AMD/NVIDIA Crossfire/SLI within Fragmentarium?

[Sabine]

It seems I can buy a new computer... And since fragmentarium wants to kill my old one (from 2012 with a somewhat sad AMD Radeon 6450 gpu) every time or it gives only big black fuzzy dots where others get a nice pseudokleinian-tweak, I thought I'd better make sure I choose a configuration for the new one that will work well with it.
One of the questions I have is if I should get for instance a geforce 980 ti, or two cheaper nvidia cards in a dual setup? Or do I need to become a programmer to make the latter configuration work? :} Should I get an AMD gpu (do not really dare too after the disappointing experiences with my current one), or nvidia? Do I need to look for other things as well (next to good multi-core processor (i7-range?), 16GB ddr3 ram (or should try and I get ddr4 (if I can afford it, that is)))?

I would greatly appreciate any help with this!

[3dickulus]

Hi,

The ram type/size shouldn't make any difference, as long as you have enough to comfortably run the OS it should be fine.

I am using a single nVidia geforce 760 on my development box (xeon 4 core cpu) and a geforce 650ti to compile and test on a win 7/8 box (Core2 DUO cpu).
I do not have a crossfire setup so I have no info on operation with that configuration, others have had problems with Radeon but not sure of the details as I don't use Radeon, ATI, AMD, only nVidia.

If you go for the best single card you can afford (980) you can always add a second one later, if you get 2 cheaper cards upgrading later is a little more painful,

[Sabine]

@3dickulus Thank you very much!
Since I had/have no idea of the strain of Fragmentarium on the hardware it's good to know that ramtype/size is not that important for running it.
Reading your answer I lean even more to nvidea 

[Patryk Kizny]

I was trying to Run frag on dual R9208x (check some of my threads earlier). No way to get both cards running at the same time with Frag (neither with or w/out SLI).
Also, I strongly discourage AMD to the favor of Nvidia. I have a feeling their drivers are just substandard and very buggy. I had so many problems with AMD in the past and it never happened to me with NV.

Get 980TI. I got TitanX, but 980 is way cheaper and comparable FP operations performance.

[Sabine]

@Patryk Kizny

Thank you very much, Patryk, this is very much the info I was looking for! I was already very much wondering if it would be at all possible to use a dual gpu setup fro fragmentarium. I'll go for the 980ti then, I hear only good things about the card while costing only half of the (of course even better) titan.
Thanks again

[lycium]

Quick 2c from me: right now is an especially bad time to buy a GPU, since we have had the same 28nm manufacturing for around 5 years (!!!), and the next generation is finally around the corner.

If you do buy a GPU right now, I'd recommend a very inexpensive (and still very awesome) GeForce GTX 750 Ti - I think this is what 3dickulus meant with "650ti" since that GPU doesn't exist. On that note, I have two hardly-used ones lying here in Berlin, if you'd like to buy one that could be convenient for us both?

[3dickulus]

@lycium http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-650ti
              http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-760

[lycium]

I stand corrected, seem to have missed the reviews of the 650 Ti... sorry

Edit: yep, definitely missed this review: http://techreport.com/review/23690/review-nvidia-geforce-gtx-650-ti-graphics-card

[3dickulus]

a good idea to research the details , I recall there was a reason I opted for the 760 (no ti) over the 750ti, something about chip internals or board construction, I don't remember exactly, but still...

edit: check the benchmarks http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-760-vs-GeForce-GTX-750-Ti pretty good for $250 CDN

[Sabine]

Thank you for your input, @3dickulus and @lycium, much appreciated!
I know that technology-wise I should wait another year (or two maybe, to let price levels settle a bit again). That would be the wise thing to do The nvidia Pascal will probably make a tremendous difference to what we've got at this moment. But that is probably what the price will do too
Basically I really don't need that much: An ok computer with a good cpu, enough ram and a nice gpu that can handle fragmentarium.
The thing is also: I am terribly Terribly impatient, I have been waiting for a chance to build a new computer for 3 or 4 years now, I'm really not ready to wait two more
Agree on reading reviews/benchmarks/specs, still got more of that to do...
Thanks again!

[3dickulus]

make sure you have a good power supply 500W min with a single card, 750W min for dual cards, good cooling is also essential

[Patryk Kizny]

Looking at benchmarks 980 & titan X would be about 2.5x faster at general FP computing then 760.

[Sabine]

After I've read reviews, checked prices, viewed benchmark reports, I decided I will settle on a gtx 980 ti. Which one I am not sure yet. And yes, extra cooling and a decent power supply will get there also I very much appreciate all comments, thank you all very much!

[ellarien]

Enjoy! I could only stretch my budget to the 750 -- it does the job, but the high-quality renders take a while and it crashed a lot until I learned to use a half-sized window for rendering.

[Sabine]

Thank you, Ellarien! I am at the moment using a render-window of 400x300 pixels. Max... Often 200x150... And still real-time updating is soooo sloooow and my computer gets heart-attack after heart-attack. I am pretty sure, Fragmentarium has set out to kill it