crossfire worth the hype?

[snyderm]

I was wondering what people thought about the concept of crossfire (or SLI).

I am about to buy an 8800gt, but I was also thinking about buying a 3850, with the intention of buying a 3850 and a crossfire motherboard in the future for crossfire.

I was looking at some benchmarks, and some of them seemed disheartening. Many games have a lower FPS with crossfire enabled than with a single card. Obviously it is because some games don't support it, and the display drivers with the card have problems.

My question is, as a card's driver matures, does crossfire usually work properly? I would hate to spend a lot of money on two video cards only to buy my favorite game and find that I wasted my money. What do you think?

 

[sailer]

First off, I'd look to the 3870 rather than the 3850. In comparison to the 8800GT, the 3850 just doesn't have what it takes. Also, mixing a 3870 and a 3850 guarentees that the mix will run at the speed of the slower card, so there would be no advantage to buying a 3750 if you add a 3850 to it. Second, remember that your motherboard dictates which you can use, SLI or Crossfire, so if you have to change motherboards to accomodate two cards, then that cost has to be taken into consideration. Third, unless you have a monitor that is larger than a 22" widescreen, SLI or Crossfire will not show any great advantage. Forth, don't count on new drivers helping. They may help, but they may not.

Conventional wisdom is to buy the best single card you can afford. Then, if say you have bought a 8800 GTX, for example, and want more performance, add another 8800 GTX. Same idea with ATI, getting a 2900 XT or 3870 and doing Crossfire.

I personally don't think its worth it to go the SLI or Crossfire route unless you have a big monitor. Even then, get the most powerful card you can first. At this moment, depending on your budget, I'd stay with the single card. On another note, in a couple weeks Nvidia will release the new 8800 GTS 640. That card may well be better than the 8800GT and therefore may be a better buy than either the 8800GT or the 3870.