SLI or Single Card?

[Slik]

Unless you you have a 30 inch monitor,go with a single card. One GTX 580 will run any game you have at 1920 x 1200 and under resolutions. 27 inch monitor and under. Anything over 1920 x 1200 will game much better with SLI or Xfire.

[GT7R]

Originally Posted by Slik

Unless you you have a 30 inch monitor,go with a single card. One GTX 580 will run any game you have at 1920 x 1200 and under resolutions. 27 inch monitor and under. Anything over 1920 x 1200 will game much better with SLI or Xfire.

Wrong. The higher your resolution, the more video memory will affect the performance.
The thing is that with CF & SLI setups the memory is counted per GPU, and NOT the combined amount of both cards.
The higher the resolution, the higher end card with more/faster memory is needed.

[Slik]

Originally Posted by GT7R

Wrong. The higher your resolution, the more video memory will affect the performance.
The thing is that with CF & SLI setups the memory is counted per GPU, and NOT the combined amount of both cards.
The higher the resolution, the higher end card with more/faster memory is needed.

That's pretty much what I am saying. The higher resolutions [2560 x 1600] run better with two cards. Resolutions at 1920 x 1200 and less,run very smooth with one high end card. This is from my exprerience with 24,27 and 30 inch monitors. I don't know how video memory plays into this, but I do know what worked with my set ups.

[lowfat]

Originally Posted by GT7R

Wrong. The higher your resolution, the more video memory will affect the performance.
The thing is that with CF & SLI setups the memory is counted per GPU, and NOT the combined amount of both cards.
The higher the resolution, the higher end card with more/faster memory is needed.

That is exactly what he said.

[GT7R]

Lol. LOTS of misunderstanding is going on here
Shortly what I meant: Higher res - go for single (high end) card with more memory per core.
Lower res - get a two lesser cards because less memory per core is needed.
Sorry for the inconvenience guys.

[CAPiTA93]

GO with sli

[kaboro]

There are always quite a few games that dont work well in sli/crossfire.
A single card is always more stable than dual cards in sli/crossfire, and i mean always.
FPS/dollar is a silly approach. They dont take into account the fps variation (double the cards double the variation) which will tarnish your game experience, the power requirements, the upgradeability, the stability, and last but not least dont forget you pay for 2 cards but only get 1.5 times the power at best.
SLI/Crossfire is great for stores and manufacturers (they sell 2 crap cards instead of one) but that doesnt mean its good for you.
I know the stores and the manufacturers ( and their reviewer lackeys) would like to make you think that two low cards are better than one high card, but thats not the case, unfortunately.
You save a very small amount by going SLI but lose a lot in the process.
If you dont play games but only run benchmarks on your pc, then go dual-card, if you play games and like to play instead of spending time on tech support forums, go single card.

Edit: and avoid Nvidia 5xx cards, go for the 4xx. My gtx 480 works 10 times better than the gtx 580 (both from asus btw). I never intended to own both cards (long story) but now that i do, i got insight into how bad the 5xx architecture really is. Shame on you Nvidia, i always been a fan, not anymore.
Also it was a good insight into how dishonest and/or uninformed the reviews are.

[roh_ultima]

i would say look into what games you are playing now
and if they support sli or not

for example black ops does not support sli or x-fire
i have a friend with a 5970 - totally useless in BO
and another with a GTX 285, again totally useless. my 5770 was out performing his 285...

until all games support sli / x-fire. i'm still in the belief of getting the best single card you wish to spend money on


heck not all games use more than one core
metro 2033 is an example of that...it uses only one core. thats why the fps is bad on any video card for it