Would it be better to buy two RX 570s or one 1070?

[hugoisi]

Dear Tom's Hardware's community forum,
I am in the market for a new graphics card and I have come across a dilemma. For a while now, I've been using an EVGA 1050 ti, so lately, I've been wanting to buy an ASUS ROG strix 1070. Recently though, I came across a video showing how 2x 570s in crossfire was bested by a 1070 by 2 fps average across many gaming benchmarks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PikMV1seNoo), while being $50 less. I got inspired by this, and started looking into Crossfire for high end AMD cards instead of one high end Nvidia card. There are still a few problems. While the 570s save money, they are currently out of stock. Is it worth it to wait, or will cryptologists buy them in bulk like before? Another thing to keep in mind is that I own a corsair 550w PSU, and with the single 1070, the whole system uses 369w, and with the two 570s, it uses 519w (according to PCpartpicker). This is scraping the top ceiling of what my PSU can handle, and restrains my system from getting any upgrades without first getting a new PSU. On the other hand, I have no idea how reputable this is, and probably won't be uprading my PC any time soon. As far as other options, I wouldn't mind opting for 470s or 480s instead, but would prefer to by ASUS strix cards. If you have any answers, please get back to me as soon as you can.
My best wishes,
Hugo

 

[Hellfire13]

Have you considered the fact that not all games are optimized for SLI/Crossfire, beside consuming more power and generating more heat.
A single card also runs more stable and lasts you longer as a unit, beside scaling better in most games.
Crossfire is not recommended and not worth waiting.

 

[bignastyid]

Not everything supports Crossfire or scales well. Getting the single faster card is almost always the best option. Get the 1070.

 

[Karadjgne]

Good luck with finding 2x 570's for a decent price. Because of the latest altmining coins craze, powerful amd gpus prices are rediculous and stock is so back ordered its pathetic. Apart from crossfire scaling, the 1070 is a better card all around, except in the odd game where crossfire actually has decent support, which with DX12 titles is almost non-existant.

Stick with the 1070.

 

[dontlistentome]

It's best if you plan for crossfire or SLI before you buy anything. This is because you need the motherboard that allows it, you need the power supply that can handle it, and you need to know that the games you play will use it.

If you have to buy a new motherboard, or if you have to buy a new power supply, you've just ended any benefit you might get in saving money.

"across many gaming benchmarks"

That doesn't matter. All that matters is performance in the games YOU play. There is no standard level of crossfire support on all games. So just because it works great in game A doesn't mean game B will perform well with it. There's no way to judge future game performance either.

On the other hand, a single 1070 can be supported by any modern motherboard with a pci-ex x16 slot. It works with less power. It works with all games, past and in at least the next few years. The performance level is known and standard across all 1070s.

That's not even counting the fact it's hard to get certain cards right now.