Single 2GB x16 card or CF 1GB x8/x8 ?

[summerzakis]

Hello,
Does anyone know which one is generally better in term of performance? A single 2GB x16 graphic card or CF 1Gb x8/x8 card? I plan to use a P8Z68 motherbard with i7

 

[manu 11]

x8/x8 means you are going to add 2 gfx cards, it will increase the performane

 

[jyjjy]

In crossfire/SLI video memory is redundant. You will have more processing power using half the memory. Especially for a dual card setup you should go for higher memory cards as they can use it better and can do better at higher resolutions where it will be more useful.

 

[geofelt]

Hello,
Does anyone know which one is generally better in term of performance? A single 2GB x16 graphic card or CF 1Gb x8/x8 card? I plan to use a P8Z68 motherbard with i7

x16 and x8 refers to the capabilities of the pcie graphics slot. In general, x8 or x16 makes no difference because most graphics cards can not push the capabilities of x8.
Only with the top end cards like GTX590 will you see 1-3% performance impact.
The ram on the cards will be appropriate to the card. More ram than the reference card will be mostly for marketing. Dont make a decision based on the ram on the card.

In general, I prefer a single strong card vs two lesser cards.
1) No need for a more expensive cf/sli motherboard.
2) Psu requirements will be less.
3) Cooling issues will be less.

cf/sli could be appropriate for triple monitor gaming or 2560 x 1600 monitors.

 

[Mousemonkey]

^ Totally agree.

I don't but then I actually use an SLi rig rather than just reading about them. [:mousemonkey]

 

[Mousemonkey]

Before I bought my 6850 I added a second 5750 for crossfire... Wasn't happy at all, but then again I play on a single monitor.

So do I, so what was it about Xfire that you didn't like?

 

[Mousemonkey]

Some games didn't have any improvement, I don't like having to toy around with another piece of software, senseless added heat and power consumption, and not that I have checked but I don't think crossfire helped at all in 3ds max.

What makes you think that SLi would be the same?

 

[jyjjy]

Some games didn't have any improvement, I don't like having to toy around with another piece of software, senseless added heat and power consumption, and not that I have checked but I don't think crossfire helped at all in 3ds max.

Almost all current and recent major game releases support Crossfire. Does 3DS Max even use GPU acceleration on a single card?

 

[brandondiep]

Some games didn't have any improvement, I don't like having to toy around with another piece of software, senseless added heat and power consumption, and not that I have checked but I don't think crossfire helped at all in 3ds max.

What kind of old ass games are you playing? Like the other guy said most modern games are sli/cf ready. Any game that is not cf/sli ready most likely doesn't even need 2 cards to run at max with decent fps. So many people trash on sli/cf.

 

[nforce4max]

Some games didn't have any improvement, I don't like having to toy around with another piece of software, senseless added heat and power consumption, and not that I have checked but I don't think crossfire helped at all in 3ds max.

You must be new to such systems in general. I have been running sli for years and games as well applications that don't make much use of sli/crossfire beyond a single gpu is nothing new. It is something that such users like my self and mouse live with but that does not mean there are not or very few games and apps that don't make use of such systems. For me I got two sli rigs and maybe to be a crossfire rig on the side later this year. As for 3dsmax one should have at least some common sense given the type of application.

 

[nforce4max]

What kind of old ass games are you playing? Like the other guy said most modern games are sli/cf ready. Any game that is not cf/sli ready most likely doesn't even need 2 cards to run at max with decent fps. So many people trash on sli/cf.

Even some old ass games from the late 90s can make use of sli that being 3dfx

 

[manu 11]

sli is more stable than xfire because in my opinion, nvidea has more matured drivers than amd

 

[iam2thecrowe]

if you do enough reading about the subject you will notice many people having issues getting acceptable performance with sli/crossfire, particularly the latter. If you want a no-fuss setup its probably wise to avoid it. If you dont mind tinkering with settings and drivers and figuring things out, then you will reap the rewards. The most common problems seem to arise with people with 16x/4x setups. 8x/8x doesnt seem to have as many issues. back to the original question, if you have 2x 1gb 6950's it will be faster than one 2gb 6950 overall.

 

[summerzakis]

hmmmm.....thanks you all for the info. in this case, i think i will opt for dual-ing the card and will cranking my head for the typical setting problem... lol

 

[summerzakis]

Best answer selected by summerzakis.

 

[coldest]

x16 and x8 refers to the capabilities of the pcie graphics slot. In general, x8 or x16 makes no difference because most graphics cards can not push the capabilities of x8.
Only with the top end cards like GTX590 will you see 1-3% performance impact.
The ram on the cards will be appropriate to the card. More ram than the reference card will be mostly for marketing. Dont make a decision based on the ram on the card.

In general, I prefer a single strong card vs two lesser cards.
1) No need for a more expensive cf/sli motherboard.
2) Psu requirements will be less.
3) Cooling issues will be less.

cf/sli could be appropriate for triple monitor gaming or 2560 x 1600 monitors.

what about mobo with one x16 and one x4, and you dual cards in them? will this setting have big difference from dual x16 or dual x8 mobo?