Which should i upgrade first and What should i upgrade it to ?

[Ruru]

I get your point, but having an one faster card is still the better choice.

 

[Kapone33]

I get your point, but having an one faster card is still the better choice.

I am not disagreeing with you Multi GPU is not for everyone. You should have a use case to justify getting a crossfire array.

 

[RealNeil]

AMD stated clearly that will not support crossfire in the future, and I’m convinced that nVidia will do the same.

NVIDIA'S best GPUS still have SLI support baked in to them. All they've done is make sure that we have to pay through the nose for the privilege.

It's still a good idea for us that already own multiple cards that are capable.

I get your point, but having an one faster card is still the better choice.

No, TWO faster cards for the win! Lol!

 

[Zach_01]

NVIDIA'S best GPUS still have SLI support baked in to them. All they've done is make sure that we have to pay through the nose for the privilege.

It's still a good idea for us that already own multiple cards that are capable.


No, TWO faster cards for the win! Lol!

If someone has 2 cards already is different and irrelevant to the discussion in this thread when the OP asks for optimal upgrades to a new/upgraded system.
Why are we forgeting the purpose of the thread? SLI/Crossfire is not an optimal GPU setup (nor needed) today for someone seeking to 1080/1440p gaming. But we forgot that too.

Can this thread move on and we stay focused on what the OP asked?

 

[RealNeil]

What I recommended was a single Radeon RX590 GPU. (with the possibility of going to Crossfire later on)
So you're right, let's not forget.

 

[Vayra86]

Well since Crossfire support is still in the marketing for every board that has more than 1 PCI_E 16 lane I would not say it is officially dead. We know that the NAVI cards do not support crossfire but the argument should not be about crossfire or SLI but DX12 Multi GPU support. I could actually see something like that when we move to 4K+ 120HZ monitors as today even the 2080TI cannot get 60 FPS in every single game at 4K Ultra but 2 Vega 64s are faster than a 2080TI in games that support it at 4K like TWWH3. As far as power draw goes I always buy more GPU then I need initially.



In my over 800 game Steam library over 150 games support crossfire and I have yet to play them all. Shadow of War is a game that comes to mind.

You may not want to believe it, but I'll chime in too and confirm for you Crossfire and SLI are dead or dying. Investing in a dual card setup in 2019 is a fool's errand. This isn't news either, Nvidia started chopping down that tree when it removed the SLI fingers from midrange cards since Pascal and AMD follows suit.

Some people like fool's errands though, who are we to stop them... but call it what it is. The fact you can play older games on your dual card setup is how useful exactly? If the cards are somewhat recent you'd have the exact same performance with the single card setup regardless.

Even if you buy the second card at say 50% of the initial cost, you'd get it second hand. Still better off selling the first and investing that 50% on top of your resale into a newer single card, which will always provide full perf, has support for newer features, uses less power (=less heat) and has ongoing support and warranty.

The emotional part of dual GPU is clear. Its cool to have two cards in there. But useful? Nah

In my over 800 game Steam library over 150 games support crossfire and I have yet to play them all. Shadow of War is a game that comes to mind.

There you go, so that's less than a quarter of your library, and then there is the scaling cost too. Average that out across your whole library and the net FPS gain across all games for the second card is probably somewhere around 10-15%. There is no way that is cost effective, ever.

@GeForce Basically the best path right now is (lower midrange) 1660 S > (mid) 5700 or 2060 > (high) 5700 XT > 2070 S. Let budget be the guide here. Going beyond is bad perf/$

 

[Kapone33]

You may not want to believe it, but I'll chime in too and confirm for you Crossfire and SLI are dead or dying. Investing in a dual card setup in 2019 is a fool's errand. This isn't news either, Nvidia started chopping down that tree when it removed the SLI fingers from midrange cards since Pascal and AMD follows suit.

Some people like fool's errands though, who are we to stop them... but call it what it is. The fact you can play older games on your dual card setup is how useful exactly? If the cards are somewhat recent you'd have the exact same performance with the single card setup regardless.

