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6850 crossfire decision

C

Carphunter

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Joined
Dec 16, 2007
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53
I'm running my comp out to my 67" tv. 1920x1080.

It works great, but my 8800 gts 512 is showing its age.

I've read lots of test results where the crossfired 6850's generally handily beat the newer 1-card solutions (570, etc) at this resolution.

I'm searching now, but is crossfiring (never done it before) fairly straightforward, simple and robust?

I anticipate gaming, and probably trying to run blu-ray movies out through the cards to my system. (main games are bfbc2, bioshock 1/2, starcraft 2, etc

any card to stay away from?

I'm currently looking at the sapphire model as I can get the bestish price on that. Really wishing with the introduction of new cards, the prices 6850's in general would drop more

I'll be putting them into a i7 950 306 machine, 6gb ram, 690 advanced case, hx750 power supply, asus p6 P6X58D-E. air cooled

oh, and if I'm missing some obvious great alternative to this setup, love to hear it.
 
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I have only crossfired 4850s so I can't speak to your specific scenario.

For me, I would say go for it, assuming you have a moderate amount of tech skill and don't mind potentially having to tinker a bit when you first set it up.

I don't think it's as easy as plugging in the single card, but generally, it's not a big deal and is fairly straight forward.
 
Xfired 6850's will be good.....bit more of a pain at times to get going(from what i have read), i can say that a single 6870 works great on my 1920x1080 monitor, so maybe grab one of them, and crossfire later on if you feel a need for it....
 
Robust is a word that tends to be mutually exclusive with multi-gpu setups (xfire or sli.) When it works, it tends to work very well, but if you're looking for ease of use and maximum compatibility with little to no headaches, I'd say a powerful single card solution is going to be your best bet. I would recommend a 6950 or 6970 given your needs.
 
(main games are bfbc2, bioshock 1/2, starcraft 2, etc
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for these games at 1080p, as well as blu-ray, I'd get a single card solution, crossfire is pretty much unnecessary.

Not sure about Nvidia's capability of bitstreaming audio and etc, but I can heartily recommend a 6950.
 
When you play at 1920x1080 resolution, you really don't need do crossfire. Just buy one 6970 instead.
 
mrrogers747 said:
Robust is a word that tends to be mutually exclusive with multi-gpu setups (xfire or sli.) When it works, it tends to work very well, but if you're looking for ease of use and maximum compatibility with little to no headaches, I'd say a powerful single card solution is going to be your best bet. I would recommend a 6950 or 6970 given your needs.
Click to expand...

Spoken like someone with little multi-GPU experience. I'm not saying that's necessarily the case here, but it sure sounds like it. I've had multi-GPU / multi-card setups since the Voodoo2 12MB SLI and the 6800 GT / Ultra days. Excluding the first few months of SLI being enabled in NVIDIA's drivers, I've had no more problems with these configurations than you'd have with a typical single card setup. It's rare that Crossfire or SLI is broken in a game and a single card of that same model performs / functions correctly in the same game. Again problems of this nature were more prevalent in the early days of SLI and Crossfire but this hasn't been true for years. I can't remember the last time I had to disable SLI or Crossfire to get a game working. I've also benefited from multi-card setups from day one in almost every game I've ever tried. Granted with SLI I've had to setup my own SLI profile a time or two, but generally it's always given me a performance boost at every turn. Crossfire has been more or less the same. Once or twice I had to wait a week for a driver update.

Crossfire and SLI tend to work fairly well. No the scaling isn't necessarily always ideal nor is it 100% problem free, but generally speaking it's not much if any more problematic than a single card or single GPU solution is.
 
Crossfire appears to be scaling excellent with these 6000 series too.

However, I would consider getting a single 6950/70 for the time being. Reason is that they have 2gb memory. You don't need it now but maybe in a few months. Plus, there is always the option, later on when the cards are cheaper, of going crossfire.

Just what I would do.
 
Carphunter said:
i'm in the wrong forum to ask... but 6950, 6970, or 570?
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If you're looking for "best bang for your buck", I find a pair of Sapphire 6850's hard to beat. You just need to have the second card sent to an alternate address for the 2nd $15 rebate.

Newegg pricing
$310 - Sapphire 6850 AR $155 (x2)
$305 - Sapphire 6950
$350 - MSI/PNY GTX570
$370 - Sapphire 6970
$533 - Gigabyte GTX580

If you compare the performance of 6850 CF to either the 6950 or 6970, it's not even close. Heck, even compare them to a single GTX580:

34626.png

34629.png

34632.png

34635.png

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34644.png


Two crossfired 6850's at $310 are typically faster than a GTX580, which is a $500+ card. And yet the two 6850 cards together consume less power both at idle and while under load than the single GTX580. That's quite a price/performance difference.
 
