CF on a card OR SLi on a card- poll inside

[extra]

Originally posted by: nRollo
Re: Scan Line Interleave. IIRC that had issues of image quality "graininess" besides not offering the gains of AFR.

Hmmmm I think many of the old school voodoo2 etc sli image quality problems were from these two things, though:

1. 16 bit color (whee!)
2. Analog passthroughs ftl

Correct me if i'm wrong ^_^

Anyway, interesting thread....I remember when I put that first voodoo card into my computer at the time.. a cyrix based computer, hah.... and fired up glquake for the first time and was blown away by how amazing it looked. LoL...those were the days.

Oh, and a3d soundcards...still haven't heard as good positioning from headphones as that, sadly...

 

[MegaWorks]

My first AFR card was an ATi Rage Fury MAXX just like Rollo! Man that card brings back memories. It looked so good well for it's time. But the drivers killed me :laugh:

Well I gave CrossFire a shot (HD3870 CF), and I'm not that impressed. I play COD 4 multiplayer a lot, and it did in fact double my FPS. I didn't see any improving in Mass Effect, yes I know it's an RPG but still Isn't an Unreal 3 engine game no? Bioshock not a big improvement maybe 10fps!

I think they need to find a better way to double the performance with SLI/CF. I'm going back to single card solution.


But I support SLI/CF hoping for better. :laugh:

 

[WelshBloke]

Make SLI/CF transparent and give me multi-monitor support and I might go for it.

Until then, no thanks.

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: MegaWorks
My first AFR card was an ATi Rage Fury MAXX just like Rollo! Man that card brings back memories. It looked so good well for it's time. But the drivers killed me :laugh:

Well I gave CrossFire a shot (HD3870 CF), and I'm not that impressed. I play COD 4 multiplayer a lot, and it did in fact double my FPS. I didn't see any improving in Mass Effect, yes I know it's an RPG but still Isn't an Unreal 3 engine game no? Bioshock not a big improvement maybe 10fps!

I think they need to find a better way to double the performance with SLI/CF. I'm going back to single card solution.


But I support SLI/CF hoping for better. :laugh:

Your problem is your CPU - a Pentium D will bottleneck any high-end GPU / certainly multi-GPU solution. Go buy yourself an E7200 or E8400 and you will see a huge performance increase in a number of apps. If you spent that much on a system already, an extra $100 for a modern CPU is not going to kill you.

Anyway, I fully support a "smart" multi-GPU implementation, like R700 is rumored to be and future multi-GPU implementations should be. Any solution that uses multiple GPUs and relies on software entirely is not a good solution. But if you can connect the GPUs via hardware and at the very least make scaling more consistent and eliminate some problems like microstutter, then it can be considered as transparent as a single-GPU solution.

I voted that I didn't support either in the past but would support them now; I'd say I'm more supportive of AMD's multi-GPU cards than nVidia's at this moment. nVidia's multi-GPU cards have been nothing more than two cards glued together, looking at the 7950 GX2 / 9800 GX2. With 2 GPUs on a single PCB, the 3870 X2 was a bit more advanced than what nVidia has put out so far. The 4870 X2 promises to be even a more advanced solution.

When it comes to 2+ cards in SLI/CF, then I would say I support it as an ultra-high end competitor (such as 3x GTX 280 or 2x R700) but as a midrange solution... not really. To me something like 3850 Crossfire or 9600GT SLI is not a good idea... you can buy a single-GPU that will perform just as well.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: gersson
I'm not trying to be mean but the first thing I thought was: nRollo must be getting lazy -- having us do his nVidia marketing research for him. It can't all be just cards and glory, buddy. You gotta work for your pimp

This is classic, and caused me to burst out laughing.

:beer:

Back in the day another member showed me my first Bollywood by posting a movie of two cowboys talking, dialogue was something like:

Cowboy 1: What will we do Rollo? ATi's next card looks pretty good!
Cowboy 1: AA and AF performance is higher, price is reasonable!
Rollo Cowboy: Doesn't matter, let's go post some FUD!

IMO, if you can't laugh at yourself, you're an asshat, and sometimes others perceptions of me online cracks me up. Kudos.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: WelshBloke
Make SLI/CF transparent and give me multi-monitor support and I might go for it.

Until then, no thanks.

ATi has multi monitor, but is further from transparent unfortunately.

 

[MegaWorks]

Originally posted by: Extelleron

Originally posted by: MegaWorks
My first AFR card was an ATi Rage Fury MAXX just like Rollo! Man that card brings back memories. It looked so good well for it's time. But the drivers killed me :laugh:

Well I gave CrossFire a shot (HD3870 CF), and I'm not that impressed. I play COD 4 multiplayer a lot, and it did in fact double my FPS. I didn't see any improving in Mass Effect, yes I know it's an RPG but still Isn't an Unreal 3 engine game no? Bioshock not a big improvement maybe 10fps!

