Crossfire - any benefit?

[mama]

I have a 6900XT and a Vega 64 GPU (the latter in an older build). Is there any benefit it trying to slot them together in same build? I do a bit of content creation but my rig works fine as it is. I guess this is just an academic question.

 

[Toothless]

Xfire and SLI is dead. No point.

However if you want to do compute jobs on one and game on the other, or just need compute power, then sure. Only if you can properly use it though.

 

[AlwaysHope]

Horrible concept, tried it over 8 yrs ago & it was a mess. Never again.

 

[ir_cow]

Not sure if you can crossfire between generations. For gaming, SLI and Xfire is dead. NVIDIA really dropped support two generations ago now, AMD only kinda did... Last I tried with 3x 5600XT it didn't work on any game that wasn't using VULKEN API.

If you using the GPU for OpenCL rendering, encoding, hashing passwords and such, you don't need to Xfire the cards. The second one will show up as available for tasks if the application can use GPUs.

 

[bonehead123]

yuk...

'nuff said

 

[Flyordie]

Xfire and SLI is dead. No point.

However if you want to do compute jobs on one and game on the other, or just need compute power, then sure. Only if you can properly use it though.

Its not dead. The only support that was officially dropped was "Profile Based" support from the GPU manufacturers. If the game devs want to support it at the API level then they are free to do so. Hence why Vulkan and DX12 support it pretty well in general now.

 

[Toothless]

Its not dead. The only support that was officially dropped was "Profile Based" support from the GPU manufacturers. If the game devs want to support it at the API level then they are free to do so. Hence why Vulkan and DX12 support it pretty well in general now.

It's dead. Not very many devs are going to take the time to code extra when single card has traditionally been smoother, more stable, less work. Sure a FEW newer titles support it but not with OP's mismatch of cards.

Also if you're going to poke at my post, please explain the passing over on the others with the same view.

 

[Flyordie]

It's dead. Not very many devs are going to take the time to code extra when single card has traditionally been smoother, more stable, less work. Sure a FEW newer titles support it but not with OP's mismatch of cards.

Also if you're going to poke at my post, please explain the passing over on the others with the same view.

Yours explicitly said it was dead. The others were either, expressing their distaste with it or explaining why it didn't work for their situations. Which I felt didn't need a direct response.

Crossfire and SLI aren't dead in the sense you are describing. Its just matured and gotten closer to the hardware.

Yes, it always will be until some of the latency layers are removed. Hence, MCMs coming down the pipe for GPUs.

 

[ExcuseMeWtf]

Its not dead. The only support that was officially dropped was "Profile Based" support from the GPU manufacturers. If the game devs want to support it at the API level then they are free to do so. Hence why Vulkan and DX12 support it pretty well in general now.

Vulkan and DX12 are not Crossfire though, they are separate multi-GPU technology. Crossfire and SLI were specifically those profile based features, and they are indeed officially dropped now, hence dead.

 

[AusWolf]

Yours explicitly said it was dead. The others were either, expressing their distaste with it or explaining why it didn't work for their situations. Which I felt didn't need a direct response.

Crossfire and SLI aren't dead in the sense you are describing. Its just matured and gotten closer to the hardware.

Yes, it always will be until some of the latency layers are removed. Hence, MCMs coming down the pipe for GPUs.

Considering the ever-present frametime pacing issues, the mirrored VRAM usage (2x 4 GB cards still end up being a 4 GB VRAM setup), and the bad scaling with money spent (200% price for 2 cards never gets you 200% performance) I'd much rather say that Crossfire and SLI were dead on arrival.

 

[Outback Bronze]

Considering the ever-present frametime pacing issues, the mirrored VRAM usage (2x 4 GB cards still end up being a 4 GB VRAM setup), and the bad scaling with money spent (200% price for 2 cards never gets you 200% performance) I'd much rather say that Crossfire and SLI were dead on arrival.

