dual cards vs single!

I was really thinking about it today! are dual cards worth it at the end of the day against single cards? say you got a single 6990 vs dual 6970 or 485! of course the dual will outperform the single in terms of benchmarking etc but if we take in consideration the price/ the heat output/ the compatibility that most games will require for the two cards to perform better than single are they really worth it?

what do you guys think?

 

I would say that it's not really worth it for a notebook.

Even though the tech isn't exactly new, SLI and CrossFire are by no means perfect and still cause a fair amount of headaches.

 

Yet if you are a serious gamer who likes their eye candy (and have the cash) then there is no other way to get 1920x1080 with AA at highest details in every game.

 

laptops that can support dual GPUs are so bulky and expensive that you might as well just buy a desktop.

 

Really? As bulky a similarly performing desktop? No.

 

If it works.

 

Price: Not sure but quite close or above 2000 bucks.
Heat: Clearly hotter.
Compatibility: Still not 100% improvement in all games, but the ratio is getting closer. Right now you can say average plus 80-85 % versus the single card counterpart at high resolutions.

The issues, on the other hand, are:
+ micro-stuttering (some people see it, other not, and some other will dismiss it as a denial of the few thousands they paid )
+ the hassle to get some games to use both cards

 

Totally not worth it. Game developers develop for cross platform which are single GPU setups (360, PS3, soon Nintendo U, and the PC). They do not develop for multi-GPU, multi-GPU is probably last on their list. Game developers release the game for the 99% of gamers and then release patches for that last 1% of game addicts who spent $1,000 on their graphic cards. What is stupid is all the threads on Nvidia/AMD complaining about drivers lacking for SLI/CF support in games. If the game isn't optimized for multi-GPU, there is nothing AMD/Nvidia can do about it.

Usually games do eventually support CF/SLI, but they do it WEEKS if not MONTHS after release through a series of patches. If the game supports multi-GPU out of the box, it usually still sucks and users still have to wait WEEKS/MONTHS to get the proper patches.

Look at Crysis 2 the supposed successor to Crysis for being the best graphically intensive game? Day 1, yes it supported multi-GPU, but it had horrible flickering issues for both Nvidia and AMD. On Nvidia, even though people were only getting minor increase in FPS, their GPUs were taxed 98% and some people found their brand new GTX 590/GTX 580 running much hotter than Nvidia marketed their GPUs to run at.
- Witcher 2 arrived with multi-GPU support for AMD/Nvidia out of the box. Again performance was crap. The GPU's were working too hard for too little performance gain. Sometimes for AMD, you had this bloom/lighting problem that covered the whole screen, leaking through textures. For Nvidia, some flickering issues.
- Multi-GPU support from Shift 2 was horrible as well. Nearly 2 months after release did they resolve their issues.
- Bad Company 2, AFTER A YEAR, people still have issues with multi-GPU with both Nvidia and AMD. New youtube vids are posted every week with people with brand HD6xxx and GTX 5xx series having SLI/CFX issues.

It's just not worth it. All it is is a marketing ploy from AMD and Nvidia to get you to spend double what you actually need.

There isn't a single game out there you can't play on a laptop with a single GTX 560M/HD5870M-HD6970M/GTX 580M right now. And for a desktop, there isn't a single game out there you can't play across 3 monitors with a single GTX 6950 or GTX 570.

Multi-GPU IMO is a total waste if not time. Because if you do manage to get it to work, you'll have spent more time getting it to work than playing. By the time you have it working everyone will be bored with the game.

 

you seem to very knowledgeable and logic on the whole subject. someone above stated a price of around 2000 dollars. i am personally from europe and here prices go above 2000 euros which is ridiculous expensive.

 

Note that such someone added a 'not sure' before the number

And yes, here in Europe everything is far more expensive than in US

 

Formula for converting USD prices to Euros:

1. Change the $ symbol to a funny looking C with lines through it.
2. Completely ignore exchange rate.

 

hahahhahahahahahaha man thats so trueeeee!!!! if you look at alienware laptops they are like 1500 dollars, 2000dollars if you go to uk site they are 1500 euros, 2000 euros hahahhaa its so stupid that exchange rates arent even take into consideration.

 

I think a lot of people formed impressions of the tech 5 years ago and need to read up again.

AnandTech - AVADirect's Clevo X7200 Redux: AMD 6970M CF Takes the Crown

 

The control group in those comparisons is kind of ridiculous.

2720 is the best SB they could come up with?

Also, nobody's disputing that it's faster. The question was "is it worth it?"

