Graphic Card Upgrade Advisor – Should You Buy a Second Graphics Card?
ONE WAY TO boost your PC’s graphics performance is to upgrade your system’s graphics card—but sometimes, upgrading to a better graphics processing unit isn’t an option. In certain instances, the smarter (and cheaper) course is to purchase and install a second card rather than to upgrade your current GPU to a better model.
Adding a second Graphic Card allows your computer to split its workload between the cards—but for that setup to work, you’ll need a power supply that can handle the heavier workload. You must also make sure that your motherboard has the necessary free PCI-Express slots.
Second Graphic Card Installation is not too hard to do, keep in mind that you can’t combine graphics cards from different vendors: Your AMD GPU won’t play nice with an Nvidia card, for starters, and you might even have trouble pairing two boards from the same vendor. For best results, use two identical graphics cards.
To Find out whether two lesser GPUs are better than a single high-end card, we compared the performance of one Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 with that of two less-powerful GTX 560 Ti boards. We tested using a Maingear Shift Super Stock PC, running Codemasters’ Dirt 2 and Ubisoft’s Far Cry 2. According to our lab tests running Far Cry 2 at a screen resolution of 2560 by 1600 pixels on high graphic settings, the pair of GTX 560 Ti cards running in SLI yielded a signi?cantly higher frame rate than a single GTX 580 board did at the same resolution (113 frames per second versus 77 fps, respectively.) A round of tests using Dirt 2 on the same machine yielded similar results. The total cost of the two GPU setups is the same (two cards at $250 versus one at $500), but the dual-card setup performed better.
Using ATI cards yielded comparable results in our trials. Although upgrading the GPU in our test machine from an AMD Radeon HD 5870 to an AMD Radeon HD 6970 nearly doubled the system’s frame rate while running Far Cry 2, we observed an even greater improvement after we slotted in a second HD 5870 graphics card and then ran the two identical boards in tandem.
One more angle to consider: keeping your upgrade path open. If you’re buying or building a new computer and you have the funds to spare, purchasing a pricier graphics card up front will give you room to maneuver in the future, whether you add more hardware or you foresee picking up an identical high-end card later on.
ONE WAY TO boost your PC’s graphics performance is to upgrade your system’s graphics card—but sometimes, upgrading to a better graphics processing unit isn’t an option. In certain instances, the smarter (and cheaper) course is to purchase and install a second card rather than to upgrade your current GPU to a better model.
Adding a second Graphic Card allows your computer to split its workload between the cards—but for that setup to work, you’ll need a power supply that can handle the heavier workload. You must also make sure that your motherboard has the necessary free PCI-Express slots.
Second Graphic Card Installation is not too hard to do, keep in mind that you can’t combine graphics cards from different vendors: Your AMD GPU won’t play nice with an Nvidia card, for starters, and you might even have trouble pairing two boards from the same vendor. For best results, use two identical graphics cards.
To Find out whether two lesser GPUs are better than a single high-end card, we compared the performance of one Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 with that of two less-powerful GTX 560 Ti boards. We tested using a Maingear Shift Super Stock PC, running Codemasters’ Dirt 2 and Ubisoft’s Far Cry 2. According to our lab tests running Far Cry 2 at a screen resolution of 2560 by 1600 pixels on high graphic settings, the pair of GTX 560 Ti cards running in SLI yielded a signi?cantly higher frame rate than a single GTX 580 board did at the same resolution (113 frames per second versus 77 fps, respectively.) A round of tests using Dirt 2 on the same machine yielded similar results. The total cost of the two GPU setups is the same (two cards at $250 versus one at $500), but the dual-card setup performed better.
Using ATI cards yielded comparable results in our trials. Although upgrading the GPU in our test machine from an AMD Radeon HD 5870 to an AMD Radeon HD 6970 nearly doubled the system’s frame rate while running Far Cry 2, we observed an even greater improvement after we slotted in a second HD 5870 graphics card and then ran the two identical boards in tandem.
One more angle to consider: keeping your upgrade path open. If you’re buying or building a new computer and you have the funds to spare, purchasing a pricier graphics card up front will give you room to maneuver in the future, whether you add more hardware or you foresee picking up an identical high-end card later on.
