Should I get another 7970?

Hey! I have a single one right now, I am considering getting another. I play in Eyefinity and experience about 30 frames in BF3. Are there any other players out there that play in eyefinity and recommend a second card? What is your framerate across 3 screens on ultra? Also what about Farcry 3 and other high end games? With Metro last light coming out I am really considering getting another card. BF3 is also a lot of fun, and I'd love to be able to play on ultra across 3. I guess I'm just wondering is spending another $360 worth it?

no it is not worth it !! i have owned 2x 6970 and for that price you are better off getting either a GTX 670 or a 7970

Both of those cards would be faster

123Lanoix said:

no it is not worth it !! i have owned 2x 6970 and for that price you are better off getting either a GTX 670 or a 7970

Both of those cards would be faster

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He has a 7970... He's debating getting a second one.

@ OP - Yes, I would say it's worth it. You can't go wrong with too much power.

The value of a 2nd card is entirely subjective, and up to you to decide. If you have too much money and can't decide what to do with it, go for it.

There are users on OCN [I know they frequent [H] as well] such as CallSignVega and Stren who have gone through many eyefinity (x3 and x5) screen setups, and ran lots of quad-setups such as quad-580s, quad-7970s, etc. If you're interested in specific benchmarks, I could link you to their threads.

That being said, your question is oriented more towards "is it worth it" and that's a question none of us can answer for me, it depends entirely on how much another 30fps is worth to you

You could try dropping your settings to get the desired fps and/or resolution you want to get a rough gauge of what the experience might be.

Also if you are in no rush you could keep an eye out for the possible post holiday sales to get a lower price if that is a concern.

im thinking about added a third xfx DD 7950 3gb edition it cant hurt and its looks cool when ya have 2 cards in xfire or sli

I wouldn't. Not with AMD anyhow. I have 2x7970's and spend more time tweaking settings to make it run smooth than playing the game. Ass Creed, Farcry, and dishonored until it was patched and crap all played with 1 card turned off. Something is borked on current gen AMD hardware, it's a stutterfest.
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valkrien said:

I wouldn't. Not with AMD anyhow. I have 2x7970's and spend more time tweaking settings to make it run smooth than playing the game. Ass Creed, Farcry, and dishonored until it was patched and crap all played with 1 card turned off. Something is borked on current gen AMD hardware, it's a stutterfest.
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This just convinced me against getting a second card...

get a GTX 690 if you want dual gpu

Hitmanthe3rd said:

This just convinced me against getting a second card...

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Having used two 7870s I can tell you that his situation wasn't the same as mine. I never had any issues. Plugged them in, installed drivers and was off and running. Take his problem as just one.

123Lanoix said:

get a GTX 690 if you want dual gpu

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I would if I initially had not bought a video card. But I've had this 7970 since release. It would not make sense to just sell and buy a 690. I'm just trying to see what others think about having two cards and if their personal experiences have been good and if they viewed their purchase as "Worth it". But I appreciate the comment.

Hitmanthe3rd said:

I would if I initially had not bought a video card. But I've had this 7970 since release. It would not make sense to just sell and buy a 690. I'm just trying to see what others think about having two cards and if their personal experiences have been good and if they viewed their purchase as "Worth it". But I appreciate the comment.

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- 1 for a 690, +1 for xfire in your case unless money is not a issue. My experience with xfire in the last month resulted in multiple returns to my local store.

My original setup was 2 gtx 480's which I sold off. I usually update every 2 generations. After looking at the benchmarks on AMD's 7 series, I was impressed.

I bought 2 7970 reference cards for $379 with the intention of upgrading to the ghz bios. Started having issues with the screen turning off and the fans hitting 100% (a reboot every time) I ended up taking the cards back and buying 2 non reference cards - 2 7950 gigabyte windforces with a factory OC.

I was able to push these cards pretty good and was pretty happy with the end results until I started playing Far Cry 3! I tinkered with the cards for days, reverted back to stock, tried multiple drivers. I lowered the settings to low and the game would still crash after a few minutes not to mention it was barely playable even at the lowest settings? I figured it was a driver problem that would eventually get solved but the question is when. Far Cry 3 should be optimized for AMD from what I read so why the issues.

