Don't know what graphics card to get, is SLI/CrossFire bad?

[thetechnoobguy]

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[Martell1977]

The motherboard I have now is this: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131821
Which allows me to SLI/CF in x8/x8 (are there any new motherboards that can x16/x16?), as I plan on Crossfiring two 29 290X's to play 1440p 120~ frame games. Someone told me my i7 3770k is good and doesn't need to be upgraded, so this would mean I would only need a new PSU (1000w). I was wondering if crossfiring is going to cause problems, like stuttering, since I really want a 120hz smooth experience. The R9 295X2 is $600 more yet performs generally the same as two R9 290X's, is it worth the extra money to have a single card?

The Crossfire stuttering issues have been greatly fixed, especially with the 290 and 290x cards. The 295x2 card is good for those that have limits on space. If you want to crossfire, two 290x's would be better.

 

[Martell1977]

I really do not want to spend $600 more for something that performs like literally 1 frame better, and I really do not like the idea of water cooling.

Is my motherboard good enough? Would running them at x16/x16 be better than x8/x8? This: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/23.html shows there is minimal benefit from x8 to x16, so is that applied when cf/sli?

I really need you to be certain about this. Because people have said to steer away from sli/cf. The whole point of 120/144hz is to have smooth gameplay. I care more about frames and smoothness than graphic quality.

I believe it will suffice for you at x8/x8 and here is an article that mentions it:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/radeon_r9_290_crossfire_review_benchmarks,2.html

Looks like even 2.0 gen PCIe isn't yet saturated by current GPU's.

 

[kalijaga]

I have the sabertooth z87, and was using 780s SLI.
You should be good to go with any two cards at the moment using 8x/8x.

Good luck.

 

[shadowx22120]

Just to clear something up, I don't believe the r9 295x2 will eliminate any of the problems you would have regarding crossfire as the 295x2 isn't a single card but technically a dual gpu card which means it'll have the same problems as crossfire such as microstuttering. The only reasons why you would buy a r9 295x2 is if you want to save space as it compresses it into a 2 slots rather than having to use up 4 such as in crossfire or to lower the amount of heat as dual gpu cards produce less heat than cards in crossfire/sli.

Now back to your original question of whether or not sli/crossfire is bad. Truthfully, I haven't had any bad experiences with my sli 460s such as microstuttering and such. The only thing I feel like you'd have to worry about is the crossfire/sli optimization. For example, I was playing the BF Hardline beta and my fps was limited due to the fact that there was no driver out at the time to optimize the game for SLI and so I was basically running on one gpu. I hope my response helps.

 

[kalijaga]

Agreed that 295x2 will have the problems of multiGPU despite the single card appearance. But these are slowly, slowly being resolved. And I find that the latest games use even 4 gpu without much hassle. I am running BF4 at 4k around 80-90fps max settings. NO stuttering. NO single GPU at the moment can reach that level of performance.

 

[shadowx22120]

Agreed that 295x2 will have the problems of multiGPU despite the single card appearance. But these are slowly, slowly being resolved. And I find that the latest games use even 4 gpu without much hassle. I am running BF4 at 4k around 80-90fps max settings. NO stuttering. NO single GPU at the moment can reach that level of performance.

Just out of curiosity, what's the specs of your rig? Because it sounds like a BEAST

 

[kalijaga]

A small heater - dual 295x2 at the moment. The 780s are resting.
A loooooottttt of driver problems and using dual PSU which needed the chassis to be opened as they cannot fit in the same case.

 

[shadowx22120]

Haha must be perfect for the winter That's awesome machine though. Hopefully AMD sorts out those driver issues...Anyway I dont' want to go spamming the OP's thread with random convos. Thanks for sharing kalijaga!