Wich is better? (graphics card setup Cross Vs Single)

SLuisHamilton

Wich one is better setup:

Crossfire 2 HD 6870
or
Nvidia GTX 680
Need help, please share your knowlegde telling why the way you think is better.
Thanks in advance.
 
jtbo said:
Have your read this?:
https://community.racesimcentral.net/showthread.php/6990-Micro-Stuttering-Due-To-2-GPUs-Add-A-3rd-Card%21%21%21%21%21

Two cards might become with some issues it looks, other than that I can't help much as I have no idea about which gfx card is good and which is bad today.
Click to expand...

Thanks, didn´t read that before.
So, the matter of micro stuettering, folowing the article, isn´t just to rfactor 2 but any software and maybe the proper question is wich is better to spend $500 keeping in mind thats my actual configuration:
Intel i7 860 2.8 ghz
6 mb ram
HD 6870

a) get one more graphic card (6870) and better processor (http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Core-i7-3770-Quad-Core-Processor/dp/B007SZ0EHE/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top) and keeping in mind i can have problems with microsttutering

or

b) buy nvidia gtx 680 e trade the old gpu for some memory.
 
Crossfire will always lead to problems... a lot of games have compatibility issues with crossfire, others just totally ignore the 2nd card. On top of that, add double heat, noise and power... I would say if you can get a decent price for you current graphics card, ditch it and then buy a single new one.

As far as processor goes... there is little point in upgrading. You already have a good cpu. There is a point where increasing your cpu will make little effect to your games... its all about the GPU.

I would personally spend your money on a new single GPU and a SSD (if you haven't got one already).
 
First off, are you using or are you going to be using triple screens? If the answer is yes, then I would consider the extra card for a 2 GPU setup even with the micro stutter. The reason I would answer yes is because I am just not familiar with nVidia enough to know if they finally got their cards to recognize 3 monitors. They weren't able to in the 5XX series.

Second, I sure hope you mean you have 6Gb and not 6Mb of ram :) That said, do you have a 64 bit version of Windows or a 32 bit version? If you have a 64 bit version, then I would say that you have plenty for gaming. If you have 32 bit, then I would say you have twice what your system can use anyways, so don't worry about upgrading ram in either case unless you want to.

Finally, the CPU you have is ok, but it could be better. Contrary to flibberflops post though, the CPU can still be a bottle neck, especially if yours is running below the 3Ghz range which it is currently. Games typically use a single core, though things are improving lately. With only a single core to use, the faster the better. If you get the graphics update, which ever way you end up going, I would still consider saving for the CPU upgrade in the near future to go along with it.

P.S. The downside to going with the crossfire setup is that there is going to be more power demand from the PSU. If you are not running a 700 Watt PSU, then I would consider staying with a single card for that reason.
 
flibberflops said:
Crossfire will always lead to problems... a lot of games have compatibility issues with crossfire, others just totally ignore the 2nd card. On top of that, add double heat, noise and power... I would say if you can get a decent price for you current graphics card, ditch it and then buy a single new one.

As far as processor goes... there is little point in upgrading. You already have a good cpu. There is a point where increasing your cpu will make little effect to your games... its all about the GPU.

I would personally spend your money on a new single GPU and a SSD (if you haven't got one already).
Click to expand...

I agree.

I have Core 2 duo E6750 CPU and rF2 is not taxing it to 100%, not even single core, 2nd core is resting mostly, things might of course change a bit if GPU would be faster, 8800 GTS 512MB is not the fastest today, but I doubt that with faster CPU there would be much of gain at all.

My computer when idling rises room temperature by 3C, much more under load, so if one runs AC or even without it is not meaningless aspect anymore, so point of more heat with 2 GPUs is one to consider + there are case cooling requirements which again is more noise.

With 6GB of ram you are probably not ending up using swap much, what does commit charge shows when you have typical gaming / work going on? (somewhere in performance pages with new windows I believe).
 
jtbo said:
...
With 6GB of ram you are probably not ending up using swap much, what does commit charge shows when you have typical gaming / work going on? (somewhere in performance pages with new windows I believe).
Click to expand...

You can find the commit charge by going to task manager and clicking on the performance tab. There is a box that lists system stuff and at the bottom is the commit charge. At least this is the case with Windows 7, and I believe Windows Vista as well.
 
Gearjammer said:
You can find the commit charge by going to task manager and clicking on the performance tab. There is a box that lists system stuff and at the bottom is the commit charge. At least this is the case with Windows 7, and I believe Windows Vista as well.
Click to expand...

My translated vista had it something like swap file usage if I make direct translation, again reason why I dislike localized versions, in XP it was at the bottom of task manager window.