Other games such as Hitman ran good but if you upped all the settings, you could see micro stuttering even if the min fps were in the 40's ASC 3 was bugged at max AA

Older games such as The Witcher 2 ran good but newer games have all kinds of issues for some reason. If you are patient and don't care to wait for new drivers then another 7970 would prob be ok for you. I would not tinker with Overclocking as things seem to get even more problematic.

I really wanted to stick with these cards but after seeing others have problems with stuttering via xfire etc. I decided to return these cards in exchange for the non reference MSI Power Edition 670's

Great reviews on these cards, I wanted to get the GTX 680 MSI lightning but my local store didn't have them but these 670 cards rock out of the box! no more stuttering issues, Far Cry 3 was only running on 1 GPU at the time everything set to high with some screen tear but guess what, Nvidia released the fix already on their beta drivers via sli far cry 3 profile. The game runs like a dream now.

The cards run cooler, quieter etc. I really wish AMD would get a new driver team because their cards seem good but driver support still lacks.

My cpu is a 2700k OC @ 4.8 ghz btw

valkrien said:

I wouldn't. Not with AMD anyhow. I have 2x7970's and spend more time tweaking settings to make it run smooth than playing the game. Ass Creed, Farcry, and dishonored until it was patched and crap all played with 1 card turned off. Something is borked on current gen AMD hardware, it's a stutterfest.
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Srsly, going from 2 x 6870's, I will never get dual gpus ever again.

It's fast and smooth when your cards can push 60+ fps, but when it goes below it, stutters like crazy. Only game that it stutters for me is Planetside 2.

I would just change the settings to up the FPS. Im sure you can get a good amount back without having to give too much up.

I was an early adopter on the 7970 bus and had two reference models in xfire from Diamond nearly at launch. My previous GPU's were xfire 5xxx and 6xxx series cards which I had few issues with. The 7970's overclocked and benchmarked really good. But in BF3 it took some time to finally get rid of the micro studder which was annoying as hell and took a MSI Afterburner frame limiter to resolve. One of my 7970's died an early death and I simply never replaced it. Single card performance at slightly lower IQ settings was worth the sacrifice for me. Aside from that the recent drivers have been a mixed bag. I ran on the 12.4's for ages. Am now on the 12.11 BETA8 with not bad results. Display driver konks out every now and then when I try to start BF3. Runs well after a reboot. Bottom line.. I would not recommend another 7970. If I were in the market today I'd probably buy the NV offering. No regrets on my 7970 purchase as it was available months before NV released it's new lineup and runs good with some tweaking. But IMHO the NV offering is the stronger of the two in the top shelf category right this moment.

My2c.

Evil Scooter said:

I was an early adopter on the 7970 bus and had two reference models in xfire from Diamond nearly at launch. My previous GPU's were xfire 5xxx and 6xxx series cards which I had few issues with. The 7970's overclocked and benchmarked really good. But in BF3 it took some time to finally get rid of the micro studder which was annoying as hell and took a MSI Afterburner frame limiter to resolve. One of my 7970's died an early death and I simply never replaced it. Single card performance at slightly lower IQ settings was worth the sacrifice for me. Aside from that the recent drivers have been a mixed bag. I ran on the 12.4's for ages. Am now on the 12.11 BETA8 with not bad results. Display driver konks out every now and then when I try to start BF3. Runs well after a reboot. Bottom line.. I would not recommend another 7970. If I were in the market today I'd probably buy the NV offering. No regrets on my 7970 purchase as it was available months before NV released it's new lineup and runs good with some tweaking. But IMHO the NV offering is the stronger of the two in the top shelf category right this moment.

My2c.

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This is not good news for me as I just ordered a 7970 and plan on playing Battlefield and Far Cry 3 which comes with the card..... Why would they do a bundle when there are issues with the games it comes with???? I had serious ponderances of getting the GTX 680. Now it looks like I should have gone that way..... Crap....

louwillsea said:

This is not good news for me as I just ordered a 7970 and plan on playing Battlefield and Far Cry 3 which comes with the card..... Why would they do a bundle when there are issues with the games it comes with???? I had serious ponderances of getting the GTX 680. Now it looks like I should have gone that way..... Crap....

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You'll be fine with Far Cry 3 at least.(i dont play BF3)
The 12.11 beta 11 drivers along with the 12.11 CAP2 profiles play the game just fine and smooth with a pair of 7970's if you limit the fps to 60.

