Will SLI or CF ever end? or will it continue to grow?

[MraK]

When will it ever end?:roll: Throughout the past few months I have come across so many options to choose from for my new build. Then suddenly it hit me! (a few minutes before writing this thread) I know some or heck many of you have thought I was insane on spending $$$$ on hardware that will end up being junk soon enough (thread about building $4500) And came to realize is $300-$700 worth only 10-20 frames more in performance in todays games *high-end SLI/CF motherboard with 2 or mor cards*? if one pretty dependable motherboard and 1 single card could give you aleast 45 frames in performance in a high end game (ex: Crysis), then CF and SLI dont mean much worth of spending that much cash. Thank you lord for having me realize that. Heck my current system (my sig) could still play Crysis all high with no AA at 30+ fps in some situations and play Assassins Creed with 40+ fps where, to my eyes, I dont see much, I just know when playing such a game everything looks beautiful.

Yea, you could CF and perform better than 1 card, but why waste the extra cash if that 1 card could do wonders than your old card that you had in your last build? Plus you save money for other parts, or basically you just save cash that way.

I mean think about it, that 1 new card (although outperformed by 2 in SLI/CF) could play any game before its release with flying color. I guess most of today's pc gamers act upon future games like, "oh man that new game is coming out in a few months, need to get the very best and spend $$$$ to make sure everything is top-notch" but spending that much for only a small boost in peformance, where in actuality you just need the best combination of parts to work together to bring out a sense of satisfaction to the person who built it.

You could also say, yea got to get the best, but to think of it. everything now that is out will be wont mean much by next year, since the 775 era will finally end and I HAVE A REALLY BIG FEELING THAT BY NEXT SUMMER/FALL 2009, Nvidia and ATI will create a single most powerfual card that does not need to be SLId or CFd, do to the fact that gaming performance for the past 3+ years had not really evolved since the release of the 8800GTX back in the day when it was king IMO.

So now we have QUAD this TRI that, and to the point DUAL. When will it ever end?

After all the research/reviews/opinions of other people, I came to finally standwith the "SINGLE CARD SOLUTION GROUP" cause if my 8800GTX alone could hack todays games till now with minor lag, then I believe in just getting 1 GTX280/1 HD4870 1GB *when it comes out* over 2 cards that would only give some or little +fps for the extra $300, if the GTX280/HD4870 alone could give 45+ fps in the most demanding games. Like one AT member had posted before, can you really see the difference in frames when 40-60fps is already beautiful enough? and looking at the benchmarks in fps, 1 card could handle past games from 80-even 100+fps *tbh thats alittle too much*

Facts that remain solid for me in staying with a "single card solution"
1) 1 card now ex: 1 GTX280 can handle Crysis at 40.7fps on a 1680x1050 screen (average gamer) Thats is already powerful for today's standards IMO
2) ex: 1 card 50fps ,2 cards 65fps (15ps =$200-$500+ more) I rather stick to 1 card
3) its already July, 4-6 months from now (hopefully something will surface from both card companies) their will finally a single powerful card that will not need SLI/CF to be more powerful, well hopefully that is
4) with Nvidia having problems with Intel giving them the chance to work with the Nehalem, I have a small doubt that Nvidia will continue to work with the whole SLI thing, just a thought.
5) Their wont be a game out soon that will demand too much from just 1 highend card alone till probably the next generation card comes out.
6)And finally if 1 card could give me at least 40fps in a high-end game of today I'll stick with it.

For this I just want to thank everyone who had given me tips in the past and to those people who have never posted on my threads but posted similar things in other threads that provided me with the info I need to decide on what I will finally do when price hit, during the last week of July (the week I will finally use my credit card to build my, not 1., but 2 gaming systems)

Sorry for the somewhat different approach on this thread, it just turned out this way do to the fact that I was more inclined to post on the topic of how I was almost so stupid to shell out $4500 on a single rig.

Again big thanks to everyone on AT!:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

[biostud]

basically SLI and CF are for those who game at high resolution and/or wants lots of AA and AF. The rest of us we can just choose to buy a single card. It's not like you're forced to buy a CF/SLI setup. And if a SLI/CF setup delivers better performance/$ than a single card (x2 4850 vs GTX280) why is that a problem?

