BF2S Forums Dual Video Cards - Is It Really Worth It?

(*Cusa*)craig wrote:

dual vid cards are worth it if u r gonna do gaming proper, not just every now and then and want high graphics, its a performance increase of 78% (we clocked it at work) and good thing is with dual vid cards u aint gotta upgrade for a few years and games r starting to come out with support for sli, like call of duty 2 has it, so soon u will have extra features that only dual vid cards can do so remember that.

peace

There are more factors involved in whether or not you get a performance increase out of SLI than what you've mentioned. A 78% performance increase is outstanding, but will rarely be the case. Also, if you're thinking about two video cards to increase the lifespan, it is probably more important to just wait or get a single video card now. Later, there will be cards that support the full spectrum of DX10 features, along with Shader 4.0.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2006-05-05 02:22:36)

(*Cusa*)craig wrote:

dual vid cards are worth it if u r gonna do gaming proper, not just every now and then and want high graphics, its a performance increase of 78% (we clocked it at work) and good thing is with dual vid cards u aint gotta upgrade for a few years and games r starting to come out with support for sli, like call of duty 2 has it, so soon u will have extra features that only dual vid cards can do so remember that.

peace

78%????????

I dont know how you clocked this, but this is impossible atm. Even Quad-Sli is only 25-35% faster then SLI.

@Topic:
get a single 7900GTX you´ll not need SLI and safe at least 100 Bucks.

first the performance gain is a fact, its not double its only 78% which is good and second to answer unamednewbie, there are loads of factors to take into effect but the simple one is that with dual cards u get nice performance from say dual 6600 than 1 7900 at the moment which saves a bit of money, but right now dual vid cards are the way to go, games r sarting to support it and give extra features for sli, so if ur a moderate to hardcore gamer then sli is a must.

(*Cusa*)craig wrote:

first the performance gain is a fact, its not double its only 78% which is good and second to answer unamednewbie, there are loads of factors to take into effect but the simple one is that with dual cards u get nice performance from say dual 6600 than 1 7900 at the moment which saves a bit of money, but right now dual vid cards are the way to go, games r sarting to support it and give extra features for sli, so if ur a moderate to hardcore gamer then sli is a must.

http://www.bf2player.com/sig/57404921-539.png

It's nice to think about, but you can't throw a blanket performance increase over all game titles, using any kind of system. As you said, there are alot of factors to take into consideration.

Anybody thinking about buying two video cards now should seriously do some benchmark research to see how it would affect the games they currently play. I would rather rein my wallet in and shell out for a G80 down the road to support features of the future, than to blow it on two current video cards so I can get 100 instead of 80 frames per second.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2006-05-06 21:56:34)

As others have said, dual video cards truly are not worth it unless you are running a very high resolution.  The fact of the matter is that you will probably not be able to tell the difference between 80 and 100 fps or whatever it is.  The 78% increase is completely determining on a different test system that is specifically made to show a large performance increase.  Not only that but I am sure it also is to help rid some of the bottlenecks from the processor and ram bandwidth.

UNDIESRULES wrote:

I used 2 x 6600gt before i bought my 7800gt and to be perfectly honest the 2 smaller cards outperformed this one big card. 
They played everythin maxed out and ran like a charm.
Review websites may say otherwise on some games but the only thing i have gained from buying this one is a noisier system.

Good point.  While a top of the range card will either max out the graphics or be nearly there (depends on the complexity of the graphics in-game and the size of your pen... monitor, two of the same will give effectively the same performance, i.e. the maximum, so not much of a difference.  Two lesser (cheaper) cards may also give the maximum performance, so SLI may be worth it if you already possess a 6800 and can lay your hands on another, cheaply.

But then when I upgraded my system a couple of months ago, I went for a single card as I didn't want to go for a new mobo and processor.

the testing was done with 2 gaming machines side b side wth same spyware and crap on, we measured fps, pixels and everything, u noticed that with fps, dont forget there are other things than fps so when u total it up it comes to that grnd figure, sli is for ppl saving oney by getting two lower crds or by gaming experts who want a perfect system, cause remmber like me u can alter bf2 grphics even higher than high, ultra high is for dual cards only. and u need to go into the settings folder and file to do it.

fon|sl4y3r wrote:

78% I still dont get it. I run a dual 7800GTX 256MB system and the FPS increase in BF2 is only around 15% for resolution 1600 x 1200, when I turn it down to 1024x768 or 1280x1024 it around 5-10%. The maximum increase I´ve ever tested myself was in Oblivion with around 40%, but this games engine is designed for dual-GPUs.

What benchs did you use and what systemsettings???

Where SLI/Crossfire really starts to shine is 19x10 resolution or higher.  A good high end card like a 7800, 7900, X1800, or X1900 can generally handle up to 16x12, depending on how complex the shaders are.  Anything below that is generally (once again depending on the game) being choked by your CPU anyway, so throwing another card at the problem does little good, if one card is sitting around waiting for CPU cycles, two cards won't change anything. 

