crossfire

[Mekabuser=12thVR=]

~S~
am trying to assemble a build that is either sli?crossfire and futureproof to an extent. In the many combos that are available Ive seen that Intel mB dont offer much under 150 for sli... THe one listed seems to be poorly laid out and is small .. So then I started looking at crossfire.. But seems as if crossfire doesnt work very well for crysis.. ANyone with real word info on this?

[KorJax]

There are plenty of motherboards under $150 that support SLI (and I'm sure crossfire but I have an nvidia card so).

For example:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131232

That's the motherboard I have.  Works fine and supports SLI.  You can even get cheaper ones IIRC.

Can't help you with your crossfire issue seeing as I don't use ATI and know not much about their performance running in crossfire.

[CHHš Rampage]

I cannot answer your question about crossfire and Crysis either however I have run Crysis in SLI with two 8800GTS 320MB cards and I have replaced them with a single 9800GTX+ OC and I am getting better frame rates with the single card than I did with the SLI. That is at 1680X1050 resolution. Unless you currently have a monitor over 24" or are planning on upgrading to one soon I believe a decent single card setup may be the way for you to go. Go ahead and buy a SLI board if you want to have the option of SLI but getting a solid Vid card like a GTX275 or HD4870 will get you the best Crysis performance and bang for the buck.

[Barbaric Soul]

I cannot answer your question about crossfire and Crysis either however I have run Crysis in SLI with two 8800GTS 320MB cards and I have replaced them with a single 9800GTX+ OC and I am getting better frame rates with the single card than I did with the SLI. That is at 1680X1050 resolution. Unless you currently have a monitor over 24" or are planning on upgrading to one soon I believe a decent single card setup may be the way for you to go. Go ahead and buy a SLI board if you want to have the option of SLI but getting a solid Vid card like a GTX275 or HD4870 will get you the best Crysis performance and bang for the buck.

You got better FPS with the single 9800 over the SLI 880o because os the amount of video RAM. 320 mb of video RAM per GPU will cause gameplay to suffer in Crysis no matter how many cards you have installed. The 320mb 8800gts sucks majorly for current games because of the amount of RAM per card.

I do agree with you about the single card solution, a single GTX280 gives me a average of around 30fps at 1920*1200 very high setting in Crysis. I honestly do not see a need for SLI if you have a higher end card(1gig 4870/GTX260 or higher) unless you are running a extremely high resolution.

[CHHš Rampage]

I cannot answer your question about crossfire and Crysis either however I have run Crysis in SLI with two 8800GTS 320MB cards and I have replaced them with a single 9800GTX+ OC and I am getting better frame rates with the single card than I did with the SLI. That is at 1680X1050 resolution. Unless you currently have a monitor over 24" or are planning on upgrading to one soon I believe a decent single card setup may be the way for you to go. Go ahead and buy a SLI board if you want to have the option of SLI but getting a solid Vid card like a GTX275 or HD4870 will get you the best Crysis performance and bang for the buck.

You got better FPS with the single 9800 over the SLI 880o because os the amount of video RAM. 320 mb of video RAM per GPU will cause gameplay to suffer in Crysis no matter how many cards you have installed. The 320mb 8800gts sucks majorly for current games because of the amount of RAM per card.

I do agree with you about the single card solution, a single GTX280 gives me a average of around 30fps at 1920*1200 very high setting in Crysis. I honestly do not see a need for SLI if you have a higher end card(1gig 4870/GTX260 or higher) unless you are running a extremely high resolution.

I am not disagreeing with you but I did also use the 8800GTS 320MBs when I had a 1280X1024 both in SLI and single card and did not see much of a gain there either. I know that the amount of memry has a huge impact on the higher resolutions but from what i have read and experienced the 320s work pretty good for smaller monitors. I guess what I am trying to say is that for Crysis I am just not sold on multi card solutions no matter which chipmaker produces them.

[Cauldron Borne]

Old cards are excessivly old. HD4890 and GTX275 are win. And SLI one now one later only works if the later is the next pay cheque. SLI on a card Ala GTX295 or 4870x2 is a good way to go. With out the hassle of two cards physically speaking. But there is always scallin issues and driver complaints from both teams. So The best single card ya can manage will suffice at least for the mod at 1600 or 1900.

[Mekabuser=12thVR=]

but does anyone know? Does crysis support crossfire? Without a doubt its gonna be a single card solution for me... for at least a year... The thing is... Id def love to be able to slap another 160 usd card in SLI or x fire for that matter, in two years for 60 dollars...

[Barbaric Soul]

I have ran a pair of 9800gtx cards in sli playing crysis before. They didn't perform as good as the 9800gx2 I had before them, but they did work in SLI playing cryisis.

[nano]

I started with a single 4870X2 and experienced a 7-8% fps improvement in Crysis when I added a second 4870X2 in Crossfire mode.  Definitely less than I expected.

[Spartacus]

ATI just announced a new high-power board at a low, near $100 price. Lemme see....yep, here's the article.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=knowledge_center&articleId=9132381&taxonomyId=1&intsrc=kc_top

I have a 4850 with 512Mb Vram. Runs Crysis fine. I can do two cards in crossfire mode, but the only real reason to do that would be to add another monitor. I already have 2 19" monitors. While I could put one more monitor on my desk, it just wouldn't be balanced. Four wouldn't work.