I'm running 7970 crossfire, works good for me, im not as fond of the AMD drivers as i am NV drivers, but the performance is great, no doubt about that.

mtdew332 said:

You'll be fine with Far Cry 3 at least.(i dont play BF3)
The 12.11 beta 11 drivers along with the 12.11 CAP2 profiles play the game just fine and smooth with a pair of 7970's if you limit the fps to 60.

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Have not played FC3 but a similar fix worked for me to cure the micro studder in BF3. I used AB to limit the framerate to 59.95. Seems silly but it worked.

To the OP, I wanted to update my experience with the GTX 670 power edition cards. Some more advanced games like Sleeping Dogs would not allow me to run AA at extreme so I decided to give AMD one more try. I ended up trading in for 2 MSI 7970 OC editions and am very surprised at how strong these cards are.

I can now run Sleeping Dogs on Extreme (1080p) min fps @ 59 which is amazing! Far Cry 3 also runs amazing with RadeonPro. One thing I did notice were the ATI cards had a somewhat darker image so I calibrated my settings. I couldn't be happier with these cards and would advice you to get a second 7970. I am not sure if you can flash the regular reference cards with the ghz bios, I think that's where I ran into problems with the first 2 and why they gave me so many problems. I would suggest at least a core clock of 1000 mhz on a ghz or non reference card IMO.

I prefer factory OC cards because I found it hard to find that sweet spot, hint why I was having so many problems with certain games crashing etc on the first 2 7970's (reference diamond edition)

Certainly amd drivers tend to need more tweaking especially in crossfire than nvidias. Normally radeon pro helps as it aids the drivers quite a bit.

Having said that up until far cry 3 i had zero problems in games in cf i did fix far cry 3 with a modified xml file see the thread on the iq review here, i have posted the changes to make to the xml. I tried afterburner and radeon pro neither worked changing the xml worked and now its a good experience in cf in dx11.

^^ Agree. My last 3 generation GPU's have been AMD. Upgraded from a GTX 275 to a pair of 5870's> then a pair of shader unlocked 6950's> then a pair of 7970's. AMD drivers have not been "horrible". IMHO they do tend to need a lot more tweaking than NV, but once you get them running right the price/performance has been worth it to me. With NV drivers I used to grab and install nearly every release. With AMD drivers if you have a working set... unless the new drivers have something specific for what you do.. stick with the working set. I think it's the constant tweaking on new driver releases that drives most people crazy with AMD.

My2c.

Evil Scooter said:

^^ Agree. My last 3 generation GPU's have been AMD. Upgraded from a GTX 275 to a pair of 5870's> then a pair of shader unlocked 6950's> then a pair of 7970's. AMD drivers have not been "horrible". IMHO they do tend to need a lot more tweaking than NV, but once you get them running right the price/performance has been worth it to me. With NV drivers I used to grab and install nearly every release. With AMD drivers if you have a working set... unless the new drivers have something specific for what you do.. stick with the working set. I think it's the constant tweaking on new driver releases that drives most people crazy with AMD.

My2c.

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I agree with the drivers remark. Get a set that works, keep them. That being said, Software side, I haven't had much issues with drivers. It's all been Hardware issues with my headaches the last couple of months.

As has been said, limit frame rate with afterburner, if that doesn't work try Radeon Pro. Fixed a lot of problems with games like Brotherhood and Skyrim.

Crossfire has generally been a very good experience for me so far. I've had my 7950s for a few months now and have been pretty happy. Its been pretty plug and play for me and I use tri-fire which some people claim is even more problematic.

I'd go for double 7970 if I got funds to do this. So if you do just get it and enough +20/30 FPS.

Since this post was bumped recently and i contributed about my x-fire 7xxx series card experience in FC3, i figured it would helpful to those who are reading this to know that there is a better fix that works in FC3 with AMD cards in x-fire than just limiting the FPS.

It is mentioned above also by Orthello,
So i'll just copy/paste a quote of his from the FC3 thread.

For 7970 crossfire users, this helped a lot to reduce stutter. From guru3d forums on the 12.11 betas.

"I added a line to the gamerprofile.xml located in \Documents\My Games\Far Cry 3. Type MaxFPS="60" Gfx_Maxfps="60" after ShowFPS ="0", save it and set the file to read only."

