Any other enthusiasts who never use SLI/CF and thinks there's too much focus on it?

[RadiclDreamer]

I avoid it because of the poor support, relative instability, extra heat, extra power usage, extra cost and often times poor performance. I would rather just buy a really fast single card.

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

Yes to much focus on it(CF/SLI)....

Here is a good topic of that, the newest cards are 980 Nivida's they sell for around $500 each(I assume). Some one who has a single 7970 may want to Upgade and think wow look at the GTX 980, but it's a little steep in price. Another 7970 can be had for a little over $100(US) and boom your equal to if not past a GTX 980 for one fifth of the price.
AMD'S have taken a dramatic price drop with the 980 release price, basically the best AMD R290 will cost a little more then my comparison but still well below the price of a new 980. And 2 R 290 in CF will give you way more GPU power then a 980. I have owned many CF/SLI setup's and never had any issue's which were not fixed with a driver update.
If you never had a SLI/CF setup don't sit here and say we have many issue's when you never even owned 2 of the same cards cause you can not even comment on them to begin with except to quote some random posting of a person that was looking for SLI/CF help. That's like saying I went to the Asus forums and all there new X99 stuff has issue, you wont see the people who have no issue's posting up about it. I wouldn't even comment on this subject but I currently own at least 5 CF/SLI setups so I know from experience what I'm talking about...............
My current GPU library consists of 2 780 GT'S, 5 GTX9800'S, 2 6950'S, 2 7970'S, 2 GTX 780 Ti DC2OC, but what do I know :whiste:

 

[Atreidin]

I don't know what kind of in-depth articles you want, but I'm guessing it's harder to do those than just belching out another set of benchmarks. If you forced review writers on the internet to focus on having anything interesting to say beyond just slapping up a few graphs then most wouldn't publish anything at all. Just pick out the jewels that are worth reading and ignore the noise, since there will always be a lot of it.

 

[Cerb]

Only back in the old days when SLI was Scan-Line Interleave did I even entertain the idea. But, I don't see how it gets too much representation. It's more work, more money, and more issue-prone, plus those doing it tend to be making the hardware sites and dGPU companies proportionally more money than the rest of us. I don't see it getting all that much attention at all, honestly, outside of competitive communities, where it's another way to ego trip.

Also, aside from the fuzz, Crysis 3 ran OK on my single GTX 460, with 4MSAA (I try to always have some real AA). But, oh noes, not at max settings! Once/if I get a non-whiny 970, I won't even have the fuzz, and might be able to turn it up a few notches (then I can get to bitching about this IPS glow, because, I mean, what will I have left to complain about?). It actually scaled down rather well. Metro:LL, OTOH, looks all kinds of craptastic, and I have been waiting on a GPU upgrade to get too far into it (fun, but it looks like a ~2009 game, if I have it set for acceptable performance).

If I hadn't been spending my hobby money on DIY audio gadgetry, and music to take advantage of that with, I could have gone SLI. I'm confident that I put my money to better use--I listen to music 20-40 hrs/wk, and game no more than 20hrs, but some weeks more like 4, or 5hrs. If you consider multiple GPUs, and a big monitor, or multiple monitors to game on, worth it, go for it. JHH loves you more than me.

 

[Sohaltang]

1) you appear to be agreeing with the guy you quoted

2) why the obsession with running games maxed out? Yeah it looks prettier, but ultra is only slightly prettier than med/high. Noticeably? Sure. Worth many hundreds more to afford? YMMV

1. Yeah Im sarcastic. Im 110% in agreement with him.
2. When you buy a $$$ monitor, build a high end rig, throw in 2 of the fastest GPU's on the planet then OC it till its starts to melt.. people tend to expect MAXED. I could have saved a ton and ran games on medium. Could use my ps3 or ps4 and never built the power hungry rig. I PC game because it allows me to realize the full potential of current tech. I have too much money in my hobby to run weak sauce. 4K@ 120HZ is soooooo far off its not even funny. Cant imagine what it would take to max last years games, better yet next years games. Quad SLI 980's? Not sure if they could even handle that. So back to the topic.. There is no single card solution for 1440P 120HZ, and we are maybe 5 years away from a single card 4K 120hz option. So its SLI/CF or watch a slideshow while you game.

 

[3DVagabond]

I don't know what kind of in-depth articles you want, but I'm guessing it's harder to do those than just belching out another set of benchmarks. If you forced review writers on the internet to focus on having anything interesting to say beyond just slapping up a few graphs then most wouldn't publish anything at all. Just pick out the jewels that are worth reading and ignore the noise, since there will always be a lot of it.

Yes, 99% of reviews are what's the waist of time, not the hardware in the reviews.

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

OPP'S
I forgot 4 3870 and 2 GTX 580's. The microsutter was present in single gpu's and over heating in single GPU'S as well. and 5 5770'S I got a few

 

[aigomorla]

im a club member of NEED MOAR CORES... that applies to both cpu and gpu's.