 

[MraK]

Its just for the past few years their has been this growing trend in adding more cards, when its seems that 1 powerful card is all you need (not just talking about GTX280), when ATI comes out with the HD4870X2 and *rumored* HD4870 1GB GDDR5, 1 card is all you need to last you till the next card comes out. It has most always been a cycle that every 5-7 months a better videocard comes out, to only gain a few frames here and there with CF/SLI, I rather just get one powerful card now that could handle any current game with pretty good performance that will last me for at least a year and shell out $$$$ on the next cards. I main reason why I dont follow on the whole SLI/CF thing now is that all the new GT2xx series/4xxx series cards are just amped up cards from their older cards, Nvidia 8&9 series/3xxx series, yea the cards now are fast,more memory,basically new, but I have a feeling by next year Nvidia/ATI will bring out a singlecard that will stomp any SLI/CF for the sake that the most pure pc gamer would agree to pay $700-$800 on a single card that, for ex: being able to play Crysis with an average frame rate of 60fps on a 2560x1600 and with higher fps on lower resolutions to that people with smaller monitors could have their way with it. Before SLI/CF came out everything was just 1 card and IMO that is the best way to go.

Why create 2 cards to out perform 1, heck why create 3 cards to outperform 1, when Nvidia/ATI could go back to their roots and reborn the single most powerful video card era again? It gives us gaming consumers a whole lot more room to work with on the motherboard.

IMO now that I realize it, single cards will eventually come back into trend, this whole CF/SLI things got kinda out of hand, i mean 2 was already enough but 3-4? next thing you will hear is 6-way SLI/CF so ridiculous.

 

[biostud]

The thing is that with 2x 4850 in CF you "only" have to pay $400, and in most scenarios that stomps a single GPU card which costs $650. The problem with creating gigantic GPU's are the cost of production and lots of heat produced in a small area. I think that one of the problems with the 280GTX was that they couldn't run the shader domains as fast as the G92, because of the massive amount of heat it would generate.

 

[MraK]

you have a point there Biostud regarding the problem of creating gigantic GPU's. As for a $650 card, the GTX280 is quickly becoming a bit more affordable now at around $480 to under $500 for the basic version of it, and mostly it will fall another $50 bucks in the next month or so do to ATI coming out with their new HD4870x2 and HD4870 1GB. And you say now CF or better SLI will stomp a GTX280, yea I would agree with you, but after this round of fighting over who is the best with multi gpu configurations, sooner or later one of these companies will soon notice that single card solution is the way to go. When the first SLI cards came out, at first everyone quickly fell for the marketing aspect of Dual gpus working together, but then when TRI and finally Quad came out, everthing became like a circus act. I rather have one card dealing 80c-90c in heat rather than having 2 or more giving out the same yet x2x3x4 the heat inside a case. Something is bound to click in one of these companies that single is what it was to suppose to be all along, for this sooner or later everyone who has been using SLI/CF will see that a single card is what is best, these companies should focus on how to make a solid single videocard. I view this so called SLI/CF thing a bit of an accessory piece, where everyone is competing on getting more cards than the other. At first (saw it on youtube the other night) I was as awe to the beauty of 3 GTX280s in TRI-SLI of some peoples' high-end rigs and how proud they are in shelling out so much $$$ for only a 15-25+ increase in fps, yet when fps hit the 60frame mark anything higher would just be useless to our eyes since 60+frames is plenty. Heck when I had Crysis running in my rig with my single 8800GTX, it ran pretty ok in all the settings on high with 4xAA and felt everything looked up to par except for some lag at the last level boss, and that was only under 30fps. When I watched the videos I could feel the excitement of what they all could do together as one *the cards* but then I soon realized that spending the extra $1000 for only an increase of 20-30fps would be kind of overkill since anything that could run with all the eye candy running at full throttle nearing 60fps is already an A+ in my book, I would not need to spend more for just a small boost in frames. As for the ATI 4xxx series, you have a good point their when it comes to 2 cards vs 1 card, its been a back and forth thing ever since the days of SLIs/CFs beginnings. Sooner or later it will start back at 1 single powerful card, they almost did it with the GTX280, yet it seemed like they rushed it to be made and with ATI's HD4870x2 coming out, this maybe a sign of the single card era returning to the market, cause if this new ATI shows so much power over Nvidia's card, then Nvidia will most likely fight back with an even more powerfual card, a card that wont have to really on SLI to win. I have this strong feeling when Nehalem finally becomes the norm in the next few years, single cards shall become known again. plus many other games aside from Crysis will could run better under 1 of these high-end cards, so there is no real need for 2 or more, unless you want bragging rights like most who have 3 cards that show them off on youtube. I will be always be more impressed with one card that could stomp anything rather than having 2-4 cards that need to work together to overcome that 1 cards. I know their is strength in numbers, but come on already. I just know that both the companies, by this christmas or next spring will come out will a powerful single card solution, after reading all the numbers and charts and what not, regarding 2-4 cards configuration and realize that all they could have done was stick into making 1 bad**s videocard, like how the 8800GTX would have been, during its time as king.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