(BTW, Oblivion is NOT designed for dual GPU's, Oblivion just makes extensive use of Shader Model 3.0 features...they're one of the first, but not the last...download the Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter demo, for example)

When you move up to the native resolution of the fairly popular 24" Dell 2405FPW (19x12), or something like my 37" Westinghouse LVM37 series (19x10), and a single card starts getting worked over pretty good, while a SLI/Crossfire setup keeps framerates at very playable levels. 

I can disable Crossfire on my rig when playing 1920x1080 and drop down to 30 FPS or lower in BF2, depending on the scene...with Crossfire active at that resolution I never see lower than 55 FPS.  Running 25+ FPS slower or faster is VERY noticable in BF2, and can be the difference between getting cacked or being the cacker (especially when flying, zooming, driving, etc).

And it only gets worse for a single card after that, for example the uber Dell 3007FPW is practically worthless as a gaming monitor at its native 24x18 resolution UNLESS you run SLI/Crossfire. 

Now, all that might change in a card generation or two, as horsepower per GPU core increases, but that is in the future...for right NOW, a single card can NOT drive the higher end LCD displays at native resolutions with a framerate that is acceptable (read:allowing you to be competitive rather than frag bait) in a modern first person shooter, MMO, etc, if you keep the image quality settings at high.  Keep in mind that LCD prices are continuing to drop, and resolutions/pixel density is increasing...in a year or two 16x12 will be like the 1024x768 of today...low end.

Ok, so you just lower resolutions on your LCD panel and everything is ok with a single card again, right?  True, but why did you drop the coin on a high resolution display if you're going to cripple it by running it below its native resolution?   Same logic applies to turning down detail settings (AA, AF, HDR, etc) to get framerate back up.

I'm running dual EVGA 7800GT COs. Can run BF2, Rise Of Legends, Oblivion, NFS Most Wanted, and, well, every game on the market at max settings. Love them got them for $350 Canadian each. They appear now to be discontinued (replaced by 7900GT CO) so my advice is to buy both at the same time or run the risk of having your card discontinued and not be able to use SLI. Remeber SLI cards HAVE TO MATCH.

Added bonus with SLI, apparently with these new Ageia Physics cards comming out NVidia plans to release drivers to use the second GPU as a Physics Processor (PPU). Allowing you to run SLI on games not supporting PhysX and as a PPU on games that do.

SLI also allows 16X AA and i still run 100FPS with it turned on in BF2

Here are my scores on 3D Mark 05 and 06, please take note im running POS IDE HDDs and cheap ram.




My system specs are in my Sig,
Hope this helps

EDIT: SLI also creates quite a bit more heat (right below CPU!!!) and sucks a substancial amount of power so be prepared.

Last edited by the_outsider38 (2006-05-17 21:53:42)

Now's a good time to buy X1900's too..if you don't mind upgrading your motherboard to one that supports Crossfire...The prices are below $400 for a regular X1900XT, and just a bit above $400 for a Crossfire Edition card.  Those are generally OEM non-ATI versions, but they're all the same card built in the same plants for the most part.

And I'll see your 7800 GT SLI 3dMark05 score and raise you 4000:



My processor is overclocked, but I'm running the Crossfire cards at stock settings.

Last edited by Croak (2006-05-17 21:57:29)

LOSER|Tearsofromance wrote:

Hello people.

I recently started building a PC, and i'm wondering, would it really be worth it to run dual video cards, do not worry, i have the systam to back it up, but will it improve my game play or my graphics in game all that much than if i only had one?  Just curious, becuase this could save me alot of money

Thanks!
-ToR

As far as single player games it makes a big difference.
As far as online games its more about connection quality and ping

the_outsider38 wrote:

Nice, but this processor/ram/HDD combo is killing me. I bought my processor a week before the FX-60 came out and I was just too plain cheap to get OC Ram. Where is the 3DMark06??

Needless to say, I still had the top 3D mark scores at the local LAN. As im sure you would.

Geared up for PhysX yet???

Oh yea +1 for having a system that kicks the crap outta mine.

Nothing at all wrong with the FX-53, still a damned damned good single core chip with lots of headroom.  And a good 7800 RPM IDE drive still keeps up pretty good with SATA...there's not much real advantage between the two other than a slicker connection, the SATA interface is still much faster than the drives need.  As for RAM, yeah, getting something that'll run at your FSB speed or higher helps more than a bit, but even value RAM with good timings and stock speeds shouldn't hold you back that much.

Here's my 9223 3dMark06 score (sorry, didn't think to take screenshots of that run).  Keep in mind that a huge part of the gap between my score and yours is the dual core CPU, 3dMark06 really favors dual cores over single cores.

PhysX is turning out to be a real joke, btw.  And just like Nvidia, ATI has plans on using the second GPU to offload physics work (and arguably the ATI X1XX GPUs are designed better for it than Nvidia's current gen).

I wasn't trying to whip out the epeen (much!), but it's fun to show off sometimes.