 

tbh in terms of fps difference the only thing i can make out of that review is that CF 6970 as well as the rest SLI configurations may gain from 5 to 30 fps depending the game, but everything on its own scale. so imo the difference aint that impressive! especially if u compare i with 580m or 6990m! so money wise u dont get what you pay for!

 

$2000 for a dual card laptop? Probably not the single card one in my sig was even more than that! If you go to configure an m18x it is $1999 base with a single (older) card.

 

2720QM is plenty fast for cards of this class, even dual laptop cards.

It would take a pair of DESKTOP 580s to stress it.

 

Yeh, exactly.

Dual graphic cards for a laptop, is a pointless waste of money. It is going to wieght a ton more, produce lots more heat, be way bigger and there is lots more problems then with the extra card. Not to mention the price........if you want dual graphic cards in a laptop, the just get a desktop for far cheaper, better build quality and specs.

For a laptop I would only go single card. For a desktop, dual graphic cards is amazing and is a whole different story.

 

I formed my impressions about 5 years ago and have always bought the single fastest card I needed (or could afford) and told others to do the same when asked. At that time only a few games saw more than a 25-50% improvement and in some games it performed just as well on 1 card not to mention all the headaches trying to get it to work. Fast forward to now and almost all modern games see at least a 50% improvement and many almost hit a 100% increase. Very impressive and for the first time I could see myself just adding an identical card to my desktop instead of upgrading a year down the road.

Then I read this... Micro-Stuttering And GPU Scaling In CrossFire And SLI : Micro-Stuttering, Multi-Card Scaling, And More!

At the end it states that micro-stuttering will most likely appear on any card weaker than the desktop 6950. Currently there are no mobile gpu's as fast or faster than the 6950. Reading the article it seems that SLI is not as prone to micro-stuttering but it still exists.

But as stated before if you want to run the newest games at the highest settings on a laptop you will need to get 2 cards as one will not be fast enough, no matter if micro-stuttering bothers you or not. On a desktop though I would still advocate buying the single fastest card you can afford and if needed down the road either replace it or then add another card. I would not recommend buying 2 lesser cards when starting a build as there will be no way to make it faster in the future (cards like the 6850 only have 1 connector) and issues like micro-stuttering may detract from the experience.

 

Very nice article, after reading their conclusions I was shocked that even them (enthusiasts of the PC) would vouch against multi-GPU solutions due to microstuttering, rather than saying 'well, it not so bad'. Given the reputation they have it speaks a lot.

 

I would just get a single gpu solution.
Will change my advice once we see dual gpu consoles. Lol

Its horrible but true.
My Clevo P170HMx cost me 3300 US dollars here in Norway.
Intel 2720qm, HD6970m, Intel SSD 510 120gb, 8gb 1600MHz ram (was kinda worthless upgrade).
At least i got the 95% matte screen included.

Also yay for Steam.
60 USD for MW3 preorder?
Lets just save some time and sell if for 60 Euros.
Our customers wont notice.

Not that i would ever buy CoD games for full price. ;3

 

I have had dual cards both desktop & laptop.

In both situations despite the fact I am a major power user who demands the absolute most of his machines I have learned that I prefer single card solutions.

In a laptop it comes down to the heat, size, weight and cost mostly.

In a desktop it comes down to the compatibility with games and performance boost you actually get with 2+ cards instead of one.

I could give you a super long elaboration on each one of those factors if you needed but I think just listing those issues is enough.

The only thing you seek to gain for dual cards is more performance but almost never 2x more and it will always cost you 2x more (not for the laptop/computer in whole just for the gpu portion) so simply speaking in terms of return on your investment its not a good idea.

The only wrench I throw into the laptop segment is that the gpus are not as strong as desktops so while the top single card for a desktop should easily max out and run any game, for laptops that may not hold true so it may be needed to have 2 cards to get those performance standards met. However it will cost you dearly in terms of money and that super expensive dual card machine will quickly be outdated by next year and will not resell for nearly what you paid for it.

 

But if you are clever and willing to put the effort in there is a good chance you can swap over to at least the next generation of graphics.

 

Really I disagree, sometimes you can upgrade to the same generation of a higher card but not too often is a next gen card

- Available
- Heatsink Fits
- Power Requirements Met
- Bios Accepts Different GPU

Plus your limit your chioce of laptop greatly off the get go because it must have as standard MXM slot.

At any rate you pay full price for the GPU with a swap, rending your old GPU useless and pretty much unsellable vs getting a discount for the gpu with a new machine and your sticking with a older machine now keeping the slower cpu, older hdds, older screen, older mobo, older power supply.

Your just increasing your chance for failure.