I feel SLI and Xfire are a gimmick to a certain extent. If they wanted they could build a single card that could run any game at any resolution. I never got crysis for the simple fact of what it would take to run it. Now that I have a 4870 over my 8800 gtx I could go out and buy the game if I wanted. I didnt need to freak out like alot did and go buy SLI or Xfire just to play one game. Patience can be a good thing in the computer world, you may not be able to play the newest game right off the bat but who cares, in the long run wait for something to come out in a single card that can work for you, you will save a hell of alot of money going that route. Now dont get me wrong I think SLI and Xfire or very cool tech, but for the most part its a way to get more cash out of you over being something you MUST have.

 

[biostud]

If you just avoid the marketing hype about SLI/CF there are situations where it's a good solution.

1. Only buy a SLI/CF setup if you run in high resolutions or/and want high AA/AF. This is probably 1% of all the PC gamers, and 5-7% in these forums. So the amount of publicity it gets is out proportions. But that's like talking about super cars and only needing a Volvo.

2. 3x/4x CF/SLI is just like talking about "Super" super cars. No-one uses it but it's a proof of concept. Once again something to dream about, but not in real life.

3. SLI/CF is a way of reaching next generation GPU speed on current technology, so if you don't have it your competitor will have the fastest setup.

 

[Chronoshock]

It's clear that parallelism is the key to future computation gains, and I think CF/SLI are just the precursor to true multicore cards (with the X2 cards hinting towards this as well). In addition AMD has pledged support to the design strategy of cheap mid-level that scales to high via CF, so I think a natural extension to that is native multicore chips. I think it probably won't continue in its present state (of multiple discrete cards) much longer, as there's a lot of waste in terms of unshared resources.

 

[MraK]

Originally posted by: Chronoshock
It's clear that parallelism is the key to future computation gains, and I think CF/SLI are just the precursor to true multicore cards (with the X2 cards hinting towards this as well). In addition AMD has pledged support to the design strategy of cheap mid-level that scales to high via CF, so I think a natural extension to that is native multicore chips. I think it probably won't continue in its present state (of multiple discrete cards) much longer, as there's a lot of waste in terms of unshared resources.

Now their is something that brings some realization to my senses, you have a very good point their Chornoshock. At the rate that cards are getting in terms of going with up to 4-way SLI/CR one of these companies will decide to stick back to their ways of just designing a single powerful card.

 

[KrzyGlue]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there can be no such thing as a "multi-core" GPU. The GPU is inherently capable of performing multiple tasks, unlike a "single" core CPU. I suppose you could try and sandwich two GPUs together (a la the Pentium D series), but there isn't much difference between that and the current X2 cards.

 

[Chronoshock]

Originally posted by: KrzyGlue
Correct me if I'm wrong, but there can be no such thing as a "multi-core" GPU. The GPU is inherently capable of performing multiple tasks, unlike a "single" core CPU. I suppose you could try and sandwich two GPUs together (a la the Pentium D series), but there isn't much difference between that and the current X2 cards.

