Crossfire or Single Nvidia

[thomas.w.lawrence@co]

I have an ASUS MAXIMUS EXTREME mobo and need to know which is the way to go...? The MoBo will Crossfire but not SLI so it is one or the other... Your thoughts...
My OS is Vista 64, Raptor 150 boot drive, 4 500 GB storage drives RAID 0, 8 GB Kingston KVR1333D3N8K2/2G 1333MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL8

 

[Silus]

I have an ASUS MAXIMUS EXTREME mobo and need to know which is the way to go...? The MoBo will Crossfire but not SLI so it is one or the other... Your thoughts...
My OS is Vista 64, Raptor 150 boot drive, 4 500 GB storage drives RAID 0, 8 GB Kingston KVR1333D3N8K2/2G 1333MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL8

There are already tons of similar threads, to which I replied, but I'll say it again:

In terms of raw performance, a SLI or Crossfire system, will usually be the fastest. But the problem with dual (or more) card setups is that it is highly dependent on driver support, much more than a single card, due to scalability. If it does not scale well, then one of your cards, won't be doing much.

I prefer a very powerful single card solution. Not that much hassle with driver support and the performance is there, even if not as good as a SLI/Crossfire setup, when it scales well, so I'll put it this way:

If you're focused on a certain game or group of games you want to play and you know that Crossfire scales well in those games, go ahead and buy a Crossfire setup - 2 HD 3850 or 2 HD 3870. If not, get a single card solution.
The most powerful single cards out there are:

8800 Ultra > 8800 GTX > 8800 GTS 512 > 8800 GT > HD 3870.

If you want to play @ 1600x1200 or above, go with the GTX or Ultra. For anything below or equal to 1600x1200, choose any other card from that list and you'll be fine.