Crossfire or SLI is it realy worth it?

Ansab001

Bronze Level Poster
I was wondering something last night when i was working on my old pc. Is it realy worth SLI or crossfiring your pcs?


Todays market graphic cards have became so powerful that is their need to duplicte that power? Also is it worth buy 2 mid range graphics card to be as powerful as a top range one? Or is it better not just having one mid range card and wait untill the top range ones are a bit less pricey.

As far as the top range ones are concerened is it realy viable to double the power of top range cards (2x gtx 580 for example) even though proably for the next 2 - 5 years you can play almost everything that may come out. And if the card becomes outdate is it not better getting an upgrade version anyway than buying a duplicate?

Obiously alot of this depends on how mcuh spare cash is burning your pocket as well. But I wonder what everyone else thought?
 

Gorman

Author Level
I have always been in the school of thought that no, it isnt.

The only practical multi gpu scenario is if you have a top end card and need more power.
 

Pete

Bright Spark
i see myself slotting another gtx460 in down the road (12+ months) if i need the power / if they become cheap enough. but depends, a single card would need to be more powerfull but would/should draw less power and generate less heat than 2 in sli ?
 

Rakk

The Awesome
Moderator
However, if one card fails, you have a back up lol.

Hehe, yeah, thats what happened with my old machine, one of the cards fried itself (due to dust build up), but the second one was fine so I didn't need to spend anything to get it going again (though there was some hours of panic).
But things like that shouldn't happen very often at all.
 

MickyG

Enthusiast
Hehe, yeah, thats what happened with my old machine, one of the cards fried itself (due to dust build up), but the second one was fine so I didn't need to spend anything to get it going again (though there was some hours of panic).
But things like that shouldn't happen very often at all.

You need a can of compressed air to get rid of the dust :p
I noticed a big improvement when I sprayed my old PC (8 years old?) out, full of dust :p

G
 

Meds

Moderator
Moderator
I've run Sli & Crossfire in the past with mid-ranged Graphics Cards. To be honest the performance increase wasn't worth the money I spent so I just have the one Graphics Card now. I even saved money on my mobo as it isn't Crossfire/Sli ready :D
 

Phoenix

Prolific Poster
It depends really, if you like to use the highest settings with all of your games and want to use 16xAF and 8xAA at 1920x1080+ then yes it's worth it.
 
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