What's your Flavor? - Dual GPUs or Single GPU

[Hentai-chan]

This thread is, a topic I called 'What's your Flavor?', is where people can share their personal experience and opinions of the related subject. 

 

I have been researching what kind of laptop I want as my dreams of having a better laptop comes closer and closer to reality. I found a few gaming laptops that I liked a lot, but frankly they're out my price range. And one thing they all have in common is dual GPUs (aside from monstrous VRAM, RAM and Storage Space). I'd like to know the difference between Dual GPU and Single GPUs. What I have found so far is Dual GPUs are better but that's mostly from the developers and producers of the said products. For all I know they can be trying to get people buy them so they can make money off it by repeating "It's better, it's better, it's better!" I want to know the technical difference between Dual GPUs and Single GPUs to determine whether they're actually worth it.

 

The laptop I have my (both) eyes on currently is Lenovo y510p. And it's only because it has dual GPU.

[RitualClarity]

If possible a single powerful GPU can give you very stable performance many times that is all you need. Duel GPU use more power for one and can create what is called microstudders. You can overcome most of those effects. Duel GPUs on desktops are a great way to increase your graphics power without adding too much to a single one time purchase. Finally the creator of the games, reason for you to get two gpus have to have a sli or crossfilre profile. Titan dosn't from what a gaming friend told me. He had killawatt connected on his computer and shows no added power draw playing that game. He is running two 780s so power use would be noticeable. It still looks good because he has one great card being used.

 

It really falls to money( at the time) , power requirements, and preference. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

 

For the laptop purchases I would check many, many reviews specifically gaming reviews to see how they perform with the games you currently enjoy ( if possible) If the site is independent and honest you can gain tremendous info on these laptops and pretty much be sure that you are getting the best bang for your buck

[blabba]

Usually Dual GPU's not really that cost efficient.

 

You get roughly anywhere from 40%-60% more performance for basically 100% the cost.

And you only get that performance improvement depending on how well supported the game is with your drivers.

 

Also, every dual GPU setup has the pitfall of microstutters with v-sync (Should be noted that this problem is virtually non-existant with 3 or more card setup)

 

That being said I'm running SLI on my laptop with 650GTm's and I for sure love the performance increase in Skyrim

 

Edit: Read your last line, I run the older lenovo y500, but my friend has the y510p (dual GT750m's) and TBH I have no qualms with my purchase nor does my friend I believe.

 

Battery life sucks, but slightly better than the 'hardcore' gaming laptops because you can disable SLI.

The only major crappy thing about the laptop is it's synaptics flimsy touch pad. I mean it's pretty flimsy... And the drivers suck (you can tweak them out with a newer version though to make it slightly less sucky)

 

At the end of the day though, if you want a really good gaming laptop, you'll be better off saving up for a proper "gaming" laptop with a GTX prefix graphics card.

 

If you need a laptop that can be versatile for work and play without standing out too much in public, then the y510p is a pretty good choice in my opinion

 

(Caution, Laptop gets REALLY hot when gaming, especially if you decide to SLI it, so have a cooling pad , and don't try to OC it, the temps are barely within range even on stock speeds)

[prideslayer]

I haven't bothered with dual in a desktop and wouldn't even consider it as a factor in a laptop -- unless it was one I could remove to save money. That said, I've got no interest gaming on a laptop either.

[017333]

Dual GPU setups are very cost inefficient...  Technology is constantly improving, so I see no real reason to spend any more than what is necessary for an initial purchase. That said, I also view singular but very powerful GPUs such as the GTX Titan similarly. Sure, they may be the "fastest graphics card on the market" at their time of conception, but give or take a few months and you will have a successor and even budget lines start to catch up. So, you've just spent 1000$ (plus sales taxation in some areas, ouch) on something that will inevitably become obsolete and need to be thrown out or upgraded later. Nothing is future proof, including cards like those.

 

The reality is that any modern day entry level enthusiast grade GPU costing 200$ by itself will be more than enough to drive demanding games on 1920x1080 monitors, and even last a ways into the future for next gen titles. My GTX 500 series card is still very capable despite the updated 600 and 700 lines. And, it didn't cost a small fortune at the time compared to some others. So, in hindsight there will be no huge financial loss when it comes time for an upgrade.

 

Besides, the money that you save on cards like those can be put to use in other areas. Or you can set it aside as a failsafe in the event of a hardware failure or future upgrade. Gaming laptops tend to have unreasonable to ridiculous profit margins attached to them, with not much between.

[chevyowner]

I did not vote in this poll because of video cards that have dual GPUs on one card, and the fact the term GPU is too widely used.

 

I have used dual GPU cards in SLI and the ones I used were junk.

I am currently using 2 GTX 660s in SLI, I got them for the price of one GTX 680.