Also i forced vsync to on in ccc.

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For now, that is by far the best fix for x-fire stutter in FC3 until AMD releases a better working x-fire driver for that particular game.

Upgrade to crossfire now and you will still be tweaking it when 8970 comes out

Hitmanthe3rd said:

Hey! I have a single one right now, I am considering getting another. I play in Eyefinity and experience about 30 frames in BF3. Are there any other players out there that play in eyefinity and recommend a second card? What is your framerate across 3 screens on ultra? Also what about Farcry 3 and other high end games? With Metro last light coming out I am really considering getting another card. BF3 is also a lot of fun, and I'd love to be able to play on ultra across 3. I guess I'm just wondering is spending another $360 worth it?

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I play at 2560x1600 with two crossfire 7970s. Not a single issue so far. I even flashed it to the 7970 GHz BIOS and was perfectly stable. The only reason why reverted back was, because of the heat and noise with the 7970 GHz Bios. But overall no issues no lockups no grey screen of death. Been working great on my X58 rig. But there are a few games that are not multigpu friendly. So be ready to disable crossfire for those rare games that don't like multiGPU setups.

Mr Mean said:

I play at 2560x1600 with two crossfire 7970s. Not a single issue so far. I even flashed it to the 7970 GHz BIOS and was perfectly stable. The only reason why reverted back was, because of the heat and noise with the 7970 GHz Bios. But overall no issues no lockups no grey screen of death. Been working great on my X58 rig. But there are a few games that are not multigpu friendly. So be ready to disable crossfire for those rare games that don't like multiGPU setups.

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Thats pretty much my experience as well. I've been pretty happy with crossfire so far.

I have 2, and honestly aside from bitcoining, I wouldnt make the same purchase again.

have not read thread, do not need to

this is [H]

of course you should, plus a 690 for PhysX

duh

you can always find the 7990 hahaha but yea adding another 7970 would be up to you since your not gonna have double the power really./

I'm happy with my cfx 7970s and eyefinity setup. Far cry 3 is running just fine for me. At first I kept getting crashes, but that was due to "crc" errors during install from a corrupted installer. After I redownloaded the installer and installed without any errors the game is running perfectly. I never had any issues with BF3 with these cards.

the 7970s are awesome, just in the beginning you know the CCC errors which are just common with every new card haha

FaRKle0079 said:

I'm happy with my cfx 7970s and eyefinity setup. Far cry 3 is running just fine for me. At first I kept getting crashes, but that was due to "crc" errors during install from a corrupted installer. After I redownloaded the installer and installed without any errors the game is running perfectly. I never had any issues with BF3 with these cards.

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Did you get the minimap/HUD fixed on Eyefinity in Far Cry 3? I keep getting the issue where message popups are off screen and 1/4 of the minimap as well.

Nicterys said:

Did you get the minimap/HUD fixed on Eyefinity in Far Cry 3? I keep getting the issue where message popups are off screen and 1/4 of the minimap as well.

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They're fine for me. Not sure if that has to do with me being in portrait mode though.

Yea I just assume the HUD is adjusting itself vertically to a 16:9 ratio with the monitors in landscape and making parts go off screen; hope it gets fixed since the game looks too good to just play on just one monitor or go hardcore and hide the entire HUD.

A "trick" that I use when a game doesn't support Crossfire well is that I simply run the game in windowed /fullscreen window mode - That way crossfire gets disabled since it doesn't work in window mode and you won't have to fiddle with things.

I do the same for games that does not play well with Eyefinity, then I just run it borderless window in single screen resolution.

Sure, it's not optimal not to be able to utilize your hardware all the time, but that is life I guess.

I am running 2x6870's and will continue to do so until next generation comes out, not really worth the money to upgrade currently.

Nicterys said:

Did you get the minimap/HUD fixed on Eyefinity in Far Cry 3? I keep getting the issue where message popups are off screen and 1/4 of the minimap as well.

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Doesn't work for me with bezel correction - It is marginally better in "standard" resolution, but not good enough. It's a shame they keep forgetting the UI - So often UI elements are tied to the sides of the screen, not very ideal to have to turn your head to the other side of the livingroom to be able to see your healthbar or the minimap, etc.