I programmed my own gauge for vista to monitor that usage then as I could not find it from localized version, talk about simple solutions :D
 
Amazing help, thanks a lot to all.

flibberflops said:
Crossfire will always lead to problems... a lot of games have compatibility issues with crossfire, others just totally ignore the 2nd card. On top of that, add double heat, noise and power... I would say if you can get a decent price for you current graphics card, ditch it and then buy a single new one.
As far as processor goes... there is little point in upgrading. You already have a good cpu. There is a point where increasing your cpu will make little effect to your games... its all about the GPU.
I would personally spend your money on a new single GPU and a SSD (if you haven't got one already).
Click to expand...
For all i read, not only here, i think you are right and its the best thing to do.

Gearjammer said:
First off, are you using or are you going to be using triple screens? If the answer is yes, then I would consider the extra card for a 2 GPU setup even with the micro stutter. The reason I would answer yes is because I am just not familiar with nVidia enough to know if they finally got their cards to recognize 3 monitors. They weren't able to in the 5XX series.
Click to expand...
Not for now but i read some reviews on a gtx 680 and people telling that gpu can handle 3 monitors setup.

thesame said:
Second, I sure hope you mean you have 6Gb and not 6Mb of ram :) That said, do you have a 64 bit version of Windows or a 32 bit version? If you have a 64 bit version, then I would say that you have plenty for gaming. If you have 32 bit, then I would say you have twice what your system can use anyways, so don't worry about upgrading ram in either case unless you want to.
Click to expand...
Yes, gb. sorry

Gearjammer said:
Finally, the CPU you have is ok, but it could be better. Contrary to flibberflops post though, the CPU can still be a bottle neck, especially if yours is running below the 3Ghz range which it is currently. Games typically use a single core, though things are improving lately. With only a single core to use, the faster the better. If you get the graphics update, which ever way you end up going, I would still consider saving for the CPU upgrade in the near future to go along with it.
Click to expand...
Maybe an overclock could solve this? I didn´t how to do but i think it´s not rocket science. Should i try with a single better GPU?

Gearjammer said:
P.S. The downside to going with the crossfire setup is that there is going to be more power demand from the PSU. If you are not running a 700 Watt PSU, then I would consider staying with a single card for that reason.
Click to expand...
That i must change even if i go for single GPU. That gtx 680 requires at least 550W as i remember reading in amazon.
Again, thanks to all. That why i love this community jtbo.

ps: Ssd is a memory drive wich we install the system also rf2 if i want specific better performance to the game? SSD card could improve performance in a game about fps matter in wich way?
 
SLuisHamilton said:
ps: Ssd is a memory drive wich we install the system also rf2 if i want specific better performance to the game? SSD card could improve performance in a game about fps matter in wich way?
Click to expand...

An SSD behaves exactly like a normal Sata harddrive.... and looks like a normal hard drive when installed in windows. However, it is pure solid sate memory and it competely and utterly pisses all over normal hard drives for speed. Windows will load in under 20 seconds in most cases (as in from turn on... to being able to click on the start button in windows)

If you have never used a PC with a SSD installed (instead of a normal hard drive) you will be blow away at how much it speeds up your PC. Compared to a normal hard drive they are quite expensive, so if you are the type of person who has a 1TB hard drive full of games and stuff, then it would be very expensive to go down the SSD route for everything!

However, if you have a small SSD for your Windows OS and a normal hard drive for all your games and data, although it won't speed up the game directly you will find that any access to windows files and virtual memory etc will be like lightening. Getting a SSD will definately be the best speed improvement for your PC. However, actual "in game" RF2 performance will not be improved (except load times if you install RF2 on the SSD)
 
Gearjammer said:
Finally, the CPU you have is ok, but it could be better. Contrary to flibberflops post though, the CPU can still be a bottle neck, especially if yours is running below the 3Ghz range which it is currently. Games typically use a single core, though things are improving lately. With only a single core to use, the faster the better. If you get the graphics update, which ever way you end up going, I would still consider saving for the CPU upgrade in the near future to go along with it.

.
Click to expand...

Before I recently binned my whole PC and started all over again. However, just before I binned it, I replaced the 2.4ghz (single core) processor and installed a 3.0ghz processor (mate had one spare). I then over clocked it from 3.0ghz to around the 3.5ghz mark. The differance that translated to the game was so low it was difficult to be sure.... but it was around about the 2fps mark!

If I had spent money on it I would have been very upset!
 
Overclocking can be a bit touchy to say the least. If you have never overclocked a CPU before, I highly suggest you do quite a bit of reading to see what you are getting into. Some CPU's can take an overclock without issue, others will fail as soon as you make a single change.

The difficulty about overclocking is the amount of time you should put into each step to get to where your system is stable and running at the speed you want. My normal time for doing an overclock that might gain .5Ghz would be around 2 weeks, but I am absolutely sure that I won't harm the CPU in the process. It is better to be safe than sorry in this case.

