Difference in 2 graphics card instead of 1?

Teaz

Godlike
Is there really any major difference when having 2 graphics card instead of 1? 1st of the break down i can see, is that it cost more money and yet electricity hence a bigger PSU and most likely, better graphics or play games in high/max level settings; but is there any BIG noticable difference when having the 2 instead of 1 in a pc besides draining ur electric bill?
 

Phoenix

Prolific Poster
Yes there is a huge difference in gaming but you don't generally need two unless you play at really high resolutions or like having anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering on their highest settings.
 

Teaz

Godlike
so the graphics are really that noticeable in gaming with an extra graphics card? what about in high reso images and photography, editing or films being played?
 

Gishank

Bright Spark
SLi/Crossfire only provides a benefit in games that support it, unfortuently applications cannot make use of the technology as far as I am aware.
 

DSN

Enthusiast
SLi/Crossfire only provides a benefit in games that support it, unfortuently applications cannot make use of the technology as far as I am aware.

Most pro Video editing suits are more than capable or taking advantage of SLi/XFire configurations.

My Premier loves my SLi config.

In short to really warrant an SLi config you either need to be: Gaming at 1920:1080 or over at max settings, Folding like a beast, Or doing some serious video editing.

Results vary from card to card as well as application to application. I would take a look at some benchmarks, and research the software and hardware you are planning on using to see how you will benefit from the proposed configuration.

Also you have to keep your bottlenecks in mind. Your CPU plays a big part in your overall FPS/Rendering rate/etc.., and if your CPU cant keep up with 1 GFX card then adding another will do nothing for you.

Google is your friend.
 

Teaz

Godlike
I wasnt really fully planning for a double card nor have i ever had 2 graphics card before, so just wondered how much noticable it was if i had 2 but not for sli or crossfire use since i prefer my single screen :) just wanted to know if it will impact the quality on what i see on my pc screen lol. mainly for gaming and photoshop use but more over for photoshop use on quality view.
 

Drunken Monkey

Author Level
Hi DSN, what do you mean by bottlenecks? as in be pointless?
also in the future if i ever decide to get another 580 would it bottleneck a i7 950, and if i ever decide to try tri 580 sli would that bottleneck it? what if i add a toaster :S
 

DSN

Enthusiast
the best way I have ever hear it explained is think of your pc like a car. You have the best Engine in the world, HUGE breaks, 17" Drag Tyres, a Drive chain made of Diamonds, and you only have a crappy little 200CC fuel injector off a moped.

yes the car is awesome, yes is will run, but the components you have brought for it are not going to be able to work to the best of there ability, because they are being " bottlenecked " by you fuel injectors.

[video=youtube;TGdo75gasaQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGdo75gasaQ[/video]
 

Phoenix

Prolific Poster
I wouldn't worry too much about bottlenecks, there's always going to be a bottleneck in a system, two GTX580's would bottleneck an overclocked i7-980x but that doesn't mean you won't still gain more performance from a second card.
 

DSN

Enthusiast
I wouldn't worry too much about bottlenecks, there's always going to be a bottleneck in a system, two GTX580's would bottleneck an overclocked i7-980x but that doesn't mean you won't still gain more performance from a second card.

Although I agree to an extent.

I think a system can be very unbalanced. And you will get a much better overall speed by balancing everything out.
 

Sleinous

Author Level
One last thing, SLI in folding doesnt work, infact in some cases, causes some of them to crash :( EUE or just "stopped working".

Easiest way to prevent this is just not to have the bridge on.

Besides, you get better PPD (and therefore more work done) by giving a WU to every GPU, one each.
 

DSN

Enthusiast
You can run an SLI configuration and assign a work unit to each GPU, at least Im pretty sure thats what im doing with my cards.
 
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