Its best off to stick to getting a new laptop and selling the old one complete in a timely manner, you can get a good portion of the money back for the old laptop since you sold it as a whole and you get a new laptop will all new parts so the system synergies well and nothing is older than something else having a new lifespan thus reducing the risk of some kind of critical failure.

Imagine you have your 2 year old laptop drop the $300 for a new gpu, then a week later the mobo dies... Its out of warranty and what are you going to do now?

GPU swapping in a laptop has always been like a bonus when you happen to have a scenario where it can happen and works, it should never be something you bet on or plan on.

 

Name a gaming system using a 6990M or 580M that's not MXM.

 

That is only like 3% of the equation my friend.

 

And also ... there are variants of MXM and there is not a guarantee that the next gen of GPUs will use the same variant.

 

You can't just jam any MXM card into any MXM slot. As it is, the best card available for MXM-A is, I believe, the 6770M. Once a new rev of MXM comes out, the MXM-B slot will be capped at whatever the latest and greatest was at the end of its life.

 

I have been using sli and crossfire in laptops for last 3 years. While it is expensive and not value for money crossfire is the only way to get decent fps at high resolutions on a laptop. If price is really a factor you shouldnt be gaming on a laptop.

Much prefer crossfire to sli mainly because nvidia drivers are unreliable. Sli and crossfire will generally give you a 100% improvement once you have the right drivers

 

The only way to get decent fps at high resolution??

My 5870 single card has maxed out every game I have thrown at it save Crysis Ultra & Metro 2033 in DX11 both of wich are just poorly optimized.

 

Yes.

 

About my opinion on the matter, well I've came from dual gpu setup on both desktop and laptop.

It's not worth it for a couple of reasons, mostly already stated above, anyway:

- laptop size, weight, consumption, battery life. With the time I just figured out that spending a ton of money didn't gave me the portability I pretend from a laptop. Hell, it's a laptop afterall. Messing with Sli profiles, getting angry when driver support lacks a game you're playing and finding tweaks is time consuming and bad for your health lol. Also when it comes down to performance and you know you can't use both cards for a trillion of reasons you'll be pissed. Alot.

- battery. I do use my laptop even at home because sometimes I don't feel to turn on my desktop beast. Often I do use it for browsing/fun/entertainment tasks without being relegated to an AC and to a power wall socket. So having a generous laptop that weights the right thing, that makes me able to stay in free motion for at least 3 hours...well for me it's an important thing. Then if this laptop offers good specs and performance when gaming without sacrificing anything else then I'm good.

- performance. There are good 15/17" laptops that deliver quite the performance in terms of gaming. I owned 17/17,6" laptops but I still find them too big since I still have a desktop. So I've gone back to single gpu and small form factor. That's why I bought the g53 in sig (but I was looking to others 15" as well). This laptop offers decent battery performance, good power savings (althought it's not optimus) and great performance in my games, even overclocked.

- all this makes sense if you still use a desktop as your "serious" gaming rig, and a laptop for medium gaming whitout renouncing to performance.
My desktop (in sig) was custom built and the cost was roughly €600. I've added a 3d 24" monitor as well, around €200. This brings the sum roughly around €1000. My g53sw came for €1100. That brings the whole cost to roughly €2200. Gaming laptops, at least the serious ones, go as far as €3500 here when choosing a dual gpu that is always a step below to a single desktop gpu. Even the comparative doesn't makes sense, because to make a real test we should assume that the dual Gpus are performing at their best, with correct profiles and other miriad of things.

Bottom line: for all my personal reasons described above, with €2k I have a really nice desktop beast, a really nice laptop with some serious performance talents and a few grands in my pocket.
At least I'm happy the way it is for now, I don't need a desktop replacement that costs twice/trice the price of a serious desktop beast.

 

I personally think CF is great on good laptops. I find AMD (which is what I can speak of) upgrades their suites timely, consistently and I do find the scaling to be outstanding. I think that 1080P is a must for gaming on a laptop because it isn't like a CRT monitor that adjusts the visual fidelity appropriately. LCDs really show a loss in fidelity. Currently the 6 series AMD and 5 series Nvidia are beast GPUs and ONE is good enough for most games and will satisfy mostly maxed out settings. However, you really need a 17 inch "beast" to play.

I don't buy the whole "its so heavy just get a desktop. There is nothing wrong with throwing the laptop on a small cooler (15inch, elevate it on your lap tilted forward (better airflow and playing on your couch/bed/chair whatever with your mouse and pad beside you. That is something that is very convenient with a laptop.

