Adding another video card?

maximaz

maximaz

Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
So apparently my PC supports an additional graphics card. Is there a point to doing that? As far as games are concerned, what would the benefit of that be? I don't think it's possible for games to be handled by two cards at the same time?
 
Uh...which cave did you crawl out from? Yes, it's possible for games to be handled by two cards at the same time since the Middle Ages. SLI or Crossfire, depending on whether you have an Nvidia or ATI card. The benefit would be more performance. However, you should check benchmarks on the internet to see how much it would actually improve things.

You seem like a newbie, though. Are you sure your motherboard supports SLI/CF?
 
SLI and Crossfire, the biggest money sinks in PC gaming. Be wary of power requirements if you are going to use any new video chipsets...a high grade card can consume as much juice as the rest of the system. Your processor needs to be fast enough to feed data to the video cards at a good enough pace.

The PCI Express standard allows the manufacturer to define the number of lanes to each slot which sets the amount of bandwidth that the slot can (note I say CAN and not WILL) push. Some budget SLI and Crossfire capable motherboards support one 16x slot and a 4x slot, some slightly more expensive support two 8x slots and the really, really expensive support two 16x slots. With the PCI Express 2.0 standard, the maximum possible bandwidth has been doubled, so the maximum lanes is up to 32x. Its very complex to predict how much extra performance will you achieve as that depends on the game (some games suck with SLI and Crossfire), the cards (budget ones provide less bang for buck) and the processor (I have personally experienced a higher increment on FPS by OCing my quad core CPU than the card itself, an ATI Radeon HD 4870).

For more detailed specs on what's best to buy, try anandtech and tomshardware for reviews, as the companies are constantly releasing new cards and lowering prices on the older ones.
 
fedaykin said:
Uh...which cave did you crawl out from? Yes, it's possible for games to be handled by two cards at the same time since the Middle Ages. SLI or Crossfire, depending on whether you have an Nvidia or ATI card. The benefit would be more performance. However, you should check benchmarks on the internet to see how much it would actually improve things.

You seem like a newbie, though. Are you sure your motherboard supports SLI/CF?
Click to expand...

I didn't know it was such common knowledge. I'm sure it supports it because it says so on the booklet that came with it and I think on the box too but I'm not sure. That was the reason I asked.

SkynetV4 said:
...
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot, dude. I heard that not every game even supports dual video cards. I guess I'm better off upgrading the existing card sometime in the future. It's not like I know much about it to mess with it anyway.
 
to find out if SLI/Xover works for you depends on what your mobo book says, you have to read it.

most motherboards offer a 16x slot, and a 2ndary slot

the problem is when you hook up that 2nd vid card you may be only getting 16x/4x or 8x/8x rather than 16x.

in those cases, going SLI/Xover is not worth it.



if 3DFX got SLI right, why did NVIDIA and ATI get it wrong :(

in 3DFX SLI you got a double in your performance increase. you were getting 60 fps, you now got AT LEAST 110.

with ati and nvidia, you were getting 60, you would get like 75-80 now.
 
SLI is mostly just a way for people with too much disposable income to sink an ass-ton of money into their computer to gain a relatively small boost in performance. It's much better to just have one good card for the vast majority of gamers. Why?

1) A single card with the next generation of GPU is invariably faster than two SLI'd/Crossfired cards of the previous generation. Which leads to point two...

2) It's much cheaper to upgrade to the next generation of GPUs when you're only running one card. So, while the sucker next door is running his SLI'd cards so get a few extra FPS, you'll be able to upgrade to a single card GPU-solution that'll actually outperform his SLI setup long before he's able to upgrade his cards. And even before that...

3) SLI setups don't give that huge a boost in performance. Even when the game is written to take advantage of it, a lot of the time the second card will be sitting idle because it's not always possible to split the work done between the two GPUs, and a lot of the time the bus speed/CPU/memory/whatever will bottleneck the performance anyway. And finally...

4) SLI setups are more prone to having issues with games (graphical glitches, incompatibilities, etc.) than a single card.

But hey, if you really have the money to blow, go for it I guess. Myself, I'd rather stick that money in an account to save for upgrades later.
 
Indeed, it's not exactly worth it. I have a good card but it's definitely not the top of the line. I'd consider adding another one, if it meant a dramatic improvement but I will just upgrade it later on. It will do for quite awhile.
 
I have a SLI rig ( 2x9800 GT ) and I wouldn't recommand building one. Why ? Well...While some games have incredibly good SLI support ( Stalker SHOC for instance, with the 180.48 drive, my fps jump from 75 to 120 when I activate SLI, or even Clear Sky which is pretty demanding works pretty well with SLI on ), others are kinda meh. Activating SLI in these game will only give you a 5fps boost or even worse, the game will perform worse than with a single card...

Usually, building a really decent SLI rig costs more than buying a single card of equivalent power so unless you plan on buying two 280 gtx to have the ultimate gaming experience, just don't do it...

However, SLI can be a good option if you just want to boost your actual rig ( 8800 gt for instance ) with an additional card that won't cost you a lot.
 
I got a motherboard that support crossfire, i have 1 ATI 4870, now someone tell me why the hell i buy this new system in december??? THERE IS NOT FUKING GAME OUT THERE that worth to play, so i ask why someone want put 2 video cards, expend lot money for a PSU that support crossfire/sli if there is no good game out there, i still remember like 4 years ago that there is always 1 or 2 games that come out every 2 months, right now there is nothing.

By the way, i play some ports this days like dead space and with 1 video card is enough to run then.

My recomendation, buy a console, if you have a nice pc now dont add another video card, it not worth the money.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top