Dual Gfx Cards

[XenoStalker]

What's the benefit of having two gfx cards? And if you have two, do you need to have a link device for them to work in conjunction with one another?

Any help'd be nice.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Some graphic cards are dual graphic cards, aka they are 2 graphic cards bundled together as 1. Those are prety easy to use.

Others require you to have a complient motherboard (Crossfire for AMD and SLI (or something) for Nvidia). I think they need some form of bridge between the cards as well (from the graphic vender).

Multi graphic cards that are linked together (not just in the same computer, they must be linked to gain performance advantages) help massivly with multi monitor peformance. They help to a lesser extent with AntiAliasing. For normal frame rendering the boost is much less (can be as low as no boost over a single card). Modern games can see boosts of 50% performance for 2 cards. 2 or more cards is a must if you are planning to run surround 3D (3 1080p 3D displays, nvidia only).

You are better off buying a better card most of the time than 2 of the same card as that has almost direct performance improvements in all situations. A better single card will also yield you an increase in energy efficency where as dual cards will always decrease energy efficency.

I think the most you can get is 4 single cards linked working together in quad SLI/Crossfire. This however is supported by very few motherboards and the case required will be enourmous (as graphic cards are usually dual slot). Frankly its a waste of money, every year the cost of the same performance decreases so you will be better off just getting better single cards.

If going for huge numbers of graphic cards, consider using water cooling (as that will allow a much smaller case).

Such huge numbers of graphic cards are usually used by people who use them as processors or need huge performance (game development or recording at max settings). As a normal game playing person, you will probably never see multiple graphic cards.

 

[XenoStalker]

Thanks for so much information.

I currently have a Nvidia GeForce 9600gt with dual core AMD 7750 2.71 ghz, 64 bit vista, and 4gb ddr3 ram (800 series I think; hardrive is 370gb full out of 700gb). Ever since I purchased this computer, it has slowly been decreasing in its performance capabilities: I've had to adjust settings slighty to boost 25 fps to 35-40fps (mostly shaders are the problem over this course of time and have to go from ultra to high or high to medium). Now that dual cards are pretty much irrelevent, I am looking to do some type of reasonable upgrade to boost performance. Is it ram, the hard drive space, the gfx card, or the processor that would boost framerate (I don't think this board can even take quad core, might need a new board altogether).

-also-

Are there any Nvidia gfx cards that are a reasonable upgrade (preferably the largest possible) from the 9600? Going 9600->9800 doesn't seem... that big of an upgrade... (I won't use a ATI card).

 

[Mechanical Man]

booh, even single graphic cards are too expensive O.O

 

[Deathcom3s]

Might I ask why you won't use an ATI card? Seems rather close-minded.

Anyway, could you give us some more information regarding your power supply?

 

[XenoStalker]

Might I ask why you won't use an ATI card? Seems rather close-minded.

Anyway, could you give us some more information regarding your power supply?

I won't use an ATI card for the same reasons people buy Mac over PC. It's not a topic for this thread.

--

I have a 450 watt supply.

--

Seems rather close-minded.

 

[Dr Super Good]

I advise a 460 GTX, that card is fully DX11 complient (upgrade from your 10.0 card). It also is prety powerful for its cost and seems to be working fine in my brothers machine. It runs SC2 on ultra (extreem can not be tested until patch is released or beta goes live) easilly and should run future games well due to its full DX11 complience.

You will be hard pushed to find better cards for cheaper (even from AMD).

 

[XenoStalker]

I advise a 460 GTX, that card is fully DX11 complient (upgrade from your 10.0 card). It also is prety powerful for its cost and seems to be working fine in my brothers machine. It runs SC2 on ultra (extreem can not be tested until patch is released or beta goes live) easilly and should run future games well due to its full DX11 complience.

You will be hard pushed to find better cards for cheaper (even from AMD).

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll look into the 400 series some more and come to some decision, unless something else requires an upgrade/replacement that I'm unaware of.

 

[Dr Super Good]

GTX is not the card series, the series of the card is geforce 400.

 

[BlargHonk]

Have you tried simply reinstalling your OS? Or at the very least doing a defrag and running CCleaner? Registry is probably gunked up.

Others require you to have a complient motherboard (Crossfire for AMD and SLI (or something) for Nvidia). I think they need some form of bridge between the cards as well (from the graphic vender).

Some lower powered cards actually don't need the bridge for Crossfire/SLI

Also, the GTX460 is one of those few Nvidia cards right now that are actually decent, but on Newegg, I found this GTX465: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814162052

It's actually cheaper than any of the GTX460's or even GTX460SE's

 

[Dr Super Good]

Thats cause the 465 GTX was an abismil failure. Yes it does tessilisation (more tessilisation processors) better than a 460 GTX but that comes at the cost of DX10 performance (some parts of it were reduced to do that). As such it was released costing more than a 460 GTX with less performance in todays games.

All the reviews I read slammed the card for costing more and performing worse in games. Thus I guess they were eventually forced to reduce its price to reach a reasonable value for money ratio. If it really is cheaper, you might wish to consider it as an alternative.

Yes the 265 GTX performs worse in DX10 gaming (marganilly, this is not a big difference but like 1-2 frames in some games at insane graphical settings), but it does allow for higher quality DX11 graphics. Thus it has better future proofing I believe.

 

[XenoStalker]

Alrighty, I upgraded my space over Christmas and everything is setup now (500gb internal, 1TB external) and my computer is already running alot smoother. I can play Crysis on low-medium with textures on high @ about 25-30 FPS (heats up to about 48C though -.-); mostly the CPU settings are all on low. I can play SC2 on all ultra now. These are just examples I guess of what I can run now. I'd like to bump something up to get ready for Crysis 2 though! The 460 a good enough card upgrade coming from an '08 9600gt - or am I looking at upgrading the wrong component (I want better FPS basically in top end games)? I'm clueless!

 

[BlargHonk]

Alrighty, I upgraded my space over Christmas and everything is setup now (500gb internal, 1TB external) and my computer is already running alot smoother. I can play Crysis on low-medium with textures on high @ about 25-30 FPS (heats up to about 48C though -.-); mostly the CPU settings are all on low. I can play SC2 on all ultra now. These are just examples I guess of what I can run now. I'd like to bump something up to get ready for Crysis 2 though! The 460 a good enough card upgrade coming from an '08 9600gt - or am I looking at upgrading the wrong component (I want better FPS basically in top end games)? I'm clueless!

Your GPU should be upgraded before your CPU in this case, but yes, that dual core isn't able to run CPU intensive games like BFBC2

And the 460 is about 2.5 times as powerful as the 9600GT

 

[Dr Super Good]

Not forgeting the fact that the 460 is fully DX11 complient unlike the DX10 complient 9600GT. Thus allowing you access to tessilisation and other visual effects (even DX10.1) the 9600GT physically can not do.
Then there is the minor thing of the 460 GT having the ability to support better blue-ray playback (decodes HD audio) and has a HDMI output (with audio card so it does audio through HDMI).

2.5 times more powerful and can do more.

 

[XenoStalker]

Your GPU should be upgraded before your CPU in this case, but yes, that dual core isn't able to run CPU intensive games like BFBC2

And the 460 is about 2.5 times as powerful as the 9600GT

That's odd : /

I run BC2 on all max settings with no anti alias activated.

Anyways, the GPU card upgrade will be huge if it is trully that much better.

Thanks for the help ^.^