Are multiple Graphic Cards necessary for gaming?

I'm in the process of building a gaming rig, just wanted to know if 2 graphics cards is really necessary for gaming? I'm looking to run games like BF3, COD MW3, Crysis on max settings.

I dont do any video encoding or media editing or anything.

And if 2 GPUs is necessary, would I be better off with crossfire or SLI? I can get a asus p8z68 v lx but unfortunately it only supports crossfire.

Any tips would be appreciated. I would be gaming on a 23" screen.

The only reason to use SLI or Crossfire is if you absolutely must have the best performance that current hardware can deliver. Otherwise, just buy 1 good card.

There are only two reasons to Xfire / SLI:

1. You need more performance than the current best single card can deliver, so you get two of those best single cards

2. You have a card already and want to get more performance without spending too much money, so you get another card of the same type.

Scenario 1 is not realistic for most users, since you'd need to be gaming in unusual circumstances (giant monitor, 3+ monitors, etc). Scenario 1 will also cost upwards of $1000 for the two cards. Scenario 2 is more realistic (you have a card from the last generation or two, just want to update), although I've found it's much easier, simpler, and costs about the same to just get a newer card and sell the old. Building a new rig, just buy the best card you can afford that meets your needs.

For your needs, a 6850 or 6870 would work great. They can be found for $150 or less these days.

Quote from Aluvus : The only reason to use SLI or Crossfire is if you absolutely must have the best performance that current hardware can deliver. Otherwise, just buy 1 good card.

I just want to be able to run the games I specified in the highest settings possible, if 1 card can allow me to do that then that is fine by me. If I pick up a 6870 and it allows me to run a certain game on the highest setting, will adding another video card even make a difference at that point? That's my main concern really.

Quote from mmathis : There are only two reasons to Xfire / SLI: 1. You need more performance than the current best single card can deliver, so you get two of those best single cards 2. You have a card already and want to get more performance without spending too much money, so you get another card of the same type. Scenario 1 is not realistic for most users, since you'd need to be gaming in unusual circumstances (giant monitor, 3+ monitors, etc). Scenario 1 will also cost upwards of $1000 for the two cards. Scenario 2 is more realistic (you have a card from the last generation or two, just want to update), although I've found it's much easier, simpler, and costs about the same to just get a newer card and sell the old. Building a new rig, just buy the best card you can afford that meets your needs. For your needs, a 6850 or 6870 would work great. They can be found for $150 or less these days.

The asus p8z68 I'm looking at only supports crossfire, so if I were to want just 1 video card can I use a Nvidia? But of course if I were to use 2 cards it would have to be ati Im guessing, I'm really on the fence about this board due to the lack of SLI support and also due to the fact that I hear when it comes to desktop graphic cards Nvidia is the way to go with the GTX Series, can you confirm? Thanks

Modern high-end gaming cards are able to max out settings for most games on most single monitor resolutions with only a single card. SLI and Crossfire are mostly just necessary for multi-monitor setups where your effective resolution gets to be pretty extreme. You've told us what games you want to play at max settings, but your monitor's resolution is a huge factor in the game's performance. A 23" monitor could be 1920x1200 or 1920x1080 and there is a difference of 230,400 pixels between these two which is fairly significant.

You will find some people who swear by nVidia and others who will tell you that ATI cards are better. For your average gamer, either brand will work and can provide good value if you find a good deal. ATI cards are often more cost competitive. One downside to most motherboards which have two PCIe x16 slots but only support Crossfire and not SLI is that one PCIe x16 slots works at x16 while the second slot is limited to only x4 speeds electrically. A x4 slot might be a bottleneck for one of the cards which would in turn bottleneck the other card since both cards have to be 'synchronized' to the same speed. If you are confident that you will use SLI or Crossfire, then you should look for a board with x8/x8 speed slots or better. PCIe 3.0 x4 is the same speed as PCIe 2.0 x8...

I'd recommend reading this article: Best Graphics Cards For The Money: April 2012 [tomshardware.com]. It may help you pick the best card in your budget and lets you know what kind of resolution it can handle and at what performance.

My single 9800GTX from over 3 years ago easily lets me play most games at high settings. Not sure why you'd need 2.

Quote from equisch3x : The asus p8z68 I'm looking at only supports crossfire, so if I were to want just 1 video card can I use a Nvidia? But of course if I were to use 2 cards it would have to be ati Im guessing, I'm really on the fence about this board due to the lack of SLI support and also due to the fact that I hear when it comes to desktop graphic cards Nvidia is the way to go with the GTX Series, can you confirm? Thanks

If you just want one card (which is all you need, guaranteed), then yes you can get Nvidia or ATI. ATI cards tend to give a better performance-cost ratio than Nvidia does, which you can see from the link dhc posted, so I'd personally stick with them.

Do not worry about SLI/Xfire support, since you won't need it.

From the link dhc posted, 2 x 6850 is roughly equivalent to a single 7850. So, if you were going for that level of performance now, you'd just get a single 7850. If you go with a 6850 now, by the time you'd want to upgrade, it wouldn't make sense to get a second 6850 to Xfire since they'll have the 8xxx series out (or 9xxx series, since the 6850 will last you a long time). At that point, you'd want to just upgrade the 6850 to a 9850 (or whatever is the mid-range card). If you go with a single 7850 now, the 10xxx series will be out, and you'll be in the same situation, when you want to upgrade.

