I could get one for kow and then another a bit later down the line. Would help with money as well, as I can put the cost of the other 7970 towards some other components.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom