No more SLI for Crispy: I'm ordering a GTX670

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I haven't actually pulled the trigger yet, but I'm 95% sure I'm going to order an EVGA GTX670 2GB FTW today. I have a $25.00 gift certificate from Newegg that I'll be applying to it so its price will be $382, free shipping. No, I don't pay sales tax.

I'm tired of SLI. While I do still believe in its philosophy of getting more graphical throughput per dollar, the impractibilities of its everyday use have worn on me. Too much heat, too much noise, still too finicky in some situations.

Plus the 2GB of VRAM will finally allow me to run the Skyrim HD Textures while playing Dawnguard without introducing unwanted lag.

Also TXAA support (eventually) and adaptive vsync will be nice.










I may order a second 670 later and SLI again

I've never really bought into the idea that you get "more graphical throughput per dollar" with SLI. Sure, you get moar, which is great if that's all you're interested in, but otherwise you'd probably be better off just buying a faster single card. Obviously different for you since you're in the high end segment, but for a quick comparison, I've got a 5770, and crossfiring it now or at the time I got it would so, so, so not have been worth it in any way, as well as defeating the entire point of the card.

Part of the appeal of running SLI has always been the esotericness of it, or rather, the added complexity one faces in tweaking one's games to like SLI and to get that part of the game running top notch. The hobbyist in me used to enjoy that challenge.

Now, as I said, it's just becoming more of a chore. The seductiveness of the added graphical power is still luring, but added initial cost while remaining at the forefront of GPU technology is still very steep. Two 460's, as I'm running now, cannot touch the performance of a single 670, and anything more than 460's in SLI would be more expensive than that card, so forget it.

Okay, just ordered. Should be here in a couple of days.

I'll let you guys know how it works out.

/HHR

Get a 4GB version.

Nah.

SLI has been for suckers ever since it was invented.

SLI is just needless. Yes you can get more performance but unless you are buying top-end hardware and want to double up, it's usually just unnecessary. Plus there are driver and compatibility issues everywhere, most games don't support it properly anyway, and let's not forget microstutter.

My GTX 470 is still holding strong, along with my i7-920. Unless someone comes out with the next Crysis I doubt I'll have to upgrade anytime soon.

sea, I won't belabor any arguments I have with your opinions other than to simply refute the compatibility and microstutter claims. Neither of these are insurmountable in a correctly-designed system, but the fact that I'm switching (for the time being) from SLI to a single-card solution obliviates the need to go into why.

I really am looking forward to a more plug-n-play approach to my gaming, though.

I decided against it when I saw it didn't even allow for 60 FPS on the most demanding games when you have a 2560 x 1440 monitor. No point then.

By the way a company is releasing a 27 IPS incher with that resolution in the US for about 450$, and Dell will soon follow suit. Crispy, when you feel like having another upgrade, it should be your next one. It's impossible to play 3D games on any other monitor once you've done it.

All I can say is, I've used SLI before, and I have friends who used SLI. Microstutter was a constant companion and became extremely annoying as soon as I noticed it. I dunno, maybe drivers have improved lately, but I tend to be really sensitive to any sort of hitches, framerate fluctuations etc. so I'd rather not deal with that.

I use SLI right now, I have a pair of 570s. This is the third or forth generation of cards that I've used either SLI or crossfire. During that that time I've definitely seen some nice improvements and the microstutter issues are mostly gone in the games I play. Having said that, I'm tired of messing with SLI. I've purchased many games where SLI doesn't work at launch (sure they patch it in sooner or later) and the first thing I have to do is disable it or it doesn't offer much improvement. I've made up my mind and am also going to be purchasing a 670 (maybe a 680 depending on how the pricing looks at the end of the year) and abandon my SLI fantasy. Goodbye Club SLI.

Right on, bro. Welcome to the neutered world of single GPU.

It's probably going to make me feel emasculated. Maybe I'll get one of those great big trucks that you need a ladder to climb into to compensate.

About fucking time.

My HD6950 2GB runs Skyrim @ 1080p 2xMSAA (for distant textures) + FXAA at constant 60fps without a hitch using all HD Textures and whatnot (no ENB though as I think it looks like shit). VRAM usage stays at around 1.3GB. That GTX670 of yours will have no issues at all for playing Skyrim at maximum settings, even though it's a single card.

Like I said many times before, SLI/Crossfire is just too much hassle. Compatibility issues, heat, noise, huge PSU requirements... it's simply not worth it, specially with the high end cards available today that can smoke any of these console ports.

I have a single GTX 460 with 768mb... runs very well Skyrim in 1080p with ENB, 2x MSAA, 2x AA and Bethesda's high texture patch. No FXAA and I disabled ENB's oclusion and forced the Nvidia "performance" oclusion...

It didn't arrive today!



Oh well, at least I can watch some American football tonight.

It's all about screen resolution.

If you run 1080P or higher you pretty much need a fast dual-GPU card or SLI to run games smoothly at high settings.

Crispy

Tom's hardware is being difficult. How much of an upgrade (in terms of +% fps) at 1080P can I expect by upgrading from:


eVGA GTX 295 Hydro Copper

• (GTX 295 2x896 MB)

To:

Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 2 GB

• GTX 670 2 GB GDDR 5 925 MHz

?

That's a little tough to find comparative benchmarks for due to the rather large discrepency in release dates between the two GPU's; the 670 being brand new and the 295 being what? five years old now?

You're guaranteed to see a sizeable performance benefit, though. My two 460's will be outperformed by the 670, so certainly a dual 200-series card like the 295 (yes, it's a single SLI card solution) will get clobbered. But by how much?

Don't forget you're going to finally be in the DX11 market, along with the other added features, MUCH less heat, much less noise.

It's a no-brainer, Gregz. DO EET FAGGORIT

any reason you got the evga one? the asus model got rave reviews, especially for its noise profile, and it wouldve been the 670 of my choice if it werent for my case being shithouse for dcuii heatsinks. im thinking of picking up a 7850 for myself (probably the msi), ive got a reference 6950 and i cant stand the whining the fan makes, especially at night. was thinking of buying an aftermarket cooler but its tough to find a nice one for my case (arctic cooling is out of the picture), so i ended up just looking for a new card. i was going to wait for the 660ti, but if any of these rumours are true its just a 670 with the memory bus cut down and i dont want something that sucks that much power.

gregz, you can normally sell some of those older cards for a fair bit of cashola. try putting it up on ebay to fund your new 670?

I simply trust EVGA more. I've been selling video cards for many years, and they're the best in terms of overall reliability, customer service, design, and quality IMO.

I really thought about going with an MSI Twin Frozr, or even the three-fan Gigabyte one, but decided to just stick with EVGA again. Tried and true.

Also, Crispy, I recommend that you take a look into this: http://www.arctic.ac/en/p/cooling/vga/375/accelero-twin-turbo-ii.html

It's a pretty good GPU cooler and reviewed as being very, very silent. Even with my Twin Frozr III I'm considering giving this one a go.

Not to answer for Crispy, but EVGA has a great warranty (I'm pretty sure it's still lifetime) and Asus is like 3-5 years max.

EVGA also has an excellent trade-up program, for anyone who suffers from post-sale underpowered anxiety.