I think they need to find a better way to double the performance with SLI/CF. I'm going back to single card solution.


But I support SLI/CF hoping for better. :laugh:

Your problem is your CPU - a Pentium D will bottleneck any high-end GPU / certainly multi-GPU solution. Go buy yourself an E7200 or E8400 and you will see a huge performance increase in a number of apps. If you spent that much on a system already, an extra $100 for a modern CPU is not going to kill you.

Ok..ok I'll order one E8400 next week and see if it does make a difference.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Extelleron

Originally posted by: MegaWorks
My first AFR card was an ATi Rage Fury MAXX just like Rollo! Man that card brings back memories. It looked so good well for it's time. But the drivers killed me :laugh:

Well I gave CrossFire a shot (HD3870 CF), and I'm not that impressed. I play COD 4 multiplayer a lot, and it did in fact double my FPS. I didn't see any improving in Mass Effect, yes I know it's an RPG but still Isn't an Unreal 3 engine game no? Bioshock not a big improvement maybe 10fps!

I think they need to find a better way to double the performance with SLI/CF. I'm going back to single card solution.


But I support SLI/CF hoping for better. :laugh:

Your problem is your CPU - a Pentium D will bottleneck any high-end GPU / certainly multi-GPU solution. Go buy yourself an E7200 or E8400 and you will see a huge performance increase in a number of apps. If you spent that much on a system already, an extra $100 for a modern CPU is not going to kill you.

Anyway, I fully support a "smart" multi-GPU implementation, like R700 is rumored to be and future multi-GPU implementations should be. Any solution that uses multiple GPUs and relies on software entirely is not a good solution. But if you can connect the GPUs via hardware and at the very least make scaling more consistent and eliminate some problems like microstutter, then it can be considered as transparent as a single-GPU solution.

I voted that I didn't support either in the past but would support them now; I'd say I'm more supportive of AMD's multi-GPU cards than nVidia's at this moment. nVidia's multi-GPU cards have been nothing more than two cards glued together, looking at the 7950 GX2 / 9800 GX2. With 2 GPUs on a single PCB, the 3870 X2 was a bit more advanced than what nVidia has put out so far. The 4870 X2 promises to be even a more advanced solution.

When it comes to 2+ cards in SLI/CF, then I would say I support it as an ultra-high end competitor (such as 3x GTX 280 or 2x R700) but as a midrange solution... not really. To me something like 3850 Crossfire or 9600GT SLI is not a good idea... you can buy a single-GPU that will perform just as well.

1. We have no clue what the R700 will be, at least no verifiable clue. Some people have very good reason to want "All multi GPU issues have been solved!" rumors floating around, so we'll really have to wait and see for that. (remember what the FX5800Ultra was "going" to be?)


2. There have been many examples NVIDIA products with two GPUs on one board, ATi is not "more advanced", they simply made different manufacturing choices that offered no real advantage.

6600GT dual GPU

6800GT dual GPU

7800GT dual GPU

7900GT dual GPU

 

[airhendrix13]

I don't like multi-gpu because we haven't worked out many issues with just 1 gpu...

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: Extelleron
I voted that I didn't support either in the past but would support them now; I'd say I'm more supportive of AMD's multi-GPU cards than nVidia's at this moment. nVidia's multi-GPU cards have been nothing more than two cards glued together, looking at the 7950 GX2 / 9800 GX2. With 2 GPUs on a single PCB, the 3870 X2 was a bit more advanced than what nVidia has put out so far. The 4870 X2 promises to be even a more advanced solution.

Your logic here really doesn't make any sense IMO. If you're going to run a multi-gpu setup, and take all the drawbacks that implies, wouldn't you really want the one that performs the best?

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3266&p=5

Having owned both, there was really no contest between the 9800GX2 and 3870X2 IMO.

Granted, the 4870X2 may bring more to the table this time around. However, I don't see how having two GPUs on separate PCBs with a PCIe bridge between them is any worse than having a single PCB with two GPUs and a PCIe bridge between them. Sure, one might look prettier than the other, but it certainly didn't seem to adversely affect performance.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: gersson
I'm not trying to be mean but the first thing I thought was: nRollo must be getting lazy -- having us do his nVidia marketing research for him. It can't all be just cards and glory, buddy. You gotta work for your pimp

This is classic, and caused me to burst out laughing.

:beer:

Back in the day another member showed me my first Bollywood by posting a movie of two cowboys talking, dialogue was something like:

Cowboy 1: What will we do Rollo? ATi's next card looks pretty good!
Cowboy 1: AA and AF performance is higher, price is reasonable!
Rollo Cowboy: Doesn't matter, let's go post some FUD!

IMO, if you can't laugh at yourself, you're an asshat, and sometimes others perceptions of me online cracks me up. Kudos.

Well, if you'd make my response your sig I'd be honored