Movin on up from a 6990

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Cataulin

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 22, 2010
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My 6990 is starting to show its age. I was looking into saving up for a 290x when they come down in price once the 390's come out. I'd like to stay away from dual gpu cards as with the 6990 I really saw how bad crossfire was. If its gotten better I'd be more than happy to do it again but I still see people saying crossfire/sli isn't worth it(at least not till directx 12). Would this be the proper upgrade path for me? What are my other options from here?
 
You are waiting still even more to a 290X wich already can be found in some cases for less than 300$ AR?. sincerely the 290X its a palpable upgrade over your 6990.. This link show you what kind of performance you can expect going from the 6990 to the 290X. I think if you are already are negated to buy a 390 then why just not buy a good second hand 290X? you will not find it anything cheaper tomorrow or in the next couple of months as they are already selling at bargain prices.. if you are going to wait longer then just buy next gen cards..
 
I've been using an HD7990 for the past two years and I've never had much of an issue with crossfire, honestly. Outside of a few games in my collection (mostly ID games... Rage/Doom3/Wolf:NO) everything works great. My last GPU, a GTX295 (SLi on a stick) also rarely gave me problems.

With that said... I do see the appeal of a single GPU, but with DX12 and Vulkan on the horizon, it seems more worth while than ever to run an SLi or Crossfire setup from what I've been reading (pooling the VRAM sounds awesome). I'm not sure if current gen GPU's will be able to do that though...

I'd wait a few more months if I were you and see how that all pans out. Might end up kicking yourself for buying now
 
well the 290x probably will not drop much more in price regardless of when the 390s come out at 600 dollars...so...keep that in mind......now if you might be able to spend 600 then by all means wait it out
To me most of the positive effects from dx12 will be on the cpu side using more cores a lot easier (mostly)
 
considering there is really not that much longer to wait for win 10 as well as R3xx series I would wait on them, and there are some AWESOME 290/290x cards out there for excellent prices, the difference between 290/290x 9/10 is clock speeds as far as performance in concerned and there are some seriously high factory overclocked 290s which can be had less then many 290.

The pricing on these cards is just amazing really is considering the amount of horsepower they have,cant wait to see the 380-390s to see what they are bringing to the table with all the fancy new additions. I just hope win 10 isn't some pastel colored crap like win 8 has been let alone funky crud what msft now considers to be a "desktop" I seriously hope they made things far easier to control as win 7 is a breeze compared to 8/8.1 and apparently suffered less backwards compatibility problems then them as well.

TLDR wait or get a high clocked 290 such as MSI 290 Lightning or Sapphire VaporX based.
 
Thanks guys. you both raise valid points. I'll hold on and see if I can find if its something I am doing wrong. It'll let me hold on to my current card and time to save and upgrade from there. I don't plan on pay 600 for one card but I may be able to get maybe a decent CS/SLI setup for less that that. The 6990 is a great card but I think its just time to pass it on to the wife(if it fits her case).
 
from what I have heard of the 6k series is they did not handle memory transactions very well, so it could be specific to the card in question due to its Uarch or drivers(not using best ones) etc. Dual gpu have always had issues Nvidia and AMD both there is wins and losses always has been DX12 should fix much of it, but then have to get used to a possible UI that is crap :( yeh wait a bit more best bet, prices might go down some I don't see jumping but easiest to see whe everything is on the table :)
 
Was your experience with Crossfire and the 6990 really that bad? I ran 2x 4870x2 in Quad Crossfire for years until I upgraded to 2x GTX680 in SLI in 2012 or so. Crossfire always worked quite well in all of the games I cared about. It left me with so many good memories; If I was in your shoes, I'd be tempted to find another cheap used 6990 for Quad CF, or even a 6970 for Triple CF.
 
GotNoRice said:
Was your experience with Crossfire and the 6990 really that bad? I ran 2x 4870x2 in Quad Crossfire for years until I upgraded to 2x GTX680 in SLI in 2012 or so. Crossfire always worked quite well in all of the games I cared about. It left me with so many good memories; If I was in your shoes, I'd be tempted to find another cheap used 6990 for Quad CF, or even a 6970 for Triple CF.
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Maybe if it was a 7990. A GCN gpu is a must going forward at this point, with DX12/Vulcan just around the corner.
 
yep 7k series and up will gain the absolute most from it, I think all comes down to drivers personally as not all are created equal as any miner will tell you let alone gamers. Not to mention 4870 and 6k series while still being radeon are not at all the same(both gpu and both have memory etc :p) so to say 1 series worked very well why wont the other, not all multi-gpu setups work the same simple as that, 6k and 5k series as well were/are quite different there are many things that can throw performance up and down provided the cpu/subsystem is robust enough to take advantage of it.

