Gaming: 1 or 2 video cards?

I know that there are games that dont use SLI or Xfire and I know that there are some that do.

Would I be better off with 1 or 2 cards for the future?
Will games utilize SLI or Xfire?

Thanks

SLI and Crossfire aren't really something that is specifically utilized by a game. They are both a hardware configuration that allows your computer to treat separate video cards as one card, kinda like RAID is with HDD's.

I would be more prone to recommend a single card to start out with as you can always upgrade later to utilize SLI/crossfire if you need the additional Graphics power.

SLI or Crossfire solutions are excellent ways of getting a lot more out of your system later on in it's life span. However I would never recommend someone go for a SLI/xFire setup from the get go(unless money is no issue). The better option is to get a single card for now and later on down the road you still have the option to sli/xfire, since any high-end card today will give you no problems with playing games. Any particular game you were looking to boost performance in?

The thing with SLI/xfire utilization in games is that it is REALLY hit and miss, some games get double the performance boost some perform worse. Some games will even crash and not play with certain sli/xfire setups. However with the right tweaks any sli/xfire setup can be great, my 2x gtx 260's are great and love the performance boost I got from adding another card but this was 2 years after I got my first gtx 260. Also for future reference Crossfire is much more compatible with lots more games than SLI however when tweaked right SLI setups can get you higher % of performance increase per card vs xfire setups.

So if you can spend the money go for it. But if you can wait just get a mid-high end card in the holidays and stick with a single gpu setup for now.

edit: looking at you sig I can see you have Xfire 4850's that is a great setup and will suggest that you wait it out until some of the newer cards come out like the ATI 6xxx series and 5xx by nvidia. IMO with the setup you have now it's best to wait it out and see what the next gen of cards has in store, they are just around the corner.

Heh, those that know me here know I strongly prefer single card setups vs SLI/Crossfire. You rarely if ever get 2x performance, but will always pay 2x the price. Not worth some of the hassle IMO.

I agree with Pwn as far as waiting a bit and see what the new series of cards brings us in a couple of months.

Noshei said:

SLI and Crossfire aren't really something that is specifically utilized by a game. They are both a hardware configuration that allows your computer to treat separate video cards as one card, kinda like RAID is with HDD's..

Click to expand...

Ok, I'll bite... then what is it used for?

By that I meant it isn't something that is directly coded into the game, its not dependent on the game to function and improve performance.

Noshei said:

By that I meant it isn't something that is directly coded into the game, its not dependent on the game to function and improve performance.

Click to expand...

Hmmm...this may be the case now, but in the past I've tried dual video card setups with WoW and received zero improvement between a single and dual configuration.

While WoW is on nVidia's game list for SLI, I never saw the FPS improvement personally.

I'm with Earthdog on the thinking SLI/Xfire aren't worth it....
On top of what he already said....
You need to also spend more money on a motherboard capable of SLI/Xfire...you need to spend more money on power supply that can handle another 250+ watts of power...you need to pay more money in electricity (ok this is pretty miniscule, but wasting is still wasting)....you increase the heat and decrease cooling effecieincy (making cards much hotter) which makes fans louder...which makes your system atleast 3db louder at best case (assuming graphics card has the loudest fans)...you get to fight with drivers/games not playing well with each other, more cables
and ummm I'm probably leaving some things out.

Bottom line, get one high end card, later on down the road, sell it, and get another high end card. Unless you want the absolute BEST, avoid SLI/Xfire....The only exception to the high end rule is right now 2 460's in SLI have a compelling argument...however, after adding 100 for the motherboard and another 50 for the PSU, you're now in 5970 price range.

until every gpu scale like 2x 460gtx, and until amd chipsets get sli
one gpu