[...0...]

With AMD295 x2 you have WORLD fastest and most powerful GPU on the market and the and most problems like stuttering are solved. This is also by far the coolest and most silient card ever on market for 2 GPU card.

 

But its still 1200 euro's and it uses alot of watt and alot space because of water cooling solution.

 

Xfire solution with AMD 290x i prefer over the AMD 295 2x also because of cost 2x 290x cost now 950 euros and it performs almost the same.

 

I prefer 1GPU over 2GPU on high end spectrum just because they can at the moment play most games max ultra settings with good FPS at 1440p.

 

 

[Hentai-chan]

I read it on wiki that microstutter is a problem not exclusively related to dual-GPUs but all video cards with SLI/CrossFire. And that while this problem is more common with dual-GPUs, its difference from single GPU with SLI seems so small. In the wiki it said between Nvidia 600 series Dual-GPU and Single-GPU, both equipped with SLI, there's a 2% variation. According to the test results, Dual-GPU got a 7% variation in frame delays and the single one got 5%.

 

The link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_stuttering

 

Found a forum that discusses the root cause of microstutter. Check it out: http://www.overclockers.com/micro-stutter-the-dark-secret-of-sli-and-crossfire/

 

Can anyone try this out with SLI GC if they haven't already: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/669959/sli/here-it-is-an-actual-fix-for-sli-microstutter/

[blabba]

I read it on wiki that microstutter is a problem not exclusively related to dual-GPUs but all video cards with SLI/CrossFire. And that while this problem is more common with dual-GPUs, its difference from single GPU with SLI seems so small. In the wiki it said between Nvidia 600 series Dual-GPU and Single-GPU, both equipped with SLI, there's a 2% variation. According to the test results, Dual-GPU got a 7% variation in frame delays and the single one got 5%.

 

The link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_stuttering

 

Found a forum that discusses the root cause of microstutter. Check it out: http://www.overclockers.com/micro-stutter-the-dark-secret-of-sli-and-crossfire/

 

Can anyone try this out with SLI GC if they haven't already: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/669959/sli/here-it-is-an-actual-fix-for-sli-microstutter/

 

Micro-Stutter is only really a problem with dual GPU setups.

 

Micro-stutter does not visibly exist for single card setups, and virtually any card in this era is SLI/Crossfire enabled.

Micro-stutter is caused by the different rendering speeds of frames between the cards and the information pushed to the CPU with v-sync on trying to match the screen refresh to multiple frames. Common thing to do is disabe v-sync and use an FPS limiter if you frames go past 60 (which they usually don't).

 

This problem is greatly reduced and unnoticeable in 3 or more card setups.

 

Source: I've run multiple setups with multiple cards before.

[Emberheart]

In the past I had two-in-a-box dual GPU's, which often caused issues with both 3d software and games. I do not know what the quality and software-compatability is of a good dual GPU, but I've not been tempted to buy one again. If I really need to render some HD 3d imagery I'll rent a renderbox.

[...0...]

I read it on wiki that microstutter is a problem not exclusively related to dual-GPUs but all video cards with SLI/CrossFire. And that while this problem is more common with dual-GPUs, its difference from single GPU with SLI seems so small. In the wiki it said between Nvidia 600 series Dual-GPU and Single-GPU, both equipped with SLI, there's a 2% variation. According to the test results, Dual-GPU got a 7% variation in frame delays and the single one got 5%.

 

The link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_stuttering

 

Found a forum that discusses the root cause of microstutter. Check it out: http://www.overclockers.com/micro-stutter-the-dark-secret-of-sli-and-crossfire/

 

Can anyone try this out with SLI GC if they haven't already: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/669959/sli/here-it-is-an-actual-fix-for-sli-microstutter/

 

Well that wiki is maybe for 2012 accurate but not in 2014 AMD have made consirable progress concerning Microstuttering.

 

The new xfire with no bridge anymore is improved ALOT.

 

Dual gpu is almost problem free.

 

Its 2014 not 2012 thank you.

[kingkong]

if i had to buy now     i would buy the dual     because it is already old tech (it is more than a year)  it means new games will start using it really next year.       also you might like to keep it a minimum 4 years before to toss it away for oldness.      and mostly in 2 years from now it might be a quadry gpu  and all soft will start to be built 2 years after (commercial tech).

[Shadowhawk827]

The answer really depends on if you want economy or power, as has more or less already been said above.

 

I'm currently running a single card setup but prefer two because I'm a  power junkie, lol.  Tim on Home Improvement, that's me. 

 

Being practical though, a second card doesn't add as much as many people think.  Most games, maybe the latest and greatest are different nowadays, only make full use of the second card for PhysX processing and rely on the first card for most of the actual graphics processing.