[Mekabuser=12thVR=]

Mektek is alive and well here i see
It seems that crysis does support xfire, but when considering the high end cards, it doesnt seem to offer much of anything..
Ive got a 22 lcd and never turned on AA even when i played vengence.. The 285 runs better than most SLI solutions even the 260 and it has NOT been easy trying to find a GOOD MB that offers SLIx16 for PCI2.0 at a reasonable price. THere are a few , but you read the fine print in the reviews and theyre not made with the newest cards in mind..
Heres a nice breakdown of the new cards, in sli n crossfire and stand alone.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-charts-q3-2008/benchmarks,30.html
YEah, I thought it sounded like a great future upgrade, but for crysis, which is why Im getting this rig, a single card rig seems to be the answer.

[Shark]

I would get a crossfire/SLI board but go with a high end single card for the time being (4870x2, 295) then in the future once the prices start coming down and you start getting slowdowns then add the second card, it's the best way you will be able to 'futureproof'

[Barbaric Soul]

Mektek is alive and well here i see

Ah, Spartacus and I are from MWL, not Mektek, although I am on Mektek beta team and Mektek and MWL do support eachother.

About the newer cards you are correct about thier performance. I went from my SLI 9800gtx cards to a single GTX260, and the 260 was alot better performer, mostly because of it's increased RAM(896mb of video RAM and 1 better GPU is better than 512mb of video RAM and two lesser GPUs for Crysis). Currently I have a single GTX280 in my rig, which is just barely under a GTX285 performance wise. 1920*1200 resolution,all setting on very high except motion blur turned off, no AA or AF, Vsync on,  my FPS stay between 27-37 FPS though out the entire single player campaign in Crysis.

[PapaFade]

Hope this helps. These are the two runs I did on Crysis using there benchmarking tool. The 1st set of results is using a single HD4870 512MB @ stock. The 2nd using a pair in Crossfire. This is at DX9, all settings high and x2 AA. The system is a Q6600 @ 3.52GHz, 2 GB DDR1066 Ram on an Asus Rampage Formula Mobo (2x PCI-E 16 lanes).

21/04/2009 14:20:52 - XP
Beginning Run #1 on Map-island, Demo-benchmark_gpu
DX9 1680x1050, AA=2x, Vsync=Disabled, 32 bit test, FullScreen
Demo Loops=3, Time Of Day= 9
Global Game Quality: High
 ==============================================================
TimeDemo Play Started , (Total Frames: 2000, Recorded Time: 111.86s)
!TimeDemo Run 0 Finished.
    Play Time: 56.80s, Average FPS: 35.21
    Min FPS: 19.92 at frame 1335, Max FPS: 44.38 at frame 986
    Average Tri/Sec: -33485468, Tri/Frame: -950940
    Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -0.96
!TimeDemo Run 1 Finished.
    Play Time: 51.73s, Average FPS: 38.66
    Min FPS: 19.92 at frame 1335, Max FPS: 44.98 at frame 999
    Average Tri/Sec: -36286148, Tri/Frame: -938500
    Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -0.98
!TimeDemo Run 2 Finished.
    Play Time: 51.71s, Average FPS: 38.68
    Min FPS: 19.92 at frame 1335, Max FPS: 45.37 at frame 994
    Average Tri/Sec: -36294136, Tri/Frame: -938362
    Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -0.98
TimeDemo Play Ended, (3 Runs Performed)
==============================================================

Completed All Tests

<><><><><><><><><><><><><>>--SUMMARY--<<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

21/04/2009 14:20:52 - XP

Run #1- DX9 1680x1050 AA=2x, 32 bit test, Quality: High ~~ Overall Average FPS: 38.67

21/04/2009 14:26:24 - XP
Beginning Run #1 on Map-island, Demo-benchmark_gpu
DX9 1680x1050, AA=2x, Vsync=Disabled, 32 bit test, FullScreen
Demo Loops=3, Time Of Day= 9
Global Game Quality: High
 ==============================================================
TimeDemo Play Started , (Total Frames: 2000, Recorded Time: 111.86s)
!TimeDemo Run 0 Finished.
    Play Time: 51.39s, Average FPS: 38.92
    Min FPS: 17.92 at frame 1474, Max FPS: 51.36 at frame 902
    Average Tri/Sec: -27254978, Tri/Frame: -700270
    Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.31
!TimeDemo Run 1 Finished.
    Play Time: 46.09s, Average FPS: 43.39
    Min FPS: 17.92 at frame 1474, Max FPS: 54.04 at frame 89
    Average Tri/Sec: -30287188, Tri/Frame: -697957
    Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.31
!TimeDemo Run 2 Finished.
    Play Time: 46.00s, Average FPS: 43.48
    Min FPS: 17.92 at frame 1474, Max FPS: 54.04 at frame 89
    Average Tri/Sec: -30305304, Tri/Frame: -697049
    Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.32
TimeDemo Play Ended, (3 Runs Performed)
==============================================================

Completed All Tests

<><><><><><><><><><><><><>>--SUMMARY--<<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

21/04/2009 14:26:24 - XP

Run #1- DX9 1680x1050 AA=2x, 32 bit test, Quality: High ~~ Overall Average FPS: 43.435

[Stahlseele]

I would get a crossfire/SLI board but go with a high end single card for the time being (4870x2, 295) then in the future once the prices start coming down and you start getting slowdowns then add the second card, it's the best way you will be able to 'futureproof'

nope, forget it, won't work as you imagine/expect.
technically, that's what it was supposed to offer.
that much is true. but not the way they work now.
Changes happen too fast for that.
Especially since new Single GPU Cards usually work better, when compared, than most dual GPU-Cards . .
Compare 1GTX295 and 2 GTX280's. the 280's will outperform the single GTX295 by 50 to 80%.