Even if you buy the second card at say 50% of the initial cost, you'd get it second hand. Still better off selling the first and investing that 50% on top of your resale into a newer single card, which will always provide full perf, has support for newer features, uses less power (=less heat) and has ongoing support and warranty.

The emotional part of dual GPU is clear. Its cool to have two cards in there. But useful? Nah



There you go, so that's less than a quarter of your library, and then there is the scaling cost too. Average that out across your whole library and the net FPS gain across all games for the second card is probably somewhere around 10-15%. There is no way that is cost effective, ever.

@GeForce Basically the best path right now is (lower midrange) 1660 S > (mid) 5700 or 2060 > (high) 5700 XT > 2070 S. Let budget be the guide here. Going beyond is bad perf/$

I am not saying that Crossfire is applicable to every scenario. The reason I got into SLI and then crossfire is the Total War franchise and yes you would see up to 100% scaling using dual cards in games like Rome 2, Shogun 2, Atilla and Warhammer 1&2. Total War is by far the franchise I play most. All told I must have at least 1500 hrs in each game. Another place where crossfire shone for me though was when I got into VR with my 7950 crossfire array and had no issues running Subnautica, Project Cars, Serious Sam VR or any of the 10-15 Space Sims I have in VR. I know those games are older titles but Doom and Strange Brigade also have crossfire support. If it wasn't for the MIning craze GPUs would not be over priced and maintaining inflated prices for as long as they have. it would be easy to recommend crossfire using the scenario of a $200 mid range card and getting a used or new same GPU for $100. That used to net you better overall performance that getting more RAM, storage or changing your CPU or anything else you could upgrade in your PC.

 

[Vayra86]

I am not saying that Crossfire is applicable to every scenario. The reason I got into SLI and then crossfire is the Total War franchise and yes you would see up to 100% scaling using dual cards in games like Rome 2, Shogun 2, Atilla and Warhammer 1&2. Total War is by far the franchise I play most. All told I must have at least 1500 hrs in each game. Another place where crossfire shone for me though was when I got into VR with my 7950 crossfire array and had no issues running Subnautica, Project Cars, Serious Sam VR or any of the 10-15 Space Sims I have in VR. I know those games are older titles but Doom and Strange Brigade also have crossfire support. If it wasn't for the MIning craze GPUs would not be over priced and maintaining inflated prices for as long as they have. it would be easy to recommend crossfire using the scenario of a $200 mid range card and getting a used or new same GPU for $100. That used to net you better overall performance that getting more RAM, storage or changing your CPU or anything else you could upgrade in your PC.

I get you, and it really did provide advantages back in 2012-2016 but beyond that? Questionable. We have similar single GPU grunt, I can tell you that I have zero problems in Total War with just the one card. 60 FPS or up. Also depends on your resolution of course, at higher res there is definitely a niche for it still, simply because there is no other way to get more grunt in there at some point.

 

[Zach_01]

Last time I use crossfire was 2008/9 playing Crysis/Crysis warhead with 2x HD4870s. At the time was definately necessary, but now not so much...

 

[Kapone33]

I get you, and it really did provide advantages back in 2012-2016 but beyond that? Questionable. We have similar single GPU grunt, I can tell you that I have zero problems in Total War with just the one card. 60 FPS or up. Also depends on your resolution of course, at higher res there is definitely a niche for it still, simply because there is no other way to get more grunt in there at some point.

Exactly I play Warhammer 2 @ 4K and usually get between 70 and 120 FPS.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

The only time sli makes sense is when you already have the fastest card and need more performance in every other scenario having a single faster card is a substantial better investment.

I ran sli 680s/970s/1080s when the Titan Xp released I sold the 1080s and bought one couldn't be more happy ditching SLI. The last crossfire setup I ran was 7970s and frame pacing was terrible.

DX 12 MGPU sounded pretty awesome but with how it's been supported I wouldn't hold my breath so unless the nextnextgen consoles come out with some MCM type GPU I wouldn't hold my breath.

 

[moproblems99]

You will immediately regret buying 2 cards and only being able to use one most of the time. Single GPU that maxes your gpu budget is the way to go from here on out.