I have done Crossfire, with my current setup as well, and I find that its underwhelming. Just buy the more expensive single card that does the performance of those two cards unless you are getting the best available and want to crossfire, in which case is a waste because it would last you until the new DirectX anyways unless your playing at insane resolutions that no normal person uses.

One BIG reason why not to crossfire is if you play any game in Windowed mode more often than not it will not crossfire for those games.

Also I have NEVER seen the ridiculous performance jumps that these benchmarks say you get on crossfire in real life, on anyones computer. Its a big jump but not 100 FPS, more like 20, unless you are playing really old games that a single card is already more than enough for like BFBC2 listed above.

If, after a time, you find that games are underperforming after a couple of years due to new graphics and there is no DX12 in sight buy the 2nd card of what you got for $100 or whatever cheap price you can get it for and then crossfire it.
 
Dan_D said:
Spoken like someone with little multi-GPU experience. I'm not saying that's necessarily the case here, but it sure sounds like it. I've had multi-GPU / multi-card setups since the Voodoo2 12MB SLI and the 6800 GT / Ultra days. Excluding the first few months of SLI being enabled in NVIDIA's drivers, I've had no more problems with these configurations than you'd have with a typical single card setup. It's rare that Crossfire or SLI is broken in a game and a single card of that same model performs / functions correctly in the same game. Again problems of this nature were more prevalent in the early days of SLI and Crossfire but this hasn't been true for years. I can't remember the last time I had to disable SLI or Crossfire to get a game working. I've also benefited from multi-card setups from day one in almost every game I've ever tried. Granted with SLI I've had to setup my own SLI profile a time or two, but generally it's always given me a performance boost at every turn. Crossfire has been more or less the same. Once or twice I had to wait a week for a driver update.

Crossfire and SLI tend to work fairly well. No the scaling isn't necessarily always ideal nor is it 100% problem free, but generally speaking it's not much if any more problematic than a single card or single GPU solution is.
Click to expand...

That is true, Dan. The only xfire experience I've had is with a 4870x2. It was giving me some issues with being finnicky with certain drivers, and also horrid performance in Starcraft 2 unless I disabled the 2nd gpu by disabling catalyst AI. So my experience is definitely limited, but the one I had was subpar, though I do plan on giving it another shot when my budget allows.

I'm frequently on the forums and am mainly going by what I see from other people's experiences, and from what I can see xfire/sli setups require a bit more fine-tuning than single card setups to work properly. Though it's certainly possible the ones complaining are the vocal minority not representative of the majority of happy, problem-free xfire users.

I just figured with the OPs resolution (1920x1080) and seeking something robust, he'd be better off getting a fast single card knowing he'd always get maximum performance and avoid any *potential* issues a multi-card setup can bring. Plus he could always grab an extra card later if he feels the upgrade itch.
 
From a guy who actually has 6850 crossfire, its fantastic. No problems so far, other than the install process (had a few issues I think stemming from the fact that I have 1 Gigabyte and 1 XFX card, and it took a couple tries swapping card positions installing/reinstalling the drivers, but it really didn't take that much work or time to get it done). I have NO regrets about getting the second 6850- its been awesome. I'm even gaming at 1920x1080. I decided to get the second card so that when I get the cash (or gifts :-D) I can move to eyefinity without needing to add more GPU power.
 
As a person that is running CrossFireX, I would advise you buy the best single card you can afford. At some point in the future get a second one then do CrossFireX. If you really want to use CrossFireX from the start, install one card, install the video driver, restart a few time double checking that the driver is correctly installed. Once everything is working properly, shut down the computer, install the second card (cross your fingers) start the computer go into CCC and see if you can turn on CrossFireX. If you can it should be working fine. If CCC does not detect the second card then you are going to have a fight on your hands.

Good luck.
 
A pair of Gigabyte 6850s here :

TestBenchRevI-03.jpg


Getting ~160 fps max. on SC2 @ 1920x1200 max settings compared to ~120 fps max. with a single 6850. Driver used : Catalyst 10.12A Hotfix
 
Single GPU setups are more reliable, and if you're not running a high resolution, there really isn't a need for crossfire. As an owner of two Sapphire 6850s, I'd say skip it.
 
just to let you know, i went with a 570. thanks for all the back and forth and comments. gave me ideas to use when running searches to find other people's experiences. I don't think the 6850's would have been much of a hassle for me to set up...but i've got a lot of other irons in the fire right now, and extra computer dinkin' around isn't high on my list of priorities :)
 
Those are synthetic benchmarks up there? Because AMD/ATI cards seem to do much better in benchmarks/synthetics than actual games :eek:

Anyways, you won't be disappointed with the 570, its a great card!
 
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