Nvidia SLI OR ATI Crossfire - Which better for gaming?

[Blackjack]

Hey everyone,

I'm in the process of buying PC parts for a new GAMING computer i'm going to build myself. I'm building it for games like WoW and CS:S. I've got the CPU, PSU, And all that stuff. But, I was in a discussion today about Graphics cards. I was originally going for the

ATI 100-435721 Radeon X1900 CrossFire Edition 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card

With another

ATI 100-435805 Radeon X1900XTX 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16 Video Card

But, i heard from someone else, that a NVIDIA SLI hardware would be much better. I found it hard to believe myself, so I'm asking everyone.

Which Would be better for gaming? (For games like WoW / CS:S)

The graphics cards listed above, or a Nvidia SLI??

Thanks .

 

[wolfram]

I'd choose Nvidia's sli. Better game developers support, and more mature technology.

Regards :wave:

 

[Rayss523]

Just look at what the 2 different versions use to communicate, the SLI hase an extra hardware connection that the Crossfire doesn't.

Also what Games are you wanting to play. Go to thier website and see if they support ATI or Nvidia? I know both will run the game but which one does the game manu recommend??

 

[seemab123]

id choose nvidia sli.

 

[skitzo_zac]

the source engine runs better on ATI dunno bout WOW, and well its just really a matter of wether u prefer nVidia or ATI.

 

[jtickner1]

crossfire all tha way,
well if you got really picky and you wanted to hdr and aa id chose ati but id chose ati anyway soo yeah

 

[Sharkfood]

"Default" settings, Crossfire beats SLI in a number of titles. If you adjust the shimmer-ful NVidia "Default" settings to remove texture crawl/moire and shimmering, Crossfire then beats SLI in just about everything else.

Also, as already mentioned, ATI cards can do HDR and AA. I don't know why anyone would want to shell out for TWO videocards yet be minimized to not using AA with HDR.

And on the "extra" hardware... Crossfire uses the PCI-Express bus for compositing, which absolutely has more bandwidth than some 16-bit connecting cable hehehe. Overall though, either does the job more than adequately. Not having the cable, of course, does require ATI to have a "Crossfire Master" card though as it's the one that will do the compositing.