SLI/Crossfire?

Anybody here running an SLI/Crossfire configuration?

If so, are you seeing a difference over a single GPU setup? How much of difference (positive or negative)?

I don't think there is any difference using duel cards over a single GPU, sorry.

There is a difference. It will probably not be 80-100% increase in framerate, but depending on the used resolution and detail settings, SLI/CrossFire will show improved framerates.

Perhaps some people on the forum can actually support this, people who went from single card to same type SLI/CrossFire.

I would be interested to know if any test of this have been made at higher resolutions.

The reason I am asking is because I am building a Core i7 system and I have the option of picking up 2 GTX 260 cards and running them in SLI or a GTX 280 (or the 4870X2 from ATI) and running it alone. I will be using 1920x1200 resolution (or higher), and I would like to maintain my 4xFSAA and 16xAF level.

I would personally opt for the 4870X2. Performance is better then GTX 260 SLI in most benchmarks, the high resolution ones anyway. Besides, it consumes less energy then two GTX 260 cards, which not only saves you on your energy bill, but also keeps your system temperature overall cooler.

Good review on Anandtech. Unfortunately most review sites don't use flightsims anymore for their benchmarks. Even SimHQ has not used them in their last review. Its understandable, because most flightsims don't use cutting edge engines, and are more cpu limited anyway, but it makes it harder to get a picture of the performance in the sims we love from all the cards out there...

I would personally opt for the 4870X2. Performance is better then GTX 260 SLI in most benchmarks, the high resolution ones anyway. Besides, it consumes less energy then two GTX 260 cards, which not only saves you on your energy bill, but also keeps your system temperature overall cooler.

 

Good review on Anandtech. Unfortunately most review sites don't use flightsims anymore for their benchmarks. Even SimHQ has not used them in their last review. Its understandable, because most flightsims don't use cutting edge engines, and are more cpu limited anyway, but it makes it harder to get a picture of the performance in the sims we love from all the cards out there...

My biggest concern with the ATI offering is what I have heard about regarding Dual GPU videocards and how at times some games just flat out do not like them. ATI drivers don't seem to be the best right now, but having been an Nvidia user for the past few years and an ATI user before that (the Radeon 9700 was solid gold), I am sort of out of the loop.

Part of me wants to stick with my 8800GTX for the time being and see what Nvidia and ATI come out with next. Blackshark seems mostly CPU limited so I'm ot sure "seriously" beefing up my videocard solution will provide that much of a bonus. On the other hand, I would like to get something new for the build I'm doing so I ca give my wife my current system (in my sig). Newegg has EVGA GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked cards on sale right now for $245 each. That is pretty darn good.

In that case wait. NV has it's die shrink out soon, plus they are dying a bit of a death with the 200 series so expect something new pretty soon from them, they have too although I haven't heard of anything.

ATI seem to be stealing the lead at the moment and ED games seem to prefer ATI architecture, and on that subject ATI apparantly has something new in the works and if this is the case NV have lost this round and need to regroup.

The NV cards at the moment seem like good cards, but have a few problems, one being the price. The ATI cards have there own problems but they cost less.

The 4870x2 is a great card and is the fastest on the market at the moment (when it used to it's full potential).

I am due a new GPU and I am just waiting until the new year, new card and BS in the same few months.

The Radeon 4870X2 and a GTX 260 SLI setup are both dual dual GPU solutions, and therefor both are affected by dual gpu 'problems'.

nVidia is known for its good drivers, but ATi has definitely improved a lot on its driver. They have to, if they want to keep pushing dual gpu cards.

Dual gpu improves framerates a lot if the game is specifically supported in the driver. If not, it usually still improves framerates. Then there are off course certain games that give glitches with certain dual gpu setups.

There is a user on these forums somewhere who uses a 4870X2, perhaps he good give some more insight on the stability etc.

Also, I've seen more then a few users with SLI or CrossFire setups, but nobody complaining that dual gpu work like sh*t on Lockon (or BS).

So dual GPU should be definitely be a working solution for you... :D

There is a difference. It will probably not be 80-100% increase in framerate, but depending on the used resolution and detail settings, SLI/CrossFire will show improved framerates.

 

Perhaps some people on the forum can actually support this, people who went from single card to same type SLI/CrossFire.

What your talking about is the extra oomph at resolution but I don't think they see any real advantage over current (and even last gen to a degree) GPUs in BS/FC.

The Radeon 4870X2 and a GTX 260 SLI setup are both dual dual GPU solutions, and therefor both are affected by dual gpu 'problems'.

 

nVidia is known for its good drivers, but ATi has definitely improved a lot on its driver. They have to, if they want to keep pushing dual gpu cards.

 

Dual gpu improves framerates a lot if the game is specifically supported in the driver. If not, it usually still improves framerates. Then there are off course certain games that give glitches with certain dual gpu setups.

 

There is a user on these forums somewhere who uses a 4870X2, perhaps he good give some more insight on the stability etc.

 

Also, I've seen more then a few users with SLI or CrossFire setups, but nobody complaining that dual gpu work like sh*t on Lockon (or BS).

 

So dual GPU should be definitely be a working solution for you... :D

The ATI X2 has dual GPUs on each card, that is what I meat. This seems to cause quite a few issues in some cases including horrible performance on some games (they talk about it at HardOCP in the forums), that is a concern of mine. The Nvidia offering is a single GPU solution running in SLI so it does not suffer from the same issues (though it does have it's own issues they do not seem to be as prevelant as what many seem to experience with ATI's X2). I think no matter which side you choose, there are going to be issues somewhere along the line. :)

I can see the SLI/Crossfire solution coming into play at higher resolutions such as 1920x1200 and up (especially when you start throwing in silly levels of FSAA and AF).

