General Discussions

I'm upgrading my gaming rig and was wondering if dual video cards in an SLI configuration is worth having or not? I hear that their can be headaches, but the performance can be outstanding. Any opinions please?

It's basically as you said - you can get outstanding performance if you get the right cards, but they can be a royal pain in the ass when they don't work. I haven't had an SLI rig in a while, so the technology has undoubtedly improved since I last worked with it though.

Personally I stick to solo cards. I have a single 580 (overclocked, 1.5GB) and haven't had any problems at all, either with gaming or stability in general.

It all depends on the cards you find I suppose. Depending on what you plan to get, the price of two average cards could get you one great card.

Unless you're willing and able to spend tons of money for two or more top end video cards, then no, SLI isn't worth it.
Get the best single card you can afford and you'll be just fine. Pump that extra money into better CPU, RAM or a SSD.

Unfortunately, SLI requires a bit of effort on the part of developers in order to optimize their games to make use of it - in the day and age of cheap, outsourced console ports developers that are willing to go the extra mile are few and far between. I have a somewhat unusual setup of two GTX 570s and a GTX 280 (long story, but it still works - 280 can be dedicated to PhysX) yet very rarely enable SLI, as it can actually make performance worse in some games.

All in all, a single high-dollar card is probably the best choice if you've the money to consider SLI an option in the first place. I don't really see enough developers embracing it to merit an SLI-centric rig (unless you can get the cards dirt cheap) any time soon, to be honest.

I must agree with the above postings. However, I have only ever run Crossfire. In my experience, the preferred option is clearly a higher end card. Good hunting.

Thanks for the advice! I must admit that I'm surprised. Almost everyone I have talked to recommends a high end card over the dual setup. The hardware sites all gush over dual setups but it seems real life people prefer a single!

i have two 465 oc evga cards
i ran them sli and after a month itook one and dedicated it too
phyis x and have not looked back since

How does one go about dedicating a card strictly to PhysX? Could this also be done with an AMD card?