Cooling, drivers, background tasks, program in question etc, if it was a simple answer multi-gpu setups would be 100% efficient, and well they are not XD. I do know at least from my limited experience it took A LONG TIME for the 4k series to crossfire quite well, the 5k did apparently extremely well for the most part 6k hit and miss 7k depending on card in question, R200 series apparently quite well for most part..

For me was all about the cooling or lack thereof, very few cases give reasonable room for proper cooling let alone many of the best cards cooling wise are non reference and generally those dual/triple fan setups are crud for multi-card cooling, 1 card generally will be a solid 15c or more cooler then the other, to each their own, I refuse to run my card at a near constant 85c+ and listen to a crazy loud fan while keeping it at that temperature level cards simple will not last the long haul as such.

They really really need to make a better reference blower as pure and simple these are the BEST way to keep a multi-gpu config cool at least for 1 of the cards ^.^
 
I may try if I can find a 6970 cheap enough just for fun. My experiences with the 6990 are pretty good in general. Its just with my wifes HD 7770(even in cf) and gtx 660 setup it just seems so much more smoother. I would love to find a 7990 for a fair price though.
 
nothing in the world will give you a more smoother gameplay than single card setup.. that's why its always recommended to go with the higher tier and stronger single GPU that your money can buy.. a single 290X will still be more powerful than triple 6970 setup and will give you a more consistent gameplay, no profile issues, no frametime issues (which are present in the 6900 series) and so on.. the benefit of a single card will always be greater than multiple GPU setup..
 
7k series are "newer" and they have had the time to get more overall "extra" out of them, the 69xx series as well was the first time they used the specific design VLIW4 to my knowledge so there was certain losses and gains by doing so, I know 7700 specifically had issues early on the did not allow the memory to feed the gpu properly often enough which cause major performance issues single card let alone multi card for quite awhile.

Anyways, what I am saying is they took a "new" approach with much of the 6k series to make them more "efficient" having similar performance with "less" then the 5k they replaced, 69xx however were a "new" breed in their designs which showed good and bad some of which they couldn't directly "fix" with just drivers, 7k did in fact fix much of the 6k series "downfalls" the R2xx series again sorted out any general "problems" the 7k/8k series had for the most part, I am certain R3xx will be even more so "fleshed out" to address any inherent "flaws" they have had for the past couple of generations.

Don't get me wrong Radeon all the way for me, but I suppose there is +/- for all product stacks at bargain end they do get bottlenecked for not having quite enough oomph and the top end generally are power/heat issues let alone when using fancier setups i.e the bleeding edge.

I suppose in general sense beyond anything else, 5970 was/is a more familiar design then 69xx let alone a dual gpu 69xx card i.e easier to sort general performance issues and such out (VLIW5 vsVLIW4) let alone the faster memory, newer bridges and so forth, 7k was many of the same basic designs used in 5k and 6k so again more time to "sort out"

Anyways, I like talking for nothing, I honestly would think at this point to get the most "value" don't bother going another say 6970 or 6990 are a "new" card will cost less in far more ways then one IMHO ^.^

As for single/multi-gpu well I suppose win 10 with supposed "advances" in multi-gpu will show the gains or whatever they have in store though mark my words Nvidia will find a way to fk consumers over as they usually do ROFL
 
If your experience with crossfire was poor, I'd scoop up a 290/290x with decent cooling.

If not, I'd wait.
 
I have a few buddies that went with MSI 285, MSI 280x gaming, 290 and 290x gaming and lighting they are all VERY happy with noise, performance and power use, all depends on resolution and settings you use, but 280/285/280X are no slouches not by a long shot, 290 is a great performer with ample "extras" and seems to be ~the best current radeon price/performance overall IMHO as say MSI 290 gaming last I looked was ~$80 less expensive then same 290x, 290x IMHO again is not really worth that extra cost as there is enough clock speed overhead you can gain it back in 95% of cases and that odd 5% is not at all a game breaker, but hey to each their own.

R380x is going to be the "new" 7970 Ghz beast with the 380 supplanting the 7870XT "darling" ^.^ price rumors so far sound very positive.
 
Araxie said:
a single 290X will still be more powerful than triple 6970 setup and will give you a more consistent gameplay, no profile issues, no frametime issues (which are present in the 6900 series) and so on...
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I thought the frame issues were just me. Even when pushing the card there is issues like this I wasn't able to overcome.
 
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