New Video Card

[[JiF]phantomx]

I am thinking of getting my self a new video card for Christmas (will wait for boxing day specials), and I am just wondering which might be better. A good/decent video card or two slightly less good/decent video cards, but getting two of them and either SLI/crossfire them. I personally prefer nVidia cards and have been looking at the EVGA 660Ti. But that is about a $315 card from new egg. Would it be better to say look at a few 200 dollar cards and SLI/Crossfire. I have never done this before and have always gone with the single GPU's.

any thoughts, peoples preferences?

[[JiF]CowHide]

If I were you I wouldn't get 2 and sli it, I would just get the one. It seems that sli is more trouble then it's worth. I've seen that sli has had problems with BF3. From what I've read about it you don't get twice the power but one of them is used more like a backup for the other, also because of sli and you'll have more heat, more power drainage and more noise. If you really want to do sli then I would do a lot of research over the pro's and con's before doing it. Also make sure your motherboard is Nvidia compatible for sli. Just get the best single video card you can get for the money that you have and you'll be happy.

[[JiF]Doc]

I highly recommend a single graphics card. There seems to be three valid reasons for running a second, third or even a fourth! gpu.

1. You want the best setup possible.
While we all do its just not always affordable or practical. For serious enthusiasts adding multiple top end cards might not be needed for gaming but can produce some great benchmark results and, well its fun to play with

2. You run programs at high resolutions or have multiple monitors
Having multiple gpu's can really improve performance if you run games on 3 or more monitors or some monster monitor running over 1920x1080 resolution. (2048x1080 and above)

3. Your current cards life is begging to expire and you want to improve performance/ or you find a great deal.
This is the category I fell into. I have a 5770, originally costing $200, but I still wanted more performance. Rather than trying to sell the card and shell out $300+ for a high end card, I picked up another 5770 for $100 when the new 6000 series came out.

Now the big issue is how well crossfire/sli scales. Some older games do not support dual gpu systems and due to their age, they probably never will. On applications that are designed to support dual gpu systems the performance gains can be rewarding. Battlefield 3 is one of the best optimized games for dual gpu systems and runs great. While on other applications I actually get better performance running only one card due to problems with crossfire/sli.

From my experience operating 2 gpu's requires more fiddling/tweaking to get applications to run or utilize both gpu's properly than any single gpu setup. Most of the time I have to wait until improved drivers are released for games to function properly or run only one gpu, sacrificing my systems potential performance.

There seems to be a general law of multiple gpu's, "The more gpu's you have, the more problems". However some cards have multiple gpu's on a single card, these seem less likely to have problems.

So my recommendation is to buy the best single card you can now and when it comes time to upgrade check to see if obtaining a second card would be more efficient than buying a newer card.

What is your price range for a new card? If you dont mind me asking. Also if you have any other specific sli/crossfire concerns or more questions feel free to ask. I have done alot of research on various multi-gpu setups and experimented a bit with my own.

[[JiF]Navy_Seals]

Hey phantom you should send me your old one lol jk

[[JiF]phantomx]

picked up a GTX 680 on sale at best buy (boxing day sale). works like a charm. BF3 on ultra and never goes below 40 fps....wow....

thanks for every bodies advice.

[[JiF] General WarHawk]

I have an older card, I think its (wait let me turn on the light) Radeon HD 3870. Which I cleaned up really well, and that thing weighs a ton for all the copper on it. But it works. I'm keeping it as a backup and I understand it makes a great dual card set up, if I ever get a 2nd or 3rd one. Only thing is, I wouldn't install it on a tower, only a platform computer, cause with all that copper I think it weighs heavily on the MOBO.