One of the toughest parts about this is I can get 2x EVGA GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked cards for less than 1x X2 and only $60 more than 1x GTX 280. lol

Ah, guess prices in the States or really not the same as in my country... :)

Those prices make GTX 260 in SLI actually really attractive...

Two GPU's on one board is really not that different than two boards with one GPU each. When you write about horrible performance in some games, that is mostly driver related. If you read the first Radeon 3870 reviews with Crossfire setups, you see the same; some games 3870 in CF actually performs worse then a single card.

nVidia SLI setups also have this, although admittedly to a lesser extend... And as I said, a lot of those issues are actually cleared up, or being cleared up, in new drivers...

What country are you from?

Yeah, $490 = 2x GTX 260 Superclocked cards. Very nice.

If ATI could get their drivers straight, their cards would be very very attractive. They have bee doing much better though ad seem to be improving.

The 260 GTX Superclocked cards might be a good starting point to get into SLI. On the other hand, I can get a GTX 280 for close to $430. Decisions decisions..

Netherlands....

Look at my specs, and i'm sitting here talking about computer parts I'll never own... :D

What are the prices for stuff like this over there?

Btw, do you have TrackIR?

DCS is more CPU bound then anything else, anything higher then a HD4870 / GTX260 is an overkill IMO. Just get your CPU frequencies higher then you'll see an improvement

im running a 9800GX2, and i have noticed a massive difference in FPS and smoothness over my 8800GTX which i also used in this game, playing at res of 1920x1440, almost everything on high except water and shadows.

I am running 1920x1200 resolution on 24" LCD with E8600 CPU clocked to 3.8GHz and 2x HD4870 cards in CrossFire. I use all max settings in BlackShark with exception of Water on High and no cockpit mirrors. In ATI CCC I use 8xAA 16AF, Mipmap to Quality, V-Sync ON, Adaptive AA ON on Quality, and I am getting very nice framerate pretty much all the time.

Flares and flying through smoke or flying low getting dust smoke from ground gets framerate bit lower (maybe 10's) but that's about it... flying normally I see 30-40 up to 60 FPS all the time. I am very satisfied with BS performance. I haven't tried MP yet (still learning key assignments, making profile for HOTAS etc) so don't know if that has more impact.

Check out http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2064.html

Article may be useful to you. Biggest consideration for SLI/Crossfire is your screen resolution. Don't waste the money if your not running the game at high enough resolution or your monitor doesn't support it. You should have a 24'+ size monitor, this is where the higher end cards and dual cards shine especially with AA / AF. If you are using a 22' screen at a 1600 or less , stick with a single card and get a faster CPU or more memory.

Here's FRAPS results with my setup. I ran default Instant Action mission.

Frames, Time (ms),

50453, 1110542,

Min, Max, Avg

25, 65, 45.431

I flew very low, I got ground dust and flew through smoke... my min framerate was 25 FPS. Not bad at all.

EDIT: wow, just tried MP for the first time and I don't understand why but my framerate wasn't that good online... I don't get it... when I fired Vikhr I would literaly get single frame digits... it's a real slideshow! Nothing like this happens offline with exact same settings... what gives???

I am using two Sapphire ATI 4850's in Crossfire. I have tried Cat 8.9,8.10, 8.10 hotfix, and now 8.11 and BS does not utilize second GPU at all (for me). I have logged the usage during flights and checked Gpu load usage/temps ...... nothing on second GPU/card? To confirm this I tested with crossfire enabled then disabled and ran fps check....no difference in performance or FPS. Am I missing something coz I purchased the second card specifically for this game.....it would be a shame if I wasted my money or could have opted for a 4870 instead and got at least single card increased performance. BTW all other recent games I tested used the second GPU with dramatic increases...ie 60-90% fps increases at 1920x1200 in Vista. The best fps boost for me in BS is still the setting CPU affinity to both cpus ...ie 30ish% increase.

Can ED give an official confirmation, please, re support for Crossfired ATI cards so I can either keep investigating my system or accept it is not supported and spend my time flying instead of tweaking.....lol?????? :)

Cheers

Macka

I am running 1920x1200 resolution on 24" LCD with E8600 CPU clocked to 3.8GHz and 2x HD4870 cards in CrossFire. I use all max settings in BlackShark with exception of Water on High and no cockpit mirrors. In ATI CCC I use 8xAA 16AF, Mipmap to Quality, V-Sync ON, Adaptive AA ON on Quality, and I am getting very nice framerate pretty much all the time.

 

Flares and flying through smoke or flying low getting dust smoke from ground gets framerate bit lower (maybe 10's) but that's about it... flying normally I see 30-40 up to 60 FPS all the time. I am very satisfied with BS performance.

Heh. If you DIDNT get good performance out of any game/sim with that super spec well, then there would be something wrong. ;) This shows that i need a massive upgrade to fly BS. Hopefully i wont need SLI/Xfire for it though.

Regards

Alex

Thanks for the feedback, all.

I am still trying to decide what to do here, but may wait a ferw motnhs and see what ATI ad Nvidia bring tot the table at the next tech refresh. That GTX 260 deal is sort of hard to pass up though. lol

SLI 8800 GTS 512 here work great with Server 2008 64.. as soon as you check both CPU in the afinity this thing scream :) i never go under 70 fps ( max settings )

What are the prices for stuff like this over there?

 

Btw, do you have TrackIR?

Prices over here are slightly in favour of the HD 4870X2

Cheapest GTX 260 (non-216) is € 249,-, most HD 4870X2's are under € 500,-...

Tweakers.net/pricewatch