Is it still worth running two cards a la Crossfire etc?

[Helios451]

Just pondering - given what advice has been offered on different threads here, it's clear that perfectly adequate graphics cards can be purchased for £150 to £200.

At these price points, and in comparison to higher end cards, would it be worth running two cards together to deliver cost effective performance?

[kalniel]

No, it's not that well supported these days. Cost effective performance can be obtained by a) buying only the card you need and b) looking secondhand.

[Output]

Your question has been answered by kalniel, but I'd add another question:

Was Crossfire/SLI EVER worth running?

Even in the height of it, it was never said to have much (if any) support in games.

[AnotherDave]

I was weighing up my options for upgrading from a GTX 970 a while ago and after initially being put off by the price of new cards that would be a big enough upgrade to be worthwhile I looked at just buying another 970. That plan was quickly squashed because of the limited support in games I play and the potential false economy of the increased running costs of two cards in SLI. Unless you happen to be heavily into a game that supports SLI / Crossfire or can get an additional card cheap, or both, I don't think it's really worth considering.

I ended up picking up a second hand system with a GTX 1070Ti for a decent price and swapping out my 970. I'm sure that for £300 to £400 you're going to get a much better experience buying one higher end card than with two at £150 to £200 each.

[spacein_vader]

Your question has been answered by kalniel, but I'd add another question:

Was Crossfire/SLI EVER worth running?

Even in the height of it, it was never said to have much (if any) support in games.

No. It really wasn't and it certainly isn't now.

[DDY]

Speaking for myself, but I also suspect others.

I ran two cards, not for the performance.

But, because it looked cool.

I can't find the photo I have of my machine from years ago with two 4870s, but the image in my mind is of a rose-tinted gold-plated god-of-a-machine. What a bloody waste of money, though.

[Helios451]

Thanks - it makes me wonder why anyone, apart from an out and out enthusiast, would have done it in the first place!

[Helios451]

Speaking for myself, but I also suspect others.

I ran two cards, not for the performance.

But, because it looked cool.

I can't find the photo I have of my machine from years ago with two 4870s, but the image in my mind is of a rose-tinted gold-plated god-of-a-machine. What a bloody waste of money, though.

I think that nails it in the head!

[Output]

Speaking for myself, but I also suspect others.

I ran two cards, not for the performance.

But, because it looked cool.

I can't find the photo I have of my machine from years ago with two 4870s, but the image in my mind is of a rose-tinted gold-plated god-of-a-machine. What a bloody waste of money, though.

I admit at the height of it I had thought of doing so myself, but that was under the belief that it would actually be beneficial rather than being cool (if it was beneficial though, the cool part would just have been a nice bonus). I certainly wouldn't have been happy to learn that I'd wasted my money and thus it hadn't been worth it.

Luckily though, I didn't really have the funds for a second card. Plus I'm not even sure that I had a motherboard that could handle two graphics cards anyway.

[Helios451]

Thanks, everyone, that's answered that - I'd always wondered what the fuss was all about!

[8bit]

I've often wondered if it might have been useful in VR setups where you have to render for two displays. I guess if it was a thing then the GPU manufacturers would have jumped onto that bandwagon big time.

[kalniel]

I've often wondered if it might have been useful in VR setups where you have to render for two displays. I guess if it was a thing then the GPU manufacturers would have jumped onto that bandwagon big time.

Yeah, for VR it's actually not that useful - you're having to duplicate textures etc. for each card whereas if you render on one card you can make efficiency savings rendering two very similar scenes. Add all the other costs with two cards (PCBs, connections, power transformers etc. etc. ) and it's not a smart way of doing it.

[Shante]

It seems like Crossfire isn’t a big thing anymore

I would buy a powerful single card instead

[golden751]

Crossfire / SLI for gaming is dead. Just get a more powerful card.

[chongker]

SLI has essentially been killed by Nvidia, they are no longer supporting implicit profiles in their drivers for 3000 series. Only way multi GPU would work is if game developers decide to develop explicit SLI , so still possible but very unlikely.

[Hasnain]

Has been dead for a while now