CrossFire / SLI still just gimmicks

[TheMailMan78]

Originally Posted by Nick89

Why would you put two mid range cards together when you could spend the money on a single high end card that outperfroms the two mid range cards.

Instead of getting two 4870 1GB's I should have got a GTX275 1792mb.

Gimmicks? I bought two 4850s OC from Asus for less than 200 bucks. One 4870 cost more and would'nt come close to the performance get with them. Gimmick? Hardley.

[AltecV1]

yea SLI/Crossfire are for people with tiny e-peens Real Men Go With Single Card Solution

[Yukikaze]

[AltecV1]

Originally Posted by Yukikaze

http://www.hydrotoys.com/wavs/TrollSpray.jpg

please some one give him a warning! insulting people is against the rules

[Papahyooie]

Originally Posted by AltecV1

please some one give him a warning! insulting people is against the rules

So is trolling.

[DanTheBanjoman]

There we go, back on topic.

[mikek75]

Heh, touche....

[Nick89]

Originally Posted by TheMailMan78

Gimmicks? I bought two 4850s OC from Asus for less than 200 bucks. One 4870 cost more and would'nt come close to the performance get with them. Gimmick? Hardley.

It seems no one has currectly interpreted what I have said.

A 4850 is not low end, or even mid range its a high mid range card so of course two of them would beat a single 4870/90.

I was more emphasizing two 4670's compared to one 4870 or a GTX285. But this is not what this thread is about.

I feel that the performance increase is not enough to justify buying a second video card, this is my experiance at least.

I have not experienced this "huge" performance increae I always see poeple talking about. So to me Xfire feels like a gimmich that ATI used to make me buy a second unnecessary video card.

Originally Posted by Yukikaze

http://www.hydrotoys.com/wavs/TrollSpray.jpg

GTFO of my thread if you have nothing usefull to say.

[MKmods]

Originally Posted by pbmaster

It's a common fact that SLi/Crossfire is geared more towards combining several mid range cards to get better performance. Combining two high end cards is just for wow factor or benchmarking.

+1

[goldfries]

actually the performance gain is quite significant. Like 2 HD4770 performs like HD4890.

Even HD4670 CF performs like HD4850. It certainly not gimmick. Just that often CF performance could be achieved with single card options.

[Mussels]

i got a nice boost with two cards in crossfire. it made the difference between running medium at 60FPS in many games, and running high at 60FPS.


Simply because two low end cards cant beat a single medium card does not make it a gimmick - it just means its not as good dollar value when buying outright. If you already had one low end card, it may be cheaper to crossfire, than to buy a new midrange/highend.


the reason you probably didnt get much of a gain with your cards, is that you are CPU limited. OCing my cards gives me ZERO performance boost, until this CPU is around 4.2Ghz - theres no way your CPU is as powerful as that. more cores doesnt mean more performance, when it comes to games.

you want to combine two low end cards? have a midrange system around it
Want to combine two high end cards? well shit, you'd better have one hell of a beast. either the best CPU money can buy, or a heavily OC'ed high end one.

[bill_d]

with two 4890's i get from 50% to 80% performance boost with my q6600 no oc at 2560x1600

how old is your xp install
with xp and cf any time i've had a problem with a cf setup i pulled my boot drive and try a fresh install on a spare drive
the one thing about vista is i've had less cf problems

[eidairaman1]

ok

4890
4870
4770
4850
4670
4830

As of performance terms right?

[TheMailMan78]

Originally Posted by eidairaman1

ok

4890
4870
4770
4850
4670
4830

As of performance terms right?

The 4850 is faster than the 4770 at stock speeds so your list should look like this....

4890
4870
4850
4770
4670
4830

[angelkiller]

Originally Posted by TheMailMan78

The 4850 is faster than the 4770 at stock speeds so your list should look like this....

4890
4870
4850
4770
4670
4830

And the 4830 is significantly faster than the 4670 so the list should go like this....