 

[taq8ojh]

I am not sure whether I am an entusiasist or not, maybe partially in my mind, but I'd never go for such setup, for several reasons:
1) the neverending driver problems on both sides
2) the noise (even a quiet card is still rather noisy)
3) more noise because of additional case cooling
4) I don't believe the bang for the buck is high enough to justify wasting extra hundreds of dollars on high end card

I also don't believe in all those ridiculous resolutions. I am more than happy with 1920x1200. I might eventually go for the next higher resolution, but only maybe. I also don't want to sit 5 metres away from a monitor.

 

[KingFatty]

I think it depends what you want. Most people want hardware that:
a) is hassle free.
b) gives them the best chance of playing the game well.
c) looks as nice as possible.
A few also fall into the camp of:
d) benchmark junkies - i.e. they love knowing how fast their setup is vs the rest of the world.

Sli/Xfire/4K don't give you a and b. They add hassle and bugs, they introduce lag, 4K means 60hz, more blur, lower fps. That is a major failing - I don't want to spend all that money to have to continually fight with the drivers and then after all that have worse performance playing my choice of online shooter because it's actually laggier and stutters so I can't aim as well.

Hence it's really for people who care more about c and d then a and b.

Personally I set my settings to give me b then don't worry about them again. Sure it's nice to have the very highest you can get (which with a 1920p screen and a single 970 I can generally get) but do I really care if I used FXAA and textures aren't quite as sharp, or my screen isn't 4K when I am playing the game - no, too busy playing to notice. I do notice fast however if there's lag, or low fps (I have a 120hz screen) and it's making me miss...

Two issues I've had so far:
1) the "hassle and bugs" using crossfire/SLI may not affect your particular chosen game at all. So yeah, maybe a new game would take a few driver iterations/updates to run bug-free, but I think it's a bit of an exaggeration to portray every single game as being plagued by bugs. I mean, in a blind test, you'd probably not notice the bugs and instead just enjoy a huge boost to framerates.

2) I think this scenario is an example of a false dichotomy. There is the suggestion that review sites are somehow wasting precious resources on reviewing crossfire/SLI, and so they can't devote their full attention to more important topics.

This is not true in my opinion. I believe that the important subject matter is covered, and boring/dull subject matter is left out *on purpose.* It's like any other review.

The basic tone I get here is that the reader is annoyed at having to read extra information, but trying to justify the annoyance as there is some sacrifice happening so stop cutting corners or something. But again, I think the reviewers devote appropriate time covering subject matter that average readers want to read about, and if there is subject matter not relevant to them, they can skip it.

But if you were running a review site, you'd want to attract as many eyeballs/ad revenue as possible by appealing to as many readers as possible. If you include the crossfire material, you get all the viewers and those with single cards skip. If you exclude the crossfire material, then enthusiasts will go elsewhere.

Also, as usual, review sites are proxies for selling more video cards. They are provided with free sample evaluation cards. They are to help sell more cards, so they review crossfire/SLI to encourage people to see what is available, how easy and fun it is to get more performance compared to their single-card setup, and give them a free taste of what is possible.

 

[Madpacket]

Meh, SLI/Xfire make sense in specific situations now that microstutter has mostly been addressed. Going through crossfire 69xx and then 79xx series cards I got fed up and sold off the cards because of microstutter. With my dual 290's it's thankfully no longer an issue (finally) so I'm keeping them for the foreseeable future.

I will say if you're not running any higher than 2560x1440 (say 4K or triple monitor gaming qualify) stay away from dual GPU's, too much hassle overall.

 

[KaRLiToS]

if you wanted to stay over 60 frames per second you can use common sense and use SMAA instead of MSAA.

Toyota, is it possible for you to not be condescending sometime?

C'mon man, there are different opinions.

 

[AdamK47]

One of the best ways to reduce micro stuttering with SLI is to maintain consistant framerate at vsync. The easiest way to accomplish this is money.

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

Toyota, is it possible for you to not be condescending sometime?

C'mon man, there are different opinions.

Don't stir him up. Only microsutter I have had was AMD, again weather single card or 2 or 3.

 

[toyota]

Toyota, is it possible for you to not be condescending sometime?

C'mon man, there are different opinions.

why are you so paranoid? last two times you accused me of something it wasnt even true. my comment was/is a general statement for anyone about using common sense instead of just cranking the most demanding AA.

 

[KaRLiToS]

why are you so paranoid? last two times you accused me of something it wasnt even true. my comment was/is a general statement for anyone about using common sense instead of just cranking the most demanding AA.

Respect the others. It has nothing to do with paranoia.

If someone wants to use MSFXGATUGDAA and wants to buy a second card for it, you'll have to respect that and don't accuse them of lacking of common sense.

 

[3DVagabond]

why are you so paranoid? last two times you accused me of something it wasnt even true. my comment was/is a general statement for anyone about using common sense instead of just cranking the most demanding AA.

Common Sense: Something we wish others had more of but think that we ourselves have enough.

 

[toyota]

Respect the others. It has nothing to do with paranoia.

If someone wants to use MSFXGATUGDAA and wants to buy a second card for it, you'll have to respect that and don't accuse them of lacking of common sense.

way to miss the point AGAIN. you seem to take simple comments and add your personal spin to it to make it look like I am saying something I am not. please dont reply to me again if all you want to do is put words in my mouth so you can argue.

 

[stahlhart]

I think we're done here.
-- stahlhart