How do dual chip cards perform?

[draemn]

Do dual chip GPUs perform the exact same as having 2 single cards in SLI/CF with the exact same specs?

Or do dual chip cards see any improvement compared to SLI/CF... my best understanding is that dual chip cards are just 2 cards with an internal SLI/CF bridge and have the exact same properties (performance wise) as running two single cards.

[lowfat]

They'll generally perform exactly the same as two separate cards. But not always. For the longest time the HD5970 performed quite a bit slower than two HD5870s. It look like 6 months before drivers were mature for it. If you have the room I would personally go w/ two separate cards.

[draemn]

Originally Posted by lowfat

They'll generally perform exactly the same as two separate cards. But not always. For the longest time the HD5970 performed quite a bit slower than two HD5870s. It look like 6 months before drivers were mature for it. If you have the room I would personally go w/ two separate cards.

But in that case it's because the 5970 was two *modified* 5870s with lower speeds to keep the TDP under 300w.

I'm asking out of curiosity, not upgrade reasons.

[lowfat]

But even if you ramped the clocks up to HD5870 speeds (which it easily did) it was still slower than HD5870 crossfire in most cases. It wasn't until August/September 2010 that mature drivers started to show up for the card.

[GT7R]

On the other side, my friend's GTX295 was like 15% faster after his sli'd GTX260 216sp's...
I know it has got 480 CUDA cores vs the 432 combined of the 260's, but the clocks are still lower on the 295.

[Soultribunal]

Dual GPU cards from both Camps have been known to have more problems (usually driver related) than to single GPU cards scaled.

I never encountered the error myself , but there were complaints of stuttering, higher than average failure rate among other things.

Its usually (then again things change) a better bet to go with dual single GPU cards vs a Single Dual-GPU card.

ST

[krajee]

Originally Posted by GT7R

On the other side, my friend's GTX295 was like 15% faster after his sli'd GTX260 216sp's...
I know it has got 480 CUDA cores vs the 432 combined of the 260's, but the clocks are still lower on the 295.

Hm, I thought the 295 was 2x 275.

[maverick_brent]

packing dual gpus on a pcb is stressing it IMHO, theres only so much one pcb can handle before things go a bit wonky, mind you its developing well, and will be interesting to see what the two camps bring out in full force this time around..

[Soultribunal]

Originally Posted by maverick_brent

packing dual gpus on a pcb is stressing it IMHO, theres only so much one pcb can handle before things go a bit wonky, mind you its developing well, and will be interesting to see what the two camps bring out in full force this time around..

Well yeah I do believe one PCB might be too much. Which is why I loved the GX2 which used twin PCB's still wedged into one card. That still had issues though but was far more stable then the GTX295 co-op.

ST

[mkultra]

Originally Posted by krajee

Hm, I thought the 295 was 2x 275.

it is


dual card are not worth it IMO, i've get the fastest single gpu card over those dualgpu card anyday.