Yep, but I still loved building with two GPU's : )

 

[Keullo-e]

Modern cards doesn't even support SLI/CF anymore. So it's pretty much dead like said above.

I had a 290 CF few years ago and the support was pretty meh on newer games already.

 

[Flyordie]

Vulkan and DX12 are not Crossfire though, they are separate multi-GPU technology. Crossfire and SLI were specifically those profile based features, and they are indeed officially dropped now, hence dead.

AMD Radeon phases out the CrossFire brand as multi-GPU gets more complicated

Radeon is moving away from CrossFire branding for multiple-GPU support, but its spirit lives on.

www.pcworld.com

The technology is still there. Branding is dead, not the technology. Again, it matured. It didn't just die.

edit- Also, modern cards do support Multi-GPU. If I threw a second Vega64 into my rig right now and ran Wolfenstein II, it'd load up both cards. Maybe not to 100% on both, but 70-80%.

The same can be said about Nvidia cards after the 1080 series.

 

[Toothless]

AMD Radeon phases out the CrossFire brand as multi-GPU gets more complicated

Radeon is moving away from CrossFire branding for multiple-GPU support, but its spirit lives on.

www.pcworld.com

The technology is still there. Branding is dead, not the technology. Again, it matured. It didn't just die.

Matured, and more work to put in. You're trying to shove food down a dead horse's throat, it's quite literally dead with no one wanting to support. Your link literally headlines with "multi-GPU gets more complicated."

 

[Mussels]

Xfire and SLI is dead. No point.

However if you want to do compute jobs on one and game on the other, or just need compute power, then sure. Only if you can properly use it though.

^ This.

DX12 was meant to take over multi GPU and let us work with mixed GPU's, but it was designed too complicated to implement so the tech died.

If we're lucky it'll be reworked for the future, but for now multi GPU is purely for compute work, or extra monitors.

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

DX9 Crossfire Sli done by drivers, and needs profiles
DX10 Crossfire SLI done by drivers, and needs profiles
DX11 Crossfire /sli done by drivers, and needs profiles

DX12 Multi-GPU put in by developers Directly in game not done by driver
Vulkan multi-gpu put in by developers. Directly in game not done by driver

In my opinion.
If you think Multi-GPU is dead, then why the hell would be headed to MCM GPU?
Fact is no single gpu is ever going to play games maxed out at the resolutions we're starting to push, at the hz we want.

Multi-GPU is being phased out just so developers can make a crap ton of money by doing less work less for more profit. Just look at that train wreck GTA trilogy definitive edition, or look that laziness of most of the "remasters" that have been put out.

 

[ir_cow]

In my opinion.
If you think Multi-GPU is dead, then why the hell would be headed to MCM GPU?
Fact is no single gpu is ever going to play games maxed out at the resolutions we're starting to push, at the hz we want.

Multi-GPU is being phased out just so developers can make a crap ton of money by doing less work less for more profit. Just look at that train wreck GTA trilogy definitive edition, or look that laziness of most of the "remasters" that have been put out.

NVIDIA and AMD wants Multi-GPU to die so they can make money more often. Can't sell a new video card to people who just buy a second card when it becomes cheap. Give it another generation or two and video cards will be of a chiplet design. Basically Multi-GPU in one package.

 

[Toothless]

DX9 Crossfire Sli done by drivers, and needs profiles
DX10 Crossfire SLI done by drivers, and needs profiles
DX11 Crossfire /sli done by drivers, and needs profiles

DX12 Multi-GPU put in by developers Directly in game not done by driver
Vulkan multi-gpu put in by developers. Directly in game not done by driver

In my opinion.
If you think Multi-GPU is dead, then why the hell would be headed to MCM GPU?
Fact is no single gpu is ever going to play games maxed out at the resolutions we're starting to push, at the hz we want.

Multi-GPU is being phased out just so developers can make a crap ton of money by doing less work less for more profit. Just look at that train wreck GTA trilogy definitive edition, or look that laziness of most of the "remasters" that have been put out.

