How did I not answer the question? I think I gave the best answer, particularly with actual usable information. As usual, I backed it up with links.
Basically, my very valid point is, if you think Crossfire is better than a single card, then be prepared to deal with issues related to drivers and gaming that feels less smooth.
Quote:
"Unfortunately, these driver issues concerning CrossFireX is not something new, and have hit gamers hard in 2011. Last year, we saw many games launched, many of those were AAA titles, and there were issues with CrossFireX support not being available at launch. In fact, sometimes it took AMD a month or more before CrossFireX was working."
"We have to just sit here with our heads in our hands and wonder why AMD is seemingly trying its best to piss off its customers that spend the most on its retail products; the CrossFireX gamer. We have seen more than a few AMD video card owners openly express that AMD’s lacking driver support is pushing them to not consider an AMD GPU for their next buy. And honestly, it is hard to hold that decision against them."
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/01/17/amd_crossfirex_drivers_opportunity_lost/
Quote:
"We've generally been disappointed in CrossFireX support this generation, and we know our readers have too. It prompted us early on to write an editorial on the issue because we know our readers and enthusiast gamers out there are having these same issues and are quite frustrated with it. This is yet one more issue to throw into the bucket, and the bucket is getting rather full. We hope this issue gets fixed soon, but we are not surprised to see people jumping ship to NVIDIA because of AMD driver issues. More and more these topics are posted in our forums, and we can't blame them. NVIDIA clearly has a leg up on SLI and NV Surround support. Combine that with the smoothness and fluidity difference between SLI and CrossFireX, it makes selling CrossFireX or Tri-Fire plus Eyefinity a hard sell."
http://hardocp.com/article/2012/04/25/geforce_gtx_680_3way_sli_radeon_7970_trifire_review/9
Quote:
"We have to comment on our CrossFire issues in this article and of course point out that these are NOT XFX's fault. Instead, we seem to have found a fault with the AMD drivers and its QA program."
http://pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/XFX-Radeon-HD-7970-3GB-Black-Edition-and-CrossFire-Results/Analysis-and-Concl
Quote:
"AMD will need to place a strong focus on drivers as last year, if you have read up in our forums, AMD's Radeon team has been a step too slow with driver support. While there are monthly updates and hotfixes titles like Rage and Skyrim have been plagued by driver bugs, especially in Crossfire modes. It took AMD too long fix. When you drop 60 EUR on game you want to be able to play it on release day, period."
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-7950-crossfire-review-2-and-3way/19
I didn't even get into the microstuttering issue, but I should because that's a likely source of the lack of smoothness in gameplay.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-geforce-stutter-crossfire,2995-5.html
Quote:
"In this particular title, SLI doesn't scale as well as CrossFire, resulting in a lower average frame rate than two Radeon HD 6870s in CrossFire. The Radeons, however, suffer from visible micro-stuttering, while the slower GeForces subjectively seem to be faster due to the reduction of the phenomenon."
http://media.bestofmicro.com/amd-crossfire-nvidia-sli,W-I-300546-3.png
Quote:
"To us it seems like SLI is "more playable" at lower framerates than CrossFireX is."
"The result of SLI feeling smoother than CrossFireX is that in real-world gameplay, we can get away with a bit lower FPS with SLI, whereas with CFX we have to aim a little higher for it to feel smooth. We do know that SLI performs some kind of driver algorithm to help smooth SLI framerates, and this could be why it feels so much better. Whatever the reason, to us, SLI feels smoother than CrossFireX."
http://hardocp.com/article/2012/03/28/nvidia_kepler_geforce_gtx_680_sli_video_card_review/9