4890
4870
4850
4770
4830
4670

[TheMailMan78]

Originally Posted by angelkiller

And the 4830 is significantly faster than the 4670 so the list should go like this....

4890
4870
4850
4770
4830
4670

You're right. I didnt catch that

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Nick89

I was more emphasizing two 4670's compared to one 4870 or a GTX285.

That is asking an awful lot. Two $50 cards are not going to outperform a $150 card, that just isn't going to happen. Especially not when the specs for the two cards combined don't even match the single card on paper, forget about overheard caused by Crossfire/SLi inefficiency.

[boomstik360]

Originally Posted by AltecV1

yea SLI/Crossfire are for people with tiny e-peens Real Men Go With Single Card Solution

Kids.....

[Nick89]

Originally Posted by Mussels

i got a nice boost with two cards in crossfire. it made the difference between running medium at 60FPS in many games, and running high at 60FPS.


Simply because two low end cards cant beat a single medium card does not make it a gimmick - it just means its not as good dollar value when buying outright. If you already had one low end card, it may be cheaper to crossfire, than to buy a new midrange/highend.


the reason you probably didnt get much of a gain with your cards, is that you are CPU limited. OCing my cards gives me ZERO performance boost, until this CPU is around 4.2Ghz - theres no way your CPU is as powerful as that. more cores doesnt mean more performance, when it comes to games.

you want to combine two low end cards? have a midrange system around it
Want to combine two high end cards? well shit, you'd better have one hell of a beast. either the best CPU money can buy, or a heavily OC'ed high end one.

I find it very hard to believe that My PII 940 @ 3.6Ghz is limiting my cards. Show me proof and I'll be a beleaver, I might even get an i7.

Originally Posted by newtekie1

That is asking an awful lot. Two $50 cards are not going to outperform a $150 card, that just isn't going to happen. Especially not when the specs for the two cards combined don't even match the single card on paper, forget about overheard caused by Crossfire/SLi inefficiency.

Still not understanding what I said.

(very simplified version of what I was trying to say) WHY would someone get two 4670's/4770's when they can get a single 4850/4890.

MY main problem with my system is the lack of performance increase which could be attributed to my Mobo's poor PCI Express bus for my Xfire setup( x8 2.0 / x8 1.1).

For the supposed performance increase I was supposed to get I could have just got a single GTX285 plus 10% price for the same performance that I'm getting using these two 4870's.

With my second 4870 i'm getting maby a 10% performance increase if at all.

[Nick89]

delete this post please.

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Nick89

Still not understanding what I said.

(very simplified version of what I was trying to say) WHY would someone get two 4670's/4770's when they can get a single 4850/4890.

MY main problem with my system is the lack of performance increase which could be attributed to my Mobo's poor PCI Express bus for my Xfire setup( x8 2.0 / x8 1.1).

For the supposed performance increase I was supposed to get I could have just got a single GTX285 plus 10% price for the same performance that I'm getting using these two 4870's.

With my second 4870 i'm getting maby a 10% performance increase if at all.

Because two HD4770's outperform a single HD4890 for less money? That seems like a good reason...

And, like I have said, your processor is holding your back more than your PCI-E bus setup. To really use SLi/Crossfire to its fullest, you need a super fast processor. A Phenom II@3.6GHz is going to hold you back from getting noticeably better framerates. Your Phenom II 940 is about the same as a Q6600@3.0GHz*, and like I have already pointed out, my two 9800GTX's which are considered mid-range cards now were bottlenecked when I had a Q6600@3.4GHz. However, you can use the second card for better eye candy instead.

Your setup has to be right to get proper performance from SLi/Crossfire. I mean look at my rigs. Because the HD4890 is so held back by the 4200+, the two 9600GSO's outperform the HD4890. Two high end graphics cards like that require a very high end processor, over 4GHz quad at least I would say. Or extremely high resolutions.

*I say this because at stock speeds for both processors the Q6600@2.4GHz performs about the same as the 940@3.0GHz in games. So add 600MHz to each...