MCM is not SLI/XFIRE. They're going to be ran pretty differently than normal multi-card configs, unless you're going to call chiplets in processors "cpu SLI" which, lol, okay.

 

[GhostRyder]

Its pretty much dead except for compute (which is totally different from SLI/CFX). I used to run multi-GPU setups (My last ones in order new to old, 3 PowerColor R9 290X's water cooled, 2 HD 6990's water cooled, 2 EVGA GTX 580 LC editions, and I had some others beyond those) and they were fun. The R9 290X's worked great, however near the end of running them, I noticed stuttering in some games and random frame drops in newer titles (Rise of the Tomb Raider was the first I really noticed it) which disappeared when I disabled the 3rd GPU. I finally abandoned it and switched to a single GTX Titan X Pascal and did not regret it. The only thing I miss is having the complexity of the water cooling and showing it off haha.

 

[AusWolf]

If you think Multi-GPU is dead, then why the hell would be headed to MCM GPU?
Fact is no single gpu is ever going to play games maxed out at the resolutions we're starting to push, at the hz we want.

MCM works as a single chip.
The benefit is on the manufacturer's side: if one, let's say, 100 mm^2 chiplet has faulty bits, they only have to throw away that one chiplet instead of a monolithic 200 mm^2 chip. Less waste, more profit.

Multi-GPU is being phased out just so developers can make a crap ton of money by doing less work less for more profit. Just look at that train wreck GTA trilogy definitive edition, or look that laziness of most of the "remasters" that have been put out.

While I agree with you on the laziness developers are showing by remastering the remastered version of Remaster 29234, I do not consider that a reason behind the death of CF/SLI.

In my opinion, it's not worth investing into a technology that
1. is never going to produce 2x the performance with 2x the money spent,
2. is always going to produce a more stuttery experience than a single, faster GPU,
3. makes you suffer from VRAM limitations versus the performance level you're getting with 2 GPUs, so therefore
3. only a handful of gamers are ever going to choose it.

 

[mama]

From an economic perspective, using a second (aging) GPU to prop up an aging system makes sense, if applications provide support. Thankfully that's not something I need to think about at the moment.

 

[ExcuseMeWtf]

AMD Radeon phases out the CrossFire brand as multi-GPU gets more complicated

Radeon is moving away from CrossFire branding for multiple-GPU support, but its spirit lives on.

www.pcworld.com

The technology is still there. Branding is dead, not the technology. Again, it matured. It didn't just die.

edit- Also, modern cards do support Multi-GPU. If I threw a second Vega64 into my rig right now and ran Wolfenstein II, it'd load up both cards. Maybe not to 100% on both, but 70-80%.

The same can be said about Nvidia cards after the 1080 series.

Again, profile based multi-GPU technology (which is what SLI and CF were) is indeed dead.

It's worth to read articles before you link it, as it does highlight the difference.

 

[Toothless]

From an economic perspective, using a second (aging) GPU to prop up an aging system makes sense, if applications provide support. Thankfully that's not something I need to think about at the moment.

And that's IF they properly support. For games? Nah. For applications that can actually use both cards? Do it at any time.

 

[Shou Miko]

I tried SLI back when 8800 GT for Mafia 2 even with SLI profile I scored 0.5 FPS more using SLI but selecting the second 8800 GT as a dedicated physx acceleration card I saw a higher and better average fps with Nvidia Physx enabled.

I am to this day still a huge fan of Mafia 1 & 2 to the third game is a nice kick into the Mafia games but not the once I choose over any of the others even the Definitive Edition's are great just wish there were more content because a lot of content felt like it was cut from the 1 and 2 Mafia game sadly.

 

[qubit]

Xfire and SLI is dead. No point.

This ^^ and SLI and CrossFire were always full of problems, hence eventually discontinued. I can attest to that with my two 780 Ti cards in SLI for a year. What a PITA.