sli or crossfire?

cvax

so hmm. what seems to be the general consensus these days. does nvidia's sli perform better than crossfire? or vice versa?

mike2h

as good as the single cards are i dont see the point for either unless you have multiple monitirs or a very high res one.
that aside, i would say sli if for no other reason than it is much more mature/developed.

AlexM105

Depends on game, leave it at that.

mike2h

no it does not depend on the game. there is not a single game out there that cannot be played at high iq settings with the high end cards.

AlexM105

CrossFire is better in some games, while SLi is better in others, so yes, it does depend on the game.

mike2h

which is of no help whatsoever.

Tipstaff

Here are some points that seems pertinent:

- ATI Crossfire will work with different vendors cards, as long as they are the same series. That means you can match an X1900XT from ATI with one from Sapphire. You can even match an X1900XT with an X1900GT. What will happen is that the X1900XT will be "throttled" down to the specs of the X1900GT in all aspects except the GPU and Memory clock rate. Nvidia SLI doesn't allow for this. You need to have 2 identical cars for it to work. HOWEVER, this is changing. Infact, I believe the newer boards (such as the Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe for instance) will accept different vendor cards. Also, someone mentioned to me that some of the newer boards that use a software switch for SLI, and that don't require the internal bridge card (the one that indicates whether to run the system in a single or dual card configuration) can also support different Nvidia vendor cards for SLI support (although I can't confirm this).

- ATI Crossfire requires an external cabling system, and the purchase of a "Master" (Crossfire Edition) card for it work on all but the X1300, and X1600XT cards. With those 2 cards the Crossfire support is internal, and all cards are potentially "Master" cards. ATI has mentioned that all future products will have this support from now on (I'm not sure if the X1900GT does though). Nvidias SLI works from the get go internally, with no need for a master or slave card. What this really means for the end user is that with Crossfire any shared work done between the cards is done through the PCIE bus (if I remember correctly the Anti-Aliasing work is done this way), while with Nvidia it is done through the internal connector between the 2 cards.

- With the exception of the newest chipset from Nvidia, when you plug 2 cards into a system they will drop to PCIE 8x speed. As I previously mentioned Asus put out a new board that allows for both cards to work at full PCIE 16x speed.

- As for the "which is faster" debate, YES, some games are faster on a Crossfire setup than SLI, AND vice versa. Crossfire is faster in Farcry, Half Life 2, while SLI is faster in Quake 4, Doom 3, and FEAR. This back and fourth peformance is also true when everything is turned on high (anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, super high res).

I would suggest reading an article that AMDZone did last year called "Dual Graphics Card Showdown: CrossFire vs SLI vs 16X SLI". You can read that HERE. It was done in November last year, but should give you a give overview of the way things are.

Judas

Heres the basic version..

When crossfire works... keyword "WHEN it WORKS"..... it's much faster then SLI it appears with the flagship cards atm.


However, i both recommend you stay as far as you possibly can from crossfire... you do not want the headaches, you don't want the problems.. you just plain out don't want it...

Sli, it works, 3dfx made it, nvidia has now officially perfected it, it works, you hooked it up and it works, you don't have to deal with absalute shit imo.

SLI right now wins hands down even if the speed is slightly less.. but if it works, it'll always be faster vs a non working crossfire...


SLI wins vs Crossfire.

cvax

mmm thanks for the info guys

Zardon

Actually that is incorrect. it depends on the title being run, it differs hugely from game to game. I know no one "plays" 3dmark, but for example with 3dmark03, a comparitive NV system scores 5-7k more. from 32k to 39k in my testing. Some games run better on X1900 CF, others run better on 7900GTX SLI. Both are more than enough for anything you need....

My views on it, as ive extensively used a 7900GTX sli system and a X1900 crossfire system? personally I would go with the nvidia solution, not because of performance issues, but because you dont have to deal with CCC and NV drivers overall are better.

The_Neon_Cowboy

Where I would say that SLI more mature? that can be a bad thing, like me saying
my intel 60mhz must be better becouse it's more mature. ATI had a long time
to comb over SLI and make thier soultion in one word "better" in many aspects.

Crossfire builds on filling weaknesses/falures of SLI. Such as requireing profiles.
Where as crossfire works also with profiles , but by defult enabled crossfire on 100%
of games. Just not the best performing with out a profile since they load what they consider the most compatable mode by default.

