R9 390 - add crossfire?

[TroyTalksNoMore]

I can add a brand new R9 390 for $260 today...

Should I do it?

Current RIG:
EVGA 1300W SuperNOVA G2 PSU
MSI Z97A Gaming7 mobo
i7-4790K cpu / stock cooler
16GB RAM DDR3xPC3-12800 GSKIL RipJawsX
HGST 4TB 7.2K RPM HD
Gigabyte G1 R9 390 8GB
47" Philips LCD TV (1920x1080)

 

[ChosenUno]

Not worth it at this stage. Maybe 3-4 months ago but not when there's the 1070 that'll be superior to your CFX and/or CFX 480.

 

[TroyTalksNoMore]

I have one R9 390 (8GB ram) installed right now..

How is one 1070 (8GB ram) @ $380 - better than two R9 390's (16GB ram) if all I need to spend today is $260?

I guess I could sell my 390 for the $120 difference & break even, but... would one 1070 8GB beat two 390's 16GB?

I'm sure the next suggestion will be two RX 480's (4GB ram each / 8GB ram total) @ $400.

Same question - how is that better than two R9 390's (16GB ram total) @ $260 today & no hassle to sell the old card?

I have plenty of PSU & I don't think the other options beat this price point & that's why I am asking.

Can either of those (one 1070 or two 480's) beat two R9 390's in crossfire (16 GB ram total) @ $260 today?

I'm not buying a new monitor, so 1080 is all I will be doing for another year or two.

 

[dook43]

Good performing CFX is recently available only from DICE. So if you plan to play a lot of Battlefield or are against Nvidia as I am, I'd say to go ahead.

There are profiles for Fallout and Overwatch now but the second card is barely used.

The DX12 landscape is murky due to the use of explicit multi adapter.

 

[MrGreg62]

Why do you keep referring to 2 cards having double the amount of ram? That's not the way it works until DX12 titles become plentiful and are properly coded for it so figure a couple of years to see wide spread usage. In their current state C\F and SLI offer no benefit V-ram wise over a single card.

 

[Napoleon]

I have one R9 390 (8GB ram) installed right now..

How is one 1070 (8GB ram) @ $380 - better than two R9 390's (16GB ram) if all I need to spend today is $260?

I guess I could sell my 390 for the $120 difference & break even, but... would one 1070 8GB beat two 390's 16GB?

I'm sure the next suggestion will be two RX 480's (4GB ram each / 8GB ram total) @ $400.

Same question - how is that better than two R9 390's (16GB ram total) @ $260 today & no hassle to sell the old card?

I have plenty of PSU & I don't think the other options beat this price point & that's why I am asking.

Can either of those (one 1070 or two 480's) beat two R9 390's in crossfire (16 GB ram total) @ $260 today?

I'm not buying a new monitor, so 1080 is all I will be doing for another year or two.

Depends on your game and the scaling advantage. Within the next 1-2 months the whole new and used GPU landscape will change with the 1080/1070 and 480 dropping. Try to be patient and you'll be able to get either that same card for less or a better card for a similar amount. Multi GPU support is waiving

 

[ChosenUno]

Judging from past trends multi GPUs doesn't look good at all. Support has been flaky at best.

You're betting the farm on 2 things that IMO will likely not happen: Good CFX support (not gonna happen EVER IMO) and/or good multiadapter implementation in the game (also unlikely, since implementation takes a lot of dev time, but hard to market).

Even AotS, with its excellent mGPU implementation, we haven't seen marketing materials regarding that much. So as it stands right now it's not a good marketing bullet point and so there's really no reason for devs to implement it correctly and well.

 

[silent-circuit]

Two 480s will be faster than your 390 setup and only cost a little more, plus you'll get support and focus in driver optimization for longer. Honestly, right now, unless you have a single 980Ti, 390X, or Fury / Fury X and are picking up a second /really/ cheap, the newer cards are going to be the better choice 99% of the time. You're two generations behind now, and you don't even have the fastest card of that generation. Buying another 390 right now is throwing money away.

 

[TroyTalksNoMore]

Thanks guys, the drunken urge to spend money seems to have passed...

I had never really read about the marginal benefits of crossfire or 2nd card memory use.

My current R9 390 8GB isn't really struggling in many games @ 1080.

I typically run ULTRA or HIGHEST presets & if I'm not getting a steady 60 FPS I turn down some options.

Racing games are worst, but only when there are 15-20 cars on screen at the start & first lap or two.

I just bought RB6 Siege & it doesn't look or run as nice as I expected at ULTRA so I need to turn some stuff down.

 

[harmattan]

Good move. I just sold my 295x2 and would recommend waiting. I've had multi-GPU solutions for the past 10+ years and driver support, especially for Crossfire, has really taken a nosedive in the past year. I'd say about 1/3 of new games have good support, 1/3 has some support with issues (flickering, low 2nd GPU utilization), and for the remaining 1/3 it's broke entirely or not supported. The issues are sometimes fixed in games, but not until months after release if ever. I don't really subscribe to the "look at the games you play" advice since even if the games you play now have good Crossfire/SLI support there's no telling what new games you'll wamt to play will do.

I'd recommend going with the fastest single GPU card you can afford -- this means 1070 or 1080 right now, or Vega if you want to wait longer. Unfortunately, a single RX 480 isn't going to cut it for your needs.

I myself will consider 480 Crossfire once released if performance is good, but only because I have a Freesync monitor and refuse to pay the Gsync tax.

 

[c3k]

Yeah...my experiences with both SLI & CFX now have me firmly in the " one gpu" camp.

DX12 may change that...but widespread DX12 gaming is, imo, 1 1/2 to 2 yrs away. At best.

 

[tesfaye]

Each time I've dealt with SLI I've been burned. There's always some game I enjoy playing that would benefit from SLI/Crossfire but just doesn't work well with it.