Crossfire or single gpu

Neex

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May 16, 2013
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Hey guys i was wondering. I have an opportunity to get another 6870 for $70 to crossfire. Should I invest that $70 for a crossfire or just spend the extra money on to upgrade to a single stronger gpu. I know that the 6870 draws a lot of power and expend more heat than the current cards. But for for $70 do you think its worth it? Also it would also benefit as a backup gpu(even though either way ill have a backup gpu lol).
 
$70 for a 6870 in general for that card is a GREAT price. Cross firing those video cards would make a difference, now as far as how noticeable that difference is, that's the question. Buy it for $70, resell it if there isn't a big difference to you.
 
Nothing to be afraid of when it comes to crossfire, but that setup would have 1gb Vram. consider your needs in that regard.
 
Here is what I think.
AMD = Best single card you can afford. Run from multi-GPU.
Nvidia = Only viable option for multi-GPU.

And even then, you can usually sell what you've got and get a single card that will equal the performance of the 2 cards together for about the same money and avoid the pitfalls of multi-GPU. If you want to do multi-GPU, do it from the start. Buying a fancy motherboard and thinking your gonna stick it to the man by adding a GPU later is a fools game.

imho
 
Good deal on the 6870, but I think you're going to be hitting that 1 GB VRAM wall really fast. I think it would be wise to sell your current 6870 and fund a more substantial single card upgrade.
 
Thanks guys!, Im just gonna go ahead and buy it and resell if im not pleased. lets see what happens! For an upgrade what do you suggest?
 
I have to say CrossfireX did not work for me out of the gate; in most cases I was getting worse performance than a single 6950, at first. It took an evening of tweaking (uninstalling, cleaning, reinstalling drivers; reseating cards, trying different bridges, testing cards individually, etc.) and custom profiles to get my cards to clock correctly and get the expected performance, so I'd have to say that I'll never go AMD CFX again.
 
I have to say CrossfireX did not work for me out of the gate; in most cases I was getting worse performance than a single 6950, at first. It took an evening of tweaking (uninstalling, cleaning, reinstalling drivers; reseating cards, trying different bridges, testing cards individually, etc.) and custom profiles to get my cards to clock correctly and get the expected performance, so I'd have to say that I'll never go AMD CFX again.

That is somewhat disheartening to hear lol
 
I have to say CrossfireX did not work for me out of the gate; in most cases I was getting worse performance than a single 6950, at first. It took an evening of tweaking (uninstalling, cleaning, reinstalling drivers; reseating cards, trying different bridges, testing cards individually, etc.) and custom profiles to get my cards to clock correctly and get the expected performance, so I'd have to say that I'll never go AMD CFX again.

Whatever it was in your case that cause it to "not work", that is certainly an atypical result. The vast majority of crossfire users have good experiences without the need for constant tweaks or adjustments.

In most cases where I've diagnosed crossfire issues, it comes down to either user error or user ignorance. Some don't know that if you run a game in windowed mode, crossfire is disabled automatically. Some users run their game in a maximized window, which is functionally identical to fullscreen but still allows you to move your mouse off the primary screen onto a secondary screen while the main window is in-focus. It doesn't matter. No fullscreen = no crossfire. In other cases users have been misinformed about Catalyst AI. Some think this is a bad thing and needs to be disabled, but if you disable Catalyst AI, you disable crossfire. In that sense, crossfire does have it's quirks, but it's really nothing to be afraid of.
 
Single GPU whenever possible. Consider multi-GPU only when you've exhausted all other upgrade possibilities.
 
I have to say CrossfireX did not work for me out of the gate; in most cases I was getting worse performance than a single 6950, at first. It took an evening of tweaking (uninstalling, cleaning, reinstalling drivers; reseating cards, trying different bridges, testing cards individually, etc.) and custom profiles to get my cards to clock correctly and get the expected performance, so I'd have to say that I'll never go AMD CFX again.

Same here, I have a bunch of 7950's for mining and when I tried running two of them for some gaming, it was just problem after problem. One was fantastic however.
 
Whatever it was in your case that cause it to "not work", that is certainly an atypical result. The vast majority of crossfire users have good experiences without the need for constant tweaks or adjustments.

In most cases where I've diagnosed crossfire issues, it comes down to either user error or user ignorance. Some don't know that if you run a game in windowed mode, crossfire is disabled automatically. Some users run their game in a maximized window, which is functionally identical to fullscreen but still allows you to move your mouse off the primary screen onto a secondary screen while the main window is in-focus. It doesn't matter. No fullscreen = no crossfire. In other cases users have been misinformed about Catalyst AI. Some think this is a bad thing and needs to be disabled, but if you disable Catalyst AI, you disable crossfire. In that sense, crossfire does have it's quirks, but it's really nothing to be afraid of.

Oh I'm sure every instance of CFX fucking up is environmental, including mine, or at least PEBKAC. But production software obviously isn't deployed in a vacuum, so it should really be a bit more resilient when interacting with various configurations. I ran 7900GT SLI about 4 upgrades ago and it was the easiest thing ever. I'm just disappointed that my first experience with CFX was so poor.

I wished it was something so simple like disabling CatalystAI, or not running a game in fullscreen, or forgetting to load the latest CAP profiles. Nope. In my case, even after dozens of driver uninstalls, driver sweeps in safe mode, and reinstallations, I discovered that my cards would refuse to clock correctly when gaming. I had to use custom presets in CCC to manually clock my cards to about 800/1300 and control the fan speeds when I'm about to game. Otherwise the cards would stick between 200-400 core and 1300 memory (2D/video playback clocks).

I'm still running this same setup; I hit a hotkey to spin up my cards and get my game on. Then when I'm done, I hit a hotkey to cool them down, then hit another hotkey to set them to idle speeds for web browsing.
 
Thanks guys!, Im just gonna go ahead and buy it and resell if im not pleased. lets see what happens! For an upgrade what do you suggest?

For an upgrade? Do you mean what game should you get? Far Cry 3 is a good one. It'll push your two cards, and it stays below a gig of VRAM usage.
 
As of this point crossfire is not the best option. Get yourself a single 7970 and enjoy runt free microstutter free driver free problems
 
Im sorry, I mean a nice single gpu upgrade. Ive been looking into the gtx 770 but then again i want to see what amd has to bring with their new line of gpus.... if they ever come out........
 
Either a 7970 or a 770 would be good choices right now. 760 or 7950 if you want to bleed less money.

I would avoid Crossfire... it still has a lot of quirks, not to mention the microstutter if your frame-rates drop far below v-sync level. Basically with Crossfire, you have to maintain high framerates... at least on a single GPU you can get by at 30fps and still be playable.
 
Either a 7970 or a 770 would be good choices right now. 760 or 7950 if you want to bleed less money.

I would avoid Crossfire... it still has a lot of quirks, not to mention the microstutter if your frame-rates drop far below v-sync level. Basically with Crossfire, you have to maintain high framerates... at least on a single GPU you can get by at 30fps and still be playable.
perfectly said and explained ;)
 
As an owner of 6850 crossfire for a short period of time i'd suggest finding some more productive usage for your dollars.

For example you could burn them in fireplace, or use them to mark the place where you finished reading book ;)
 
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