Which do you feel is the more efficient solution? - Page 2

**Vikingod** · Apr 17, 2006, 10:42 PM

I'd honestly have to say both are pretty equal. I certainly don't think either have a clear advantage tech-wise. SLI is obviously leading in sales, but that is something completely different. Neither have really impressed me, though my mobo is sli capable. I still seems the best way to get pbetter performance in the newest games is to just have one really fast card.

BWX · Apr 17, 2006, 11:11 PM

Voted SLI, just on a hunch and from what I have seen and read over the past year. I would never use a dual card solution though, I would always just upgrade to a faster single card.

Leekay07 · Apr 18, 2006, 04:49 AM

What if you have the fastest and you want to run Oblivion or Call Of Duty 2 at 50FPS on a 1600x1050 monitor or larger? Your then stuck with having to go to 2 cards like myself.

Falstaff · Apr 18, 2006, 05:36 AM

SLI at the moment, crossfire is still buggy from what I have been told. Nvidia just works almost all of the time. I purchased three 7800s for my father, my son and daughter on their machines, they work flawlessly with the latest zeropoints or any driver. ATI is a pain in the ass sometimes, I own one myself and upgrading to a 1900 soon, but Nvidia is what my kids prefer, and they use my machine for their college studies and occasionally gamingl etc.
Nvidia is on the right track, but either technology is going to be replaced soon with onboard chipsets featuring what we see now, rather than on a card...
Cards will eventually go away for mainstream I predict.

~~Alien1~~ · Apr 18, 2006, 05:48 AM

I voted SLI
SLI are more stable sollutions

but when Crossfire matures with ATI chipset sollutions beeing less buggy(maybe buggy is not the exact word for them...bad compatibility with a variety of hardware and games perhaps ?) things may change

Sandok · Apr 18, 2006, 06:05 AM

What I think is more efficient is the installation method of SLi over Crossfire. I mean, for one you just go and order two cards and hook em up but for the latter, you must go buy the card you want and then a more expensive MASTER card and hook em up with a dongle. It works, but no way near as easy and simple as SLi

BWX · Apr 18, 2006, 06:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leekay07

What if you have the fastest and you want to run Oblivion or Call Of Duty 2 at 50FPS on a 1600x1050 monitor or larger? Your then stuck with having to go to 2 cards like myself.

See I think I would just get the absolute fastest card on the market and OC it before going to a dual card solution. No question dual cards are faster overall, but to me just not worth it at the rate new cards are coming out and the speed boosts the new cards always seem to have.

bug77 · Apr 18, 2006, 08:02 AM

Voted for SLI. You can use SLI for any game as long as you define a profile for it; you can't do that with ATI. And support... Mobos with ATI chipsets are expensive and plagued by problems.

Sandok · Apr 18, 2006, 11:49 AM

NV is exactly 60 votes ahead

Very close pole once again

Judas · Apr 18, 2006, 01:11 PM

Crossfire automatically defaults to the super tiling method when a game is loaded that no specific ati profile is available...

crossfire works on everything... it just depends if it works properly... (there will always be problems)

i've load up some fairly old games and see a massive different between non crossfire...

i mean, Darkplaces Quake 1 most likely has zero profile... defaulting to super tiling = Massive difference...

ronnn · Apr 18, 2006, 10:14 PM

I have no real opinion, as can't imagine wanting 2 cards of either solution. Ati seems to use exorbatant power and produces lots of heat, but has the better IQ. Nvidia uses only lots of power and has more mature drivers, but just can't see spending that money and settling for inferior IQ. So maybe next gen will produce 2 cards that can work in a more efficient manner than 1 card, as single cards do seem to be reaching a ceiling of feasable results versus cost of production and heat issues.

classic_leon · Apr 20, 2006, 05:46 AM

SLI is more easily installed rather than Crossfire that is designed for duo-card design. When it process Alternate Frame Rendering, the workload of two cards are not exactly the same...powerfull master card of crossfire composes the graphic image but SLI which are two same cards makes a few resources wasted.

Partizan · Apr 20, 2006, 06:00 AM

I wonder if two crossfire cards could work in crossfire mode in nvidia sli based motherboard

Judas · Apr 20, 2006, 10:48 AM

that's be kinda neato if it did...

atm, i can get a crossfire master card for 100 bucks cheaper then a x1900xtx card

mkk · Apr 20, 2006, 11:19 AM

Crossfire is shaping up and that SLI has had the lead so far is perhaps not too surprising considering the earlier introduction. The advantages of SLI are small but numerous like currently better cards on the mid-range segment, independant of clunky control software, better mobo availability (if only we could ever get boards that support both variations...) and Linux support. Ask again in 6-12 months and we'll see. By then I hope to be running SLI.