Plus..I just prefer laptops and probably won't own a desktop gaming PC anymore. My previous was a m15x alienware with the 8800GTX right when it came out. It ran everything I threw at it for a good 3 years. If you get the right components from the start, you will get a good 3 years of gaming which to me is much cheaper than buying a console. I base this on cheaper games, better and more frequent sales, and always free online, less microtransactions.

So I am a fan of Crossfire. IF a game doesn't support it (rare) then I am in the same predicament if I got a laptop with one GPU. But chances are it will run the game OK. You can always force CF and that usually works from what I hear but I have NEVER had to do that.

A good laptop with solid knowledge of the important stuff to buy, can allow you to get what you want if you have a decent budget. I know people that completely tricked out the m17x right when it debuted and spent 2400 US dollars for the R3 with a single 6970. I spend that exact same amount after taxes and shipping for a i2720, 8gig ram (deal going on), 6970 CF (free upgrade prior to the 6990 launch) and win7.

For me, I can spend 2400 and if I get a good 3 years of gaming on it....that is 800 dollars a year for gaming entertainment. I already owned most of the games I wanted to play in my steam library and see myself only buying a few games in the future (BF3, MW3, etc).

So it's really preference. But any 17 inch running a powerful GPU is heavy and the difference is not that big going from single to CF. They are big and heavy to any average intellectual bohemian at Starbucks with a Vaio/Macbook. But some games scale 100% a lot scale in the 50-80% range and that usually allows a perfect gaming experience on today's most taxing games...and likely tomorrows since they are all console ports anyways.

These debates are what I like to call "good problems." Some people can't afford gas in their car to get to work if they have the "good problem" of having a car and a job to go to. So get what you can afford and enjoy it.

Cliffs notes...Dual card for me.

 

From what I was able to tell, a gpu such as 485M or 6990M is able to max out most games on 1080p.
Some games might not run under 'ultra' settings, but to be honest, the difference between 'ultra' and 'high' are most of the time negligible, while the former reduces FPS significantly.

I just don't see the cost effective benefits in a SLI setup.
First off, you don't get 2x the performance, and second, the cost is 2x higher.

 

Good post as other countries barrier to entry is higher. But at the end of the day if money isn't the factor, then Dual GPU's ARE worth it as they DO scale very well. I am too old (32) to be shuttling around...well a shuttle. ANd I enjoy gaming on my couch (and am not a fat dorito eating lazy SOB). Well i guess sometimes I am a lazy SOB. But CF/SLI does work well and the current cooling on AW/Clevo is outstanding. OC'ing the cards yields some nice performance boost and the cooling can handle it.

 

Well again that's just your personal preference. This is a forum for laptop enthusiasts/not just gamers right? So for gaming, go to H forum or something and everyone would say "a single mobile GPU is a waste of money" when you can get a desktop for way less.

If you are a mobile enthusiast, like myself, then an extra GPU at 2X the cost for 50-100% scalability is a good value proposition. For some; it isn't. But once you spend 1500-2k dollars, then does it really matter if you add another GPU? It isn't like it doubles the price of the laptop, it just adds another GPU to the price. By your logic you could say, "I will get a 17 inch laptop with a 6990 for 1800 bucks cuz i don't want to spend extra for not exactly double the performance." Then someone will say "Just buy an xps 15 for a good mobile computer and then take that extra 1000 and build a fully upgradable and more powerful gaming rig."

It's all preference. But there is no denying that CF/SLI are scaling better than ever and in many games the difference is enough to go from a minimum FPS of 20-25 to 35-40...that's HUGE. I'm not disagreeing with you but everyone looks at things differently; that's my only point.

An even "crazier" thought than a double GPU is buying a 2920xm for benching. Some people spend 1,000 for having the best of the best and enjoy running benchmarks all day. But if that is what brings them happiness; who am I to say "that's not a good value proposition."

 

However, for some people a desktop is not an option and dual GPUs are a way to not skimp on performance as much.

Being constantly deployed/in the field I can't carry a tower, monitor, keyboard, and mouse around with me. Not to mention even if I had it shipped it would cost a fortune and most likely break. Maybe once I get out of the Army and settle down then I can go back to my desktop ways, but until then it's desktop replacements.

 

I don't see a monitor and keyboard in that picture.

 

Screen? Keyboard? Actual desktop space used?

Try again.

 

I don't spend more time fixing performance or trying to get XF to work with games than I actually play. No problems here, and I enjoy being able to use 8xaa and 16xaf + very high/ultra settings.

 

Mount the monitor to the wall like I do and use a wireless keyboard and mouse that goes in a slide-out drawer. My computer is actually tucked up and out of the way so you don't even see it. I can have a completely free desk + have my laptop there if I need it in addition.