Quote from dhc014 : Modern high-end gaming cards are able to max out settings for most games on most single monitor resolutions with only a single card. SLI and Crossfire are mostly just necessary for multi-monitor setups where your effective resolution gets to be pretty extreme. You've told us what games you want to play at max settings, but your monitor's resolution is a huge factor in the game's performance. A 23" monitor could be 1920x1200 or 1920x1080 and there is a difference of 230,400 pixels between these two which is fairly significant. You will find some people who swear by nVidia and others who will tell you that ATI cards are better. For your average gamer, either brand will work and can provide good value if you find a good deal. ATI cards are often more cost competitive. One downside to most motherboards which have two PCIe x16 slots but only support Crossfire and not SLI is that one PCIe x16 slots works at x16 while the second slot is limited to only x4 speeds electrically. A x4 slot might be a bottleneck for one of the cards which would in turn bottleneck the other card since both cards have to be 'synchronized' to the same speed. If you are confident that you will use SLI or Crossfire, then you should look for a board with x8/x8 speed slots or better. PCIe 3.0 x4 is the same speed as PCIe 2.0 x8... I'd recommend reading this article: Best Graphics Cards For The Money: April 2012 [tomshardware.com]. It may help you pick the best card in your budget and lets you know what kind of resolution it can handle and at what performance.

Wow thanks a lot, that article was much help, I have decided to go with Radeon.

I have also decided to go with the Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 as my motherboard, I am able to get it at a cheaper price right now and it supports both XFire/SLI, even though I most likely won't use it after researching the benefits of it, its nice to have.. And you also recommended choosing a board that supports PCIe x8/x8 when using XFire/SLI, which the Gigabyte does as well unlike the Asus P8Z68 Lx.. I have heard that the GA-Z68-XP-UD3 is known to have Boot loop issues, I've read that there is a fix for it however and not all of them cause this problem.

Quote from mmathis : If you just want one card (which is all you need, guaranteed), then yes you can get Nvidia or ATI. ATI cards tend to give a better performance-cost ratio than Nvidia does, which you can see from the link dhc posted, so I'd personally stick with them. Do not worry about SLI/Xfire support, since you won't need it. From the link dhc posted, 2 x 6850 is roughly equivalent to a single 7850. So, if you were going for that level of performance now, you'd just get a single 7850. If you go with a 6850 now, by the time you'd want to upgrade, it wouldn't make sense to get a second 6850 to Xfire since they'll have the 8xxx series out (or 9xxx series, since the 6850 will last you a long time). At that point, you'd want to just upgrade the 6850 to a 9850 (or whatever is the mid-range card). If you go with a single 7850 now, the 10xxx series will be out, and you'll be in the same situation, when you want to upgrade.

Thanks for the tip! After reading that article and your advice I have decided to go with the Radeon 7850 to be exact. It offers excellent 1920 x 1200 performance when gaming which is high enough for me, anything higher than that would require a bigger screen, 23" @ 1920x1200 is perfect for me. I was going to go with the 7870 but I noticed the 7850 will do the job just fine

When the time comes to upgrade I'll just add another 7850 or 7870

Here's my Build so far

Corsair 400R
Noctua DH-14
i5-2500K
GA-Z68XP-UD3
Radeon HD 7850 2GB
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 1600

just looking for a SATA III SSD now, and a DVD Drive..

Would anyone care to recommend a good Power supply? I don't want to have to upgrade later incase i decided to run 2 GPU's, I do plan on Overclocking the i5 2500k to 4-4.3ghz..

Thanks guys.

Snag the Antec Earthwatts 650W PSU for $50 while it lasts:
http://slickdeals.net/f/4229014-A...-50-Amazon

Also,
LG DVD Burner Black SATA Model GH24NS90 - OEM [newegg.com] - $17.99 Shipped
OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive [newegg.com] - $130 - $30 MIR = $100 AR

Quote from dhc014 : Snag the Antec Earthwatts 650W PSU for $50 while it lasts: http://slickdeals.net/f/4229014-A...-50-Amazon Also, LG DVD Burner Black SATA Model GH24NS90 - OEM [newegg.com] - $17.99 Shipped OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive [newegg.com] - $130 - $30 MIR = $100 AR

Already purchased the Antec you mentioned a couple of minutes ago.. Thanks for reminding me about that SSD complete forgot about it, 120gb should be enough, I plan to install just the OS and the few games I'll be playing on the SSD, everything else on a secondary regular hard drive. Thanks again.

Quote from equisch3x : Already purchased the Antec you mentioned a couple of minutes ago.. Thanks for reminding me about that SSD complete forgot about it, 120gb should be enough, I plan to install just the OS and the few games I'll be playing on the SSD, everything else on a secondary regular hard drive. Thanks again.

I would recommend partitioning the SSD into two parts so that you can take advantage of the Rapid Storage Technology (SSD Caching) feature of the Z68 chipset to improve the speed of accessing your regular HDD. The partition can be up to 64GB, but 20-30GB would probably be good enough.