Yeah, I'm not too well read on GPU architecture, but my impressions are that there are lots of parallel processing units. So actually, a "multi" GPU would end up just looking like a normal monolithic chip. I think the appeal of smaller chips is better yields, pricing, heat distribution. I revise my earlier prediction to be that we'll see multiple discrete chips on a card becoming more common.

 

[Blazer7]

Sure the yield for smaller chips is always better but multi-GPU cards do not scale 100%. These are still CF/SLI on a card and are hindered by the same driver issues. Power consumption is also very high.

 

[sgrinavi]

Originally posted by: MrAK

one of these companies will decide to stick back to their ways of just designing a single powerful card.

I'm pretty sure they are doing that already, in the past few years there has been some amazing leaps in single GPU performance and bang/buck.

Personally I'm glad that the MB and GPU guys are making Multi-GPU configurations work for us.... fun stuff.

 

[Chiropteran]

I think it's the future, just as general CPUs went to multiple cores. The software will be written to take advantage of it when there is no other choice.

 

[Chosonman]

Bottom line is SLI and CF is a way for NV and AMD to make lots more money for little effort.

 

[DCGMoo]

It basically boils down to one thing...

Do you game at high-resolutions in online environments? How much do you care about it?

- If you answered "not much" to either above question... CF/SLI is a waste of money.
- If you answered "a bunch" to both questions... CF/SLI gamers will have a small advantage.

That's it. That simple.

If you need every last fps to be the "best" at your online game(s)... you will have trouble getting that good if your fps is smaller than the other gamers. Rest assured... there are PLENTY of enthusiasts who believe this way. And there's nothing wrong with that for them.

But if you're NOT one of them... CF/SLI is an over-priced gimmick, totally.

As a father of four who rarely games online... looking at it that way made the decision to avoid it MUCH easier for me.

Moo.

 

[Peelback79]

The argument for or against is pretty much subjective right now. Many can justify $xxxx spent for 20fps increase. Many can sit back and say that's a waste because you really don't "need" xxxfps on a xx" monitor because there's no need to have bigger than xx" monitor and you can't tell the difference past xx fps anyway. The difference between want and need is different per individual. In short if you have the money and the want to, do so. This is America and we have the freedom and the moolah to to take part in a billion dollar industry (entertainment).

That being said, I can see this heading in two different directions.
Scenario A: What Cronoshock said; That basically this is the cavepainting for some truly awesome mulit-gpu single card architecture or maybe someday a true multcore gpu. I hope this comes about.

Scenario B: Graphics card companies capitilize on a "More is better" mentalitly and lower end cards that you can daisy chain together without a huge performance increase (just enough to come close to the high end) become cheaper and the single slot solutions become insanely expensive. Imagine if tomorrow, there was a way to SLI two 8800gt's and get close to 100% performance increase?. Which makes me wondered if, when it comes to sli/cf if we'll see companies purposely induce bottleknecks to keep us spending as much as possible for a single slot solution.

 

[Chiropteran]

Originally posted by: DCGMoo
If you need every last fps to be the "best" at your online game(s)... you will have trouble getting that good if your fps is smaller than the other gamers. Rest assured... there are PLENTY of enthusiasts who believe this way. And there's nothing wrong with that for them.

But if you're NOT one of them... CF/SLI is an over-priced gimmick, totally.

Your line of reasoning is deeply flawed.

For example, compare Radeon 4850 CF to a single 260GTX. Until the latest price drops, the CF setup was cheaper AND higher performance. The original rumored 4870x2 price was lower than the 280GTX. Stating that CF/SLI is over-priced when it's cheaper than many single cards is clearly an exaggeration.

CF/SLI are not limited to the absolute top end, and isn't any more of an "over priced gimmick" than spending $300+ on ANY graphic upgrade, whether it be a single card or an SLI/CF setup.


Besides all that, there are huge advantages to the manufacturer when it comes to making multi-GPU cards instead of single monolithic GPUs. Just like with CPUs, which started going dual and quad core because building one super fast core was just not viable any longer, I think GPU manufacturers are seeing the same thing. Making one super fast GPU core just costs way too much, makes too much heat, and requires too much power.

The future is in multi-GPU, and not just limited to the absolute "best" graphic setups either.