Why would you CF/SLI two 'disabled' silicons, instead of perfect chip?

[chaosmassive]

okay, so I asked this out of curiosity as the title why would you doing crossfire or SLI on two partly disabled card for example, GTX 970 SLI or R9 290 CF ?(We know both chip has less cores than fully enabled chip ) beside perf/price ratio, but the side effect is increase power usage, we know CF and SLI not fully scaling on GPUs, etc.

and another example, why would you SLI 2 GTX 960 instead of buying single GTX 980

enlight me please,

Thanks !

 

[the54thvoid]

More often than not, dual GPU set ups can be cheaper and perform the same as a premium card. Or, they perform far better than a premium card for only a small cost increase.
Dual GPUs do have inherent, game based/driver optimisation variables that affect overall performance.

 

[XSI]

yes one of the reason can be price/performance ratio. another can be time or money constrains, exmpl. you bought one card 1 year ago now have money and can add second which is usually less hassle than selling your card and getting new more expensive. 3rd. not always there is 2x more expensive card which cost 2 times more. there can be big gap in performance. one more reason, 2 cards does look cooler in your pc

 

[Kanan]

970 SLI performs like 980 Ti, if game supports it.
290X CF performs better than anything if game supports it (performs like 295X2 or even better).

Though, I don't see the point in buying 970 SLI ... they cost 300$ each, thats 600$. For a bit more or even the same, you get a 980 Ti which is far better, because it's without any driver-problems you might have with the SLI setup.

290X is 250-300$ each, and if crossfired they are faster than anything, so it's basically worth it, at least if you have driver support. Would only recommend for someone who always plays AAA games, like BF4, Crysis 3, Tomb Raider, etc.

960 SLI is about 100$ (or more) cheaper than 980, but isn't really faster. The thing there is only price.

Generally, CF performs (far) better than SLI, thats why 295X2 is so fast and that's why Titan Z had no chance against it. Only problem, again, is driver support. You will have problems and you will have shortcomings on that part. So it's always to take with a grain of salt. SLI is 20-30% slower, but has better drivers.

Edit PS: you meant 290, non X. Well, still faster than 980 Ti.

 

[eidairaman1]

price