Crossfire doesn't require exactly matching cards band nor make. Sli up untill recently
did require two matching cards. Now at least the brands can verry. I don't know about
it being able to use a miss match.

SLI uses a connector from card to card, crossfire a dongle (some dislike) either way
its the same kind of thing. Adding a physical conector would of really sucked due to
the fact you would of had to buy two new cards two do crossfire instead of 1.

In my eyes crossfire is the better soultion. But when it comes down to it it, it depends
on the fallowing:
1) Your funds and will to waste money
2) your preferance of brands hardware
3) need to use insane levels of AA/AF

I agree your better off with 1 verry fast card vs 2 slower cards. IMO: You'll all better
off buying one card with TWO GPU's!!! It's cheaper, It's better, It's faster, is compatable
with like everything. Nvidia alrady has it, ATI is about to debute it (least a partner is)

least that my 2 bits... But this all debateable....

mike2h

saying it is mature is NOT the same thing as saying it is old. your analogy is ridiculous.
at this time sli is a better/more stable product. period. atis is catching up but that is exactly what they are doing, is catching up. i think in another 2- 4 months, IF ati stays on the ball things will be much more equal.

id wait for at least the 2nd edition or a couple of months to go buy before looking at those dbl cards. new problems & to much $$. but there is a lot of good potential there & i would do that before sli/crossfire.
hey neon! my 7900gtx 512 is on the way!! hehe. putting it in that intel 975x crossfire ready board. thought you would appreciate that

Judas

imo it kinda depends on the Resolution more then likely..

I find my crossfire outperforms when running at extensively high resolutions... it just seems to have the juice to do it...


And doing a little research it doesn't seem like the nvidia sli solution can push it as good. although quite good enough..

2560x1600 is imo, pretty damn high resolution though lol.

Zardon

in the majority of titles yes crossfire is faster I didn't say that, but there are issues with crossfire right now that far outweigh the fact I can wholeheartedly recommend it, I cant. the driver support right now is terrible IMO - the drivers need some serious work, I mean take a look at rendering in 3dmark03, the performance is not reflective of the hardware on any level - comparitive hardware is 5-7k lower than the NV equivalent. there are no options in the drivers for rendering modes either. "crossfire on" then extra AA options - thats the extras you get with crossfire. Then what about the fact ATI have promoted this as not needing driver profiles when the "poorer NV solution does"? What about GRAW running at 18fps AVG at 1920x1200 on a X1900XT solution, then when you rename GRAW.exe to 3DMark03.exe you suddenly jump to 50fps AVG? That sure as hell sounds like a driver "profile" to me regardless of how you want to sugarcoat it.

Mike2h is right, ATI might have the superior hardware overall, but its useless in the hands of the limited and underwhelming CCC, you should know that better than anyone, after starting at least 50 threads on how crap the multi monitor support is, but then again threads like these give you a chance to talk about all your high end hardware, right ?

Judas

lol...

That why i said, when CCC works.... and crossfire WORKS..... it does an excellent job....

ATI's probably getting sick of me, the number of support tickets are rediculious....

and no, i recommend everyone stay the HELL CLEAR of crossfire till ATI can manage to make it work properly at least 10% of the time...

Coolasmoo

I just pulled out my X1900 Mastercard

Im back to a single X1900XTX and im releived in a way that i finally did it.

The problems i had with that flamin mastercard, i wouldnt recommend Crossfire to anybody apart from benchmark whores.

So much potential, but drivers and compatability problems are beyond a joke right now

The_Neon_Cowboy

But in my eyes SLI "is old" after all now lie 2 years old! In PC years thats pretty old!
It has it's pit falls they need an updatea SLI2 or some kind of updates to the
way thier doing things. They have come a long way in adding things, due to the delays
in lauch of crossfire that SLI DID NOT HAVE like the crossfire AA modes stuff like that.
Now the update patch to allow diffrent brands to be used. Who's been catching up to
whom in many regards?

AS for your choice of cards good for you. Both ATI and Nvidia make great cards.
Just don't get me started on the "companies" behind them or thier bussiness pratices
and taticfs and argeue we will not .

Ferret_Style

The funny part is i have a 7900 Gt in a 975X asus board i only plan to run 1 video card but i might go Crossfire if i ran into extra money ... not likey. But i have noticed the 7900 GT does take a toll compaired to ATI hardware when running AA and i like AA so i have been waiting for ATI to lower prices a little.....