[H] Yet again say SLI is smoother than crossfire

[BrightCandle]

I stopped using my Crossfire 7970's months ago before the "magic" drivers were released. It seems that HardOCP agrees that SLI still feels smoother despite the Ghz bios and the magic upgrades in performance.

Per usual, there is more than just performance, i.e. framerates, when determining the "best" platform for gaming. We of course speak about the real-world "feel" of gaming between SLI and CrossFireX on a multi-display setup. There is no question that SLI feels smoother, thanks to the added technology that NVIDIA employs to address this very topic

From http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/12/04/gtx_680_vs_radeon_hd_7970_multidisplay_showdown/7

Admittedly the 7970's beat the 680's in FPS, no question about it. There is something wrong with AMDs crossfire implementation however, it shouldn't produce so much stutter. I wonder if their additional frames are coming from choosing stuttering to get better benchmarks. Its the sort of trade off they might take to win but which negatively impacts their customers.

 

[Skurge]

You switched from Crossfire to SLI, so yuo should know from personal experience which is smoother.

EDIT: That was actually suppose to be a question if which you felt was smoother.

 

[Jaydip]

My first experience with Crossfire was 4870X2 which was horrible.Later I had 470 SLI, performance was good but the heat and noise was unbearable.I will probably pickup another 7950 for my brother to see how it fares today.

 

[videogames101]

Isn't there a thread which describes a tool to enable the same kind of frame limiting Nvidia uses to eliminate stutter for Xfire?

edit: frame metering

i'm not sure what the difference is though haha, sounds like a fancy frame limiter reading about it - someone might explain the difference for me

 

[Jaydip]

yeah RadeonPro

 

[boxleitnerb]

Nvidia uses frame metering, not frame limiting. Big difference. I would like to see a thorough investigation with some advanced equipment and tools by some site. [H] mentioned something months ago about getting some tools from NV and buying specialized equipment to that purpose, but nothing ever came of it, sadly. At least so far.

 

[Skurge]

Nvidia uses frame metering, not frame limiting. Big difference. I would like to see a thorough investigation with some advanced equipment and tools by some site. [H] mentioned something months ago about getting some tools from NV and buying specialized equipment to that purpose, but nothing ever came of it, sadly. At least so far.

One of EU sites will probably get it done 1st. Will just have to keep an eye on them.

Edit: Just noticed they said Xfire is as smooth given enough FPS, so I would assume they would want to run the 7970s at lower setting to get higher FPS so it's as smooth as SLI. I wonder why they didn't do that.

 

[Ferzerp]

Don't you know you aren't allowed to mention this, BrightCandle

You must be an nvidia fanboy if you do (according to some), even if in the same post you point out the single gpu amd>nvidia right now.

 

[p_monks33]

I have 7970 crossfire now, I used to have GTX 680 SLI. I do believe that SLI was a bit smoother throughout some titles, but suffered in others due to memory limitations maybe. Alan wake ran poorly for me with SLI at 5760x1080 so I opted for a 7970 setup and Alan wake ran great. Then I got sleeping dogs and it stutters and runs terribly on my 7970s and I hear it runs well on SLI. I think its a game by game basis how smooth things look. I do believe if Nvidia had more memory bandwidth for extreme resolutions I would have chosen to stick to the 680s , but it is what it is

 

[Ferzerp]

Alan wake ran poorly for me with SLI at 5760x1080

The default nvidia profile for alan wake is messed up, or at least was for ages.

 

[Elfear]

Yet again [H] failed to at least try RadeonPro. Multiple people in their forums have asked them to try using it but so far nothing.

That's not to say AMD shouldn't have a better solution out already for microstutter but there are simple tools available to counteract it.

 

[BD231]

3rd party software shouldnt be required to get ur hardware running correctly and technically speaking Sli/crossfire are both broken because of microstutter. We can fly to the moon but nobody can get two gpus working together, makes no sense.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

3rd party software shouldnt be required to get ur hardware running correctly and technically speaking Sli/crossfire are both broken because of microstutter. We can fly to the moon but nobody can get two gpus working together, makes no sense.

Have you seen the frame time charts using RadeonPro in crossfire? It's actually smoother than a single card.

 

[omeds]

Yeh and you can get the same results with SLI by using a frame cap too..

