Does CF or SLI make sense

[smile9999]

I dont belive CF or SLI make sense money wise, in the immediate way maybe after 2 years of using one card you can just put in another card and it will give you a 50%+ increase in performance but after say another 2 years, what do you do with those card, there is no more upgrade path and by then which is 4+ years they will be ancient technology and you cant expect to sell them at anywhere near there original price.

if you go single card route first off you save a few bucks on the PSU and mobo for starter, after the same 2 years you can upgrade to a newer card a more advanced technology and you can still sell your old card for at least 70% of the original price since its not really old technology to the mainstream market.

what do you think of this, whats your opinions?

note: this subject was brought to my attention really when I was building a new PC about a week ago and I choose the single card for the reasons above.

 

[Mousemonkey]

You can do it that way if you like or you can get two cards from the get go, there are no set in stone rules.

 

[Helltech]

I dont belive CF or SLI make sense money wise, in the immediate way maybe after 2 years of using one card you can just put in another card and it will give you a 50%+ increase in performance but after say another 2 years, what do you do with those card, there is no more upgrade path and by then which is 4+ years they will be ancient technology and you cant expect to sell them at anywhere near there original price.

if you go single card route first off you save a few bucks on the PSU and mobo for starter, after the same 2 years you can upgrade to a newer card a more advanced technology and you can still sell your old card for at least 70% of the original price since its not really old technology to the mainstream market.

what do you think of this, whats your opinions?

note: this subject was brought to my attention really when I was building a new PC about a week ago and I choose the single card for the reasons above.

First off, you have your ethusiast, who doesn't care about price becuase their computer means more to then than anything else, they want the best they get the best.

Second you have your people who don't care about price per performance, and just want good performance and happen to be rich.

Thirdly, you have the rare case of the GTX 460 1GB where its worth every penny to SLI it becuase its acutally cheaper that way.

Also, 50 percent performance increase? Its not 2007 anymore, the performance increase is usually more drastic then that. Especially on newer drivers/games.

If you have a compatible motherboard you can three/four way crossfire or sli, so yes there are upgrade paths from dual cards.
The only time your going to hit old technology is when DX is updated, and we just happen to be in that odd phase right now. DX 10 just happen to fail and never take off so we jumped from 9 to 11 already, I'm sure 11 will be here for some time so 5xxx/6xxx and 400 series will last a bit. DX 11 will last for quite some time since next gen consoles will be using it so you know its got to last.

Really it just comes down to perforamnce. Some of us prefer to plays games with max settings at 2560x1200 or even 7680x1600, and you know what no single card is going to be able to do the later with all your eye candy. So some people NEED SLI/CF.

 

[smile9999]

First off, you have your ethusiast, who doesn't care about price becuase their computer means more to then than anything else, they want the best they get the best.

Second you have your people who don't care about price per performance, and just want good performance and happen to be rich.

Thirdly, you have the rare case of the GTX 460 1GB where its worth every penny to SLI it becuase its acutally cheaper that way.

Also, 50 percent performance increase? Its not 2007 anymore, the performance increase is usually more drastic then that. Especially on newer drivers/games.

If you have a compatible motherboard you can three/four way crossfire or sli, so yes there are upgrade paths from dual cards.
The only time your going to hit old technology is when DX is updated, and we just happen to be in that odd phase right now. DX 10 just happen to fail and never take off so we jumped from 9 to 11 already, I'm sure 11 will be here for some time so 5xxx/6xxx and 400 series will last a bit. DX 11 will last for quite some time since next gen consoles will be using it so you know its got to last.

Really it just comes down to perforamnce. Some of us prefer to plays games with max settings at 2560x1200 or even 7680x1600, and you know what no single card is going to be able to do the later with all your eye candy. So some people NEED SLI/CF.

your first two reasons are the same if you havent noticed and both are irrelevant when I am saying money wise I mean ppl who care about money , second your third reason is as you said rare cases

also you seem like a complete ignorant when you say 4 way SLI is an upgrade path, plz check this link http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-480-3-way-sli-crossfire,2622-9.html# even 3 way SLI doesnt make sense, also here is what 50% or less CF in todays games http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-480-3-way-sli-crossfire,2622-13.html

 

[Helltech]

Its not the same...

Ethuisiasts don't have to have a lot of money they just don't care about anything except their computer, they would rather do without other luxuries just to updgrade their computer.

The second one is people who don't care either way just becuase they are rich.

You are right about CF though, CF scales horribly usually compared to SLI.

There is still a performance increase? And thus an upgrade path, I never said that after 2-way sli the scaling was good I just said it was an upgrade.

And don't even show me articles that don't show high resolutions becuase thats null, at low resolutions your not going to see much increase between a single 460 and a single 470.

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=637013

"Well, if you play DirectX 11 games at 7680x1600 you'll love that extra speed. Perhaps you even need it. I seen someone play 7680x1600 DiRT 2 with one XFX 5970 2GB Black Edition and he had to turn DirectX 11 off and go back to 9 because it was too hard on the GPU and not getting well enough frames."

Like I said before you only need SLI and CF at LARGE resolutions, and yes... you do. As you saw before people had to turn their settings down becuase they were having a choppy game experience, with the SINGLE best card right now (Ares aside).

I'm not arguing that at low resolutions SLI and CF are a good idea, becuase they are not. But at really large resolutions like 7680x1600, or even 2560x1600..

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/266495-33-2560-1600-resolution-gaming

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GeForce_GTX_460_Cyclone_OC_768_MB/10.html

Look at that low FPS at 2560 x 1600

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GeForce_GTX_460_Cyclone_OC_768_MB/27.html


Also, you can't even Nvidia Surround without SLI so good luck with that..... Its not all about performance, sometimes its about features.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-480-3-way-sli-crossfire,2622-11.html

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-4way-sli-review/7