Back in 2011, we believed that SLI and Crossfire were really interesting configurations that could benefit a lot of PC gamers. However, and despite the ability to use GPUs from different manufacturers thanks to DX12 and Vulkan, it appears that the gaming industry is moving away from multi-GPU systems. Or at least that’s what AMD claims.
And to be honest, we strongly agree with the red team. After all, there are still engines that do not scale well – or even at all – on multiple GPUs. And while a 4-way SLI system will give us a glimpse at the future of PC gaming, it simply does not justify its enormous cost.
According to GamersNexus, CrossFire wasn’t once mentioned during any of a day-long media briefing that it attended. And when the topic of CrossFire came up, AMD noted that the value is rough when considering limited developer support.
Ironically, DX12 and Vulkan were supposed to make it possible for game developers to take full advantage of multiple GPUs, regardless their models. Naturally, this means that the game developers will have to invest extra time in order to support such a feature. So while this DX12/Vulkan feature is pretty interesting for PC gamers, most game developers are not interested in spending any extra time in order to implement it.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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