How many users have SLI/Crossfire?

[Winger]

Originally Posted by tomandre81

SLI / Crossfire is not worth it. First you have to buy two or three cards, a good cooling solution. Then after a couple of years when you want to upgrade you have to buy two / three new cards again. It is like multiplying the costs.
And very few games support sli / crossfire and does who do it is barely any difference at all. Some give you maybe 5 or 10 fps more.

Sorry But BS. It alwas depends on what you want. High resolutions or tripplescreensetups make SLI the way to go.

Winger

[theOden]

Regarding earlier statements, shouldn't the thread be labeled: How many forum-users have SLI?

Or is it depending on who/what is polled?

[SharpeXB]

I have a single GTX 670 but when the game is patched and if it adds this feature I would go SLI.

[Hopper64]

Originally Posted by SharpeXB

I have a single GTX 670 but when the game is patched and if it adds this feature I would go SLI.

That's what I have been waiting for as well. I hope to add a second card when the game is capable of using SLI.

[r0bc]

Originally Posted by tomandre81

And very few games support sli / crossfire and does who do it is barely any difference at all. Some give you maybe 5 or 10 fps more.

Not exactly true.
All games I have got SLI support except COD(close to 300 just on Steam) and I have a 50% plus FPS increase.
Most games are supported at launch, rarely do you have to wait a week.

[6BL Bird-Dog]

Perhaps a follow up poll would be a good idea on the lines of who has X-fire or SLI?
How many would Upgrade to X-Fire or SLI if there was a good performance increase to be got from Cliffs of Dover?
How many would not Upgrade to X-Fire or SLI if there was a good performance increase to be got from Cliffs of Dover?

[louisv]

Originally Posted by icarus

Not true. SLI works if it is supported by the game. I generally get up to 50% boost. If you get nothing you are probably playing sims that do not support it (FSX, BMS, and older ones do not, RoF and DCS does work). If thesims you have do support it, then you must be doing something wrong (Its not turned on or your bridge is loose or something).

True about the memory.

Or you hit the cpu bottleneck on your way to complete use of the second card.

I'm not saying it doesn't work at all, I'm saying 'generally doesn't work' not really worth it. I had a couple of GTX9800 with a slightly oc'd quad core and generally with flight simulators, the bottleneck was the cpu...But with a single card too, with the exception of ROF (with the indicator).

Flight sims used to be heavier on the cpu side, that has changed now though, I admit. What gets me with this is that with a given price you get either 2 mid range cards or 1 really good one. About the same price as you do pay twice for memory.

And many games don't support it. Right now ROF and DCS that I'm aware of, with other flight sims, all you are left with is 1 mid-range card..

Lou

[r0bc]

Both ROF and DCS do support SLI however DCS don't scale as well as ROF

[Stublerone]

Originally Posted by jimbop

Would have been good to see 'How many would get SLI if it worked properly'. It is the cheapest way to upgrade GPU performance for older cards but only if the game correctly scales performance.

No!!!!! Not true. Nothing to do with the scaling in pruority. It could only be a cheap upgrade, if the game you are running is already performing well or at least have all feature supported or the game makes no problem on gpu clock speed and vram usage.

Otherwise using sli has not the wished effect.

And when you think, that in general sli only uses 50% or 70% from the second gpu in average, the costs are not that low. Add the power consumption and the problems, you usually have and a new single card will be the better upgrade.

Sli is a method for enthusiasts or for people with very high resolutions due to triple monitor, for example. To upgrade an insufficient card with an additional insufficient card is not a very genius idea. Sorry, but I always recommend buying a sufficient new card, preferrably a single gpu.

Let us see, what future techniques can change on that. I personally think, that no business related company would grant you a sufficient upgrade with a phased out and cheap card, where tjey do not earn money on! Think about that. Ati and nvidia have no priority to give you such an opportunity. They would like to make money and as long as games are also working closely together with them, they will also do not have this as priority. They recommend some support from the card producer and the give support on sales of new products.

I am going so far to say, that game devs know, how to program a game bad enough to let you buy a new card.

[335th_GRDedalos]

Originally Posted by Stublerone

Sli is a method for enthusiasts or for people with very high resolutions due to triple monitor, for example.

I think that is the first and only reason so far! If you want to have a good time in a triple monitor with a decent FPS you have to have a SLI or XFire configuration (although I think the new 6xx series from nVidia and 7xxx from AMD can do this by a single GPU at least in 3xHD. For 3xfullHD you have to have a GTX690 or so)

To upgrade an insufficient card with an additional insufficient card is not a very genius idea. Sorry, but I always recommend buying a sufficient new card, preferrably a single gpu.

+1

Correct. A new generation of a card is better that two or even 3 of the old ones together.