1 GPU or 2 GPUs?

Vincent_M · 2014-10-16T22:14:09

Hey guys, so I'm looking to build a powerful development machine that will be able to last me 5 years. NVIDIA just released its GTX 980. It looks like it's more powerful than the GTX 780 ti AND much cheaper. My friend was saying that I should just get two GTX 670s and crossfire them (I'm new with what crossfire means). It'll be cheaper, and more powerful than a single GTX 980. He says that the only big difference is that the GTX 980 is good for 4k gaming. Now, when I hear 4k, I think of higher texel and fillrates. I'm not going to worry about 4k for another few years, and focus my efforts on Full HD resolution. Due to this, I should have 4 times as much bandwidth and processor cycles left over for my fullscreen projects I develop. This makes me think that as a developer, I can run more sophisticated postprocessor shaders in my own game engine as well as more postprocessors simultaneously. Not only that, but 4GB of VRAM is more than enough texture memory for my projects. I'm not working on anything like Watchdogs are Uncharted 4 lol. Also, I don't think Blender's Cycles renderer supports multiple GPUs yet. My renders would be quicker if I'm using a single GPU that has all the power instead of 2 when it only has access to 1 of them. I mean, I won't be running other applications requiring the GPU outside of PhotoShop for the most part. Getting 2 GPUs means I'll need a motherboard that supports 2 GPUs. Honestly, I think it'd be cool to add a second GTX 980 in a year or two, or something even more powerful for its dollar. What do you guys think?