Single grafic card, SLI or CF is beter an why?

[ps-jl]

I am planning on buying a pc. To be specific i will be using this pc for progamming applications, for gamming (occasionaly) and in the near future for grafic applications. So please help me out choose my best bet.

 

[uncfan_2563]

lol watch the typos there.....

i suggest you get the best single card for the money that you have but make sure your motherboard supports SLI/CF so when you need the extra performance you don't need a new card, just need to add another of what you have

 

[coozie7]

This sounds like a working system, in which case I'd stick to just one card, SLI and CF can lead to extra problems and I do n't suppose you'll be very happy having to diagnose them when working to a deadline!

 

[Pailin]

Yeah, I'd also go for the single card solution, either a ATI 4890 or an NVidia 275

As like me working on the PC a Lot, it will be on near all the time, 2 cards create extra heat in my room I can do without with summer here
and an extra card over a year will increase running costs a fair enough amount that a single cards savings could be used to buy a better single card

oh, and maybe a little quieter too

The Asus 4890 come factory OC'd to 950 MHz I understand and is still one of the cheaper cards of that type + has overvolting OCing facilities too.

But I like the PhysX feature of the 275 Nvidia card maybe...

anyways, Good Luck!

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

NSFW

Spoiler

Gamming

That just made my day...

 

[thegewch]

I'd also say single card for sure. I ran 8800GT's in SLI for around a year and recently switched to a single GTX 285 and read over and over in forums that there would be none to very little performance gain. TBH it was probably the best performance gain i h ave seen in any GPU upgrade as far as real time performance. Benchamarking was relatively the same with no real gain, but the actual gameplay was very much boosted.

 

[dirtmountain]

I usually use a single card setup. When it's time to upgrade i sell the older card and buy a new single card. If the price differential isn't too much i will buy a crossfire capable motherboard just to keep the option alive though.

 

[JofaMang]

It reminds me of something I read in a car magazine probably 10+ years ago: People buy their cars for the horsepower, but they love them for the torque. To me, benchmarking is horsepower, and how a system actually runs is the torque.

 

[hundredislandsboy]

Two cards are more horsepower but one card gives enough torque for gamming.