Besides actually changing the clock speed of the CPU you will likely have to adjust voltages for not only the CPU but also for ram, chipset and a few other things to keep the system stable. The biggest mistake that people make when overclocking is that they let the system run for half an hour and say it is stable. This may not be the case as prolonged usage will have more of an effect on the CPU than just a short stint. Testing for at least an hour is recommended with up to 8 or 16 hours for the final to be sure things will continue to run properly. During this period running CPU intensive programs or benchmark programs is what you need to do.

Also keep in mind that the more voltage, the more heat, so your cooler might need to be replaced if it can't keep up. As to what this will do for gaming, it really all depends on the game and how it utilizes the CPU. Older games relied heavily on the CPU and so overclocking helped quite a bit. Today's games push more instructions to the GPU so the CPU isn't quite as important. Only testing will tell you for sure if it is worth it.
 
Jesus, the lizard.. Thre is no tool wich automatically decide what overclock spped can be reach with cpu, motherboar inputs?

By th way, i see you discussing about number of cores that rfactor use. I lear from a tool of team CTDP to use this parameters to Exe file of rfactor1 (+highprio and +fullproc) and io gain a good boost on FPS in rF1. Did one tryied yet this commands aplyieds to rF2.exe?
 
SLuisHamilton said:
Jesus, the lizard.. Thre is no tool wich automatically decide what overclock spped can be reach with cpu, motherboar inputs?
...
Click to expand...

There are a few tools that can over clock your system, but they are problematic at best. If you use the tools, you are almost certain of early CPU failure. Because every system and every CPU is different, the best way is the manual way. If you just want a little increase, not anywhere near max, then you might be able to get away with a conservative overclock by one of the tools, but a conservative overclock isn't going to get you much in the way of extra fps.
 
There are motherboards that have kind of automatic overclocking feature, some even come with special software that allows automatic overclocking based on system load.

But I really doubt you needing that, left ctrl + C brings up cpu usage monitor in rF2, though I really don't quite can read it properly, it I can see that with FPS capped to 60 there are not much going on on that monitor. From windows task manager I can see that one core is 80-90% and other is resting, I have read that rF2 is designed to already use all cores that there is, so there is no need to set parameters for that.
 
I have the MSI Z77Z that have an automatic overclocking tool( Click BIOS II and OC Genie II ).It makes a safe overclock and for noobs like me it veryusefull.
I passed from 3.2Ghz to 3.7Ghz and I got more fps with rF2.
 
jtbo said:
have read that rF2 is designed to already use all cores that there is, so there is no need to set parameters for that.
Click to expand...

You mean these: +highprio and +fullproc ?
No need to put these parameters to the exe file?
 
SLuisHamilton said:
You mean these: +highprio and +fullproc ?
No need to put these parameters to the exe file?
Click to expand...

Yeah, those should not do anything with rF2, but of course easy to test by running couple of laps for example at Monaco which is quite heavy, then use those and run again couple of laps and see if one can make any difference between the two runs.
 
flibberflops said:
Before I recently binned my whole PC and started all over again. However, just before I binned it, I replaced the 2.4ghz (single core) processor and installed a 3.0ghz processor (mate had one spare). I then over clocked it from 3.0ghz to around the 3.5ghz mark. The differance that translated to the game was so low it was difficult to be sure.... but it was around about the 2fps mark!

If I had spent money on it I would have been very upset!
Click to expand...

You sure you weren't GPU limited, here's what what my old E5200 managed 1.6 - 3.2GHz.

rF2E5200.png
 
I run triples on a GTX 670 2GB reference, everything maxed out with few problems...some tracks show slow down at the start with a full field but like I say I have everything running at max, but no stutter or slowdown. Considering there is still a fair amount of optimising to go I expect it to just get better over time.
 
What ever happened to 3dFX??? They made better SLi cards (multi GPUs on same card) or The VooDoo 2000 which could be added to any graphics cards available at the time. (mid to late '90s) I had a VooDoo 5000 (2 GPUs) and two VooDoo 2000 cards to compliment the 5000.

Final analysis is; Spend your money on one whopper of a video card... forget about SLi, Crossfire. I've tried it numerous times, with different cards, and have been disappointed every time. And, it is no longer an option when I'm building a gaming box for a customer. They can do it later... If that's what they want to do. Too many complaints about the lack of performance and video problems.

IMO, all SLi and or Crossfire does is give you bragging rights about how much money you've dumped on video cards.

Go with someone's top, or near top card, and you won't be disappointed. Even if it's a generation or two old... Still much better than two cards. Remember... numbers do lie!

Hope this helps,

Bryan
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top