Many people use their laptop with a separate keyboard, mouse, and monitor anyhow. 15" and 17" just doesn't cut it for me. I've tried it, sorry, but I'll take my 24" IPS any day over the crap screens that come in laptops, at least for daily regular use.

Try again...

 

That raises another question:

There are a few stereotypes of gaming laptop users.

- the ones that play on their beasty machines using at least an external mouse (which is obvious) and nothing else, just a plain surface where to place the laptop (plus an external cooler pad, if needed)

- there are people's instead who buy a gaming laptop, spend a crapload of money to hook it up to an external display/keyboard/mouse without even detaching it for "mobile" use. Don't tell me it's a matter of space because it's silly to state that. Mouse/monitor/keyboard have their space to occupy and a good dual gpu laptop usually it's huge. I don't see how a desktop case (medium Atx at least for single gpu, nothing gigantic) occupies much more space than all the things together.

So what's the point? Those who uses a gaming laptop as a desktop replacement in the very sense of the word (keeping it in the same place without even moving it)..does it makes sense to spend 3 grands when a desktop costs around 1/3 of the price, giving the fact that you also get better hardware and performance?

I never understand that. Don't tell me that the vantage to un-hook your beasty machine for mobile use (with 2 hours of battery if lucky) it's a pro, because I swear in all my experience I saw and I continue on seeing people's who spend alot for a thing that doesn't leave their desk at all.

 

My gaming setup consists of a Clevo P170HMx, 1 Performance MX mouse, a 3tb usb 3.0 external drive and of course a external mechanical keyboard for when i actually need to type something serious.
(Clevo keyboards is not the best ones in the marked. xD )

 

Cool story bro. However you are finger pointing at a small percentage of the folks that own these DTRs. I will agree in that I do not understand why they wouldn't just purchase a desktop if they are doing as you describe.

I am a currently deployed service member that likes to play my PC games cranked up, I have no room for a desktop and I am always on the move. When I am back at home I frequent LAN parties. It is MUCH easier just to toss the laptop and my mouse in a backpack and be on my way rather than dragging the machine, monitor, and keyboard around.

 

I purchased the laptop for mobility reasons. You cannot argue that an M18x (even as large as it is) can even be compared vs a desktop in that category.

 

Well mate you got reasons that apply perfeclty with the concept of desktop replacements while being portable.
Plus you find it useful for LAN parties and such things, but you need also to take into account that Pc gamers since the dawn of times always brought their desktops along with other stuff to LAN parties, because even "professionally" that's the way to do it.
I'm not saying that your reasons aren't right, don't get me wrong plus I'm not judging anyone, but so far in that field desktop still retain the whole percetange of "presence".
Things have changed in these years, thus you're correct on your statements. Even with precedent generation of dual gpus, they couldn't keep on par with medium end desktop gpus.
However with hd6990/6970 CFX and gtx580m Sli things changed drastically.
Basically you don't need anything else if your laptop delivers the same performance as a desktop gtx560ti in Sli.

Nope it's not an arguable discussion and matter. Portability is always a thing where gaming laptops will win.
Althought you should concur that a shuttle of that size can house an high end CPU such Sandy Bridge i7-2600 or i5-2500 (even non k) and a medium-high gpu card that doesn't need space or big airflow such a gtx560ti.
The gpus technology changed alot and even high end cards have a small factor nowadays.
Just do a comparison with a gtx560/570 against the old gtx260/285.
You don't have a screen embedded in the shuttle plus keyboard and mouse will need to be brought along, but it's portability is outstanding non the less and it runs quiet.
But yes,no battery as well, so every point falls apart.

 

Yeah because mounting the monitor to the wall really makes it easy to pick up and go to a lan.... oh wait.

 

A shuttle with a GTX560ti and a 2500k sandy bridge is going to loose heavily to the 6990M or 580M crossfire/sli lappy with a 2720qm.

 

I agree in that you see mostly desktops at LAN parties, I have been participating in them over the last 8 years or so. The argument of why you see so many desktops at LAN parties is somewhat mute as that reason is obvious. It wasn't up until recently laptops have been able to provide an enjoyable gaming experience and not everyone can afford a powerful gaming laptop.

 

Different strokes for different folks for sure. But the point being that I built a machine comparable to a high end $3000 laptop for less than $800. If your laptop stays stuck on a desk for 90%+ of the time, You're better off going that route, IMHO and buying a reasonably fast laptop for < $1000 and still be better off. Ok so those few times you play on your laptop you won't be able to play with max details and at 120fps, but so what.

Heck I used to tote my Shuttle around with me in a duffle bag with a 15" monitor for LAN gaming. I did it maybe once or twice a month, so it wasn't a huge deal.