 

[blastingcap]

Can we PLEASE resolve this once and for all? Can Ryan or someone on forums buy a Nikon J1 or V1 and take ultra-slow motion videos of the frames as they go by and graph the frame times as they pop out? I know it depends on other things including the monitor, but all else equal if there is a major difference we'd like to know it. TechReport admitted that their method of accounting for frame times was incomplete and that there were other steps on the chain from GPU to monitor... so that implies the only way to get accurate user-experience time of frame time is via high-speed camera and playing back in slow motion and counting the frames that way.

 

[Jacky60]

I'd love to experience both systems with contemporary drivers and wish they had empirical data to back up their subjective impressions. I know how effective marketing dollars are at affecting subjectivity with journalists. If they're going to talk of such subjectivity ( As a marketeer if I wanted to make them subjective I'd give each of them a top of the line 680 SLI rig to keep) they should at least measure frame intervals as per some other sites (tech-report?) to give their subjectivity a bit of credence. We seem to mostly want better analysis so that 'subjectivity' can be removed.

 

[notty22]

I knew it would be brought up. Hey if you are happy with your setup, that's all that counts. This idea that Nvidia 'markets' their way to success is lame. They don't do Apple like commercials, they sponsor gaming LAN events, fund game development, proactive driver support.

Marketing shenanigans! You Nvid-sheeple! /sarcasm

 

[KingFatty]

Marketing can help someone become happy with their setup, regardless of actual performance. It has a measurable benefit on a person's subjective enjoyment of his/her system.

But if you have hard data, that can immunize a person from marketing bias. If someone makes a claim/advertising that is backed-up by hard facts, that is even better.

 

[Lepton87]

They didn't bother to use Radeon pro, because it would invalidate their nv sponsored subjective feelings. Maybe they should add another pair of 7970s for a quad fire, I've heard that MS gets less annoying the more cards you have. I can't see any of that MS in games that properly support Quad-Fire.

 

[Silverforce11]

3rd party software shouldnt be required to get ur hardware running correctly and technically speaking Sli/crossfire are both broken because of microstutter. We can fly to the moon but nobody can get two gpus working together, makes no sense.

Assuming that gamers that even notice microstutter are the minority, the niche so to speak. I'm sure someone who gets amazing perf/$ with 2x OC 7950s or even 7970s vs 680 SLI is willing to spend 2 minutes downloading a commonly used 3rd party tool...

I mean we all already use some form of hardware monitoring right? Or fan profiles, OC profiles etc etc.

But as ive said in other threads, AMD needs to implement this option in their official drivers. That a single guy can make it work and AMD's driver team cant says a lot.

 

[Keysplayr]

They didn't bother to use Radeon pro, because it would invalidate their nv sponsored subjective feelings. Maybe they should add another pair of 7970s for a quad fire, I've heard that MS gets less annoying the more cards you have. I can't see any of that MS in games that properly support Quad-Fire.

omg...

 

[Keysplayr]

Assuming that gamers that even notice microstutter are the minority, the niche so to speak. I'm sure someone who gets amazing perf/$ with 2x OC 7950s or even 7970s vs 680 SLI is willing to spend 2 minutes downloading a commonly used 3rd party tool...

I mean we all already use some form of hardware monitoring right? Or fan profiles, OC profiles etc etc.

But as ive said in other threads, AMD needs to implement this option in their official drivers. That a single guy can make it work and AMD's driver team cant says a lot.

But doesn't Radeon Pro drastically reduced the fps in order to achieve stability or a more constant frametime? Correct me if I'm wrong because I am not certain nor trying to FUD this up.

 

[Lepton87]

But doesn't Radeon Pro drastically reduced the fps in order to achieve stability or a more constant frametime? Correct me if I'm wrong because I am not certain nor trying to FUD this up.

Anything above 60fps on a 60Hz monitor is already excessive, so who cares? Using 120Hz would be another matter entirely but it means settling for a TN panel.
UPDATE: I just saw that you receive free hardware, of course you're biased. No sense talking to you about graphics cards. Other members should also take that to heart.

 

[Keysplayr]

Anything above 60fps on a 60Hz monitor is already excessive, so who cares? Using 120Hz would be another matter entirely but it means settling for a TN panel.

Not what I asked. If you don't know, then I'd like to hear from somebody that does. But thanks anyway for trying. :thumbsup:

 

[chimaxi83]

Lol they "feel" it's better using the ultra advanced tools knows as eyeballs, which of course we all know is objective and scientific. Nvidia fanboys lap it up, so good for them I guess.