[Nick89]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

Because two HD4770's outperform a single HD4890 for less money? That seems like a good reason...

And, like I have said, your processor is holding your back more than your PCI-E bus setup. To really use SLi/Crossfire to its fullest, you need a super fast processor. A Phenom II@3.6GHz is going to hold you back from getting noticeably better framerates. Your Phenom II 940 is about the same as a Q6600@3.0GHz*, and like I have already pointed out, my two 9800GTX's which are considered mid-range cards now were bottlenecked when I had a Q6600@3.4GHz. However, you can use the second card for better eye candy instead.

Your setup has to be right to get proper performance from SLi/Crossfire. I mean look at my rigs. Because the HD4890 is so held back by the 4200+, the two 9600GSO's outperform the HD4890. Two high end graphics cards like that require a very high end processor, over 4GHz quad at least I would say. Or extremely high resolutions.

*I say this because at stock speeds for both processors the Q6600@2.4GHz performs about the same as the 940@3.0GHz in games. So add 600MHz to each...

Maby two 4770's beat one 4890 in synthetic benchmarks but I dought it with most real games. Please show me proof. Most games dont even utilize SLI/Crossfire.

SLI/Crossfire still feel like gimmicks becasue 80% of games dont even utilize SLI/Crossfire. <--Learned that the hard way.

I use 1920x1200 in all games that will run at that resolution.

[TechnoHolic_Tim]

regarding the cpu limit, my second 4890 is coming soon, what benches do you think i should take b4 and after? i have a q9400 at 3.7, ddr3 and 2x pci-e 2.0 x16 (running at x16 in crossfire) and i will have 2 4890s. according 2 newtekie1 my cpu will limit performance gain for the second card.
we will c

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Nick89

Maby two 4770's beat one 4890 in synthetic benchmarks but I dought it with most real games. Please show me proof. Most games dont even utilize SLI/Crossfire.

SLI/Crossfire still feel like gimmicks becasue 80% of games dont even utilize SLI/Crossfire. <--Learned that the hard way.

I use 1920x1200 in all games that will run at that resolution.

Farcry 2

Crysis Note: the HD4770's outperform the HD4890 at the higher resolution, and AA kills the HD4770's due to having less memory available.

Left 4 Dead Again, higher resolutions show the HD4770's winning

Stalker The HD4770's only fall behind at the highest resolution with AA, again due to the limitted amount of RAM.

World in Conflict Again, HD4770s better at highest resolution/s.

Grand Theft Auto IV One of the few times I've seen the HD4770's lose by a huge margin. This is for a couple reasons: GTA:IV is one of the few modern games that actually doesn't support Crossfire properly(and doesn't support SLi at all), and it also quickly uses up VRAM, which puts the HD4770's with less memory at a sever disadvantage.

Most modern games support Crossfire and SLi, your claim that 80% don't is totally wrong. The only modern game that really doesn't support Crossfire/SLi is GTA:IV. I have really yet to see a modern game that hasn't seen a noteable improvement in performance when a second card is added.

Now, as for high end graphics cards, they really don't show an improvement in actual gameplay unless you are running extreme resolutions. A single HD4890 or GTX275 would be enough, adding a second wouldn't really be benefitial except for rasing benchmark scores. You should be seeing a jump in FPS, if you are using a FPS counter, but the difference shouldn't be actually noticeable to gameplay. You might go from 60FPS to 100FPS, you won't notice that unless you use a FPS counter.

However, having a single high end card now leaves a good upgrade path for later on down the road, which is where SLi and Crossfire with high end cards makes sense to me. I've used SLi as an upgrade path the last few generations. When the 8800 series came out, I just slapped another 7900GT in my system to keep up, and it was good enough for the latest games. Then when the GTX200 series came out I just slapped another 9800GTX in my system to keep up, and it worked to play the latest games for a good while.

[eidairaman1]

I think those gaps will close with the Introduction of the 4860, and the 4770 1GB