Dual GPU's?

**bust331** · 10-04-11, 01:41 AM

Is there a point if you only have one monitor? I know corpse runs like 3 cards, 2 for his monitors and one for Physx or something like that.

But basically I'm considering buying another card, which is why i want to know if there's a point.

**HeavyG** · 10-04-11, 02:43 AM

There is a point of diminishing returns. For example, you will not likely get much performance increase from two GTX 580 vs two GTX 560ti cards in SLI when running at 1920x1080 resolution. Now, if you up to a higher resolution monitor like 2560x1440, you will likely see a larger difference in performance with the GTX 580 setup.

Either way, you will almost always see a performance increase by going SLI or Crossfire vs running a single card. You will also likely be able to crank the details up a bit as you have the extra horsepower for processing.

One other thing to consider is the age of your current card and how easy it will be to find a second card. For SLI purposes, you need to have an identical card. For Crossfire, you don't need an identical card, but remember that the speed of the cards will only be as FAST as the SLOWEST card. If your card is old, it is often a good idea to just buy two newer, faster, cards than to pay a ridiculous amount of money for an older card on eBay. Just shop around, do some research, and make sure the boost will be worth what you are going to spend.

**~~stuntmanSLims~~** · 10-04-11, 02:44 AM

It depends on what level of detail/games/monitor resolution you want to play. Arma 2 & the forth coming Arma 3 are the gfx card eaters. Here's a link for the free-to-play Arma 2 Arma 2 free - Arma 2 Official Website . Arma2 OA demo Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead Demo - Arma 2 Official Website Hope this helps.

Here is a tool for nvidia users to optimize SLi compatibility bits with many games,Arma 2 & TDU2 is a must. Not sure if there is one for AMD cards. NVIDIA Inspector 1.9.5.5 download from Guru3D.com

(TDU2: Change sli compatibility bits to 0x42100105)

**bust331** · 10-04-11, 07:21 AM

I'll take a better look at exactly what model of GPU I currently have, I know it's a radeon 6950, and i think it's XFX so I believe this is what i have.

http://www.google.com/m/products/cat...ed=0CDYQ8wIwAg

**[CoFR]SirMoo** · 10-04-11, 07:12 PM

Originally Posted by HeavyG

There is a point of diminishing returns. For example, you will not likely get much performance increase from two GTX 580 vs two GTX 560ti cards in SLI when running at 1920x1080 resolution. Now, if you up to a higher resolution monitor like 2560x1440, you will likely see a larger difference in performance with the GTX 580 setup.

Either way, you will almost always see a performance increase by going SLI or Crossfire vs running a single card. You will also likely be able to crank the details up a bit as you have the extra horsepower for processing.

One other thing to consider is the age of your current card and how easy it will be to find a second card. For SLI purposes, you need to have an identical card. For Crossfire, you don't need an identical card, but remember that the speed of the cards will only be as FAST as the SLOWEST card. If your card is old, it is often a good idea to just buy two newer, faster, cards than to pay a ridiculous amount of money for an older card on eBay. Just shop around, do some research, and make sure the boost will be worth what you are going to spend.

Depends on the game and the settings of the game. You will want to look at the reported fps/benchmarks for games like Crysis, BC2, Crysis 2, Arma2 for 1920x1080 with 16xAF and 4xMSAA if that is what you play at. The 16xAF makes the textures looks smooth and the 4xMSAA makes it so you are not shooting at jaggies all the time. Also if possible try to find reported fps with vsync or not. Ensure that average reported fps does not fall below 60fps and minimums do not fall below 35fps; but as always, higher is better. This will ensure that you do not get graphical lag during heavy scenes (fog, smoke, high poly counts/shadows/particle effects/reflections).

Futureproofing can also be important. If you build a rig with a single GTX 560Ti in order to play BF3 today, will it be able to handle Arma3 (releasing summer 2012) or Crysis 3 or FarCry 3 with a 2nd GTX 560Ti when they come out?

Also if you run any games in windowed mode for various purposes you may also want to look at that: Specifically with Eve-Online clients - you will probably need SLI when triple or quadruple-boxing. Framerates will get worse when Captains Quarters expands into walking-in-entire-stations.

Your 6950 "only" has 1GB vram which may become the bottleneck when you add the 2nd card. Even with a 2nd 6950 you may not realize the benefits of a 2nd card in BF3 if you are planning on playing at 1080p and high/ultra settings.

**WileECyte** · 10-04-11, 09:22 PM

Buying a single GPU now for potentially buying a matching one 6 months (or later) down the road is foolish. You can't be guaranteed you can find a match 6 months down the road. Especially with the aggressive roadmaps that both AMD and nVidia maintain. Either go SLI/Crossfire now or don't bother. With nVidia, you need a duplicate card. Even slight variance (brand, clock speed, etc) can cause stability issues. With AMD, you can Crossfire between cards of the same series but it clocks them all to the lowest speed. You can't crossfire between generations (i.e. a 5000 series and 6000 series card.)