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To Crossfire or not?

L

LordLeeCH

Weaksauce
Joined
Oct 6, 2006
Messages
66
So, a friend of mine and I have discussed this topic for some time now.

I am currently completely absorbed in to Far Cry 3. It's about the only game I play worth noting.

I have an HD 6870 card and I was thinking of tossing in a second HD 6870. I have found them used as low at $129.00.

My problem is this; after reading the recent H reveiw on crossfire vs sli performance, I think I would get what I am going for. I already average around 40 fps. If I add a second card, I am not expecting double, but I do feel like 60 (with Vsynch on) might be doable.

I have a single 23" panel running at 1920x1080.

I noticed in the review that when the res was dropped to 1920x1080 that microstuttering was almost non-existent.

This is where HIS opinion comes in. He believes that the reason that microstutter disappears is due to the shear horsepower being thrown at it. His contention is that 2x 7970's in crossfire are so overpowered at 1920x1080 that of course the micro stuttering is gone.

At this point, I am torn. He thinks I should try to sell my 6870 and maybe scoop a 7850 or a 660. I am wondering if I could just crossfire the 6870 and still see similar performance without too much hassle.

Any and all thoughts are welcome. Thanks!
 
The 6870s do scale nicely in Crossfire and still have a fair bit of power to them. The only drawback is the 1GB of ram which holds me back from completely maxing out games like Battlefield 3 (which still runs nice on high settings).

It's a tough call. While I'd prefer to have a more powerful single card with higher vram (like a 7970), I'm still mostly pleased with my 6870x2 performance and will probably wait until the next generation cards come out before I replace my crossfire setup.
 
I'd try to sell the 6870 and get something in the newer generation. Don't get me wrong, I like crossfire and SLI, but not when you are doubling down on older tech to keep up. Selling your card + $130 you were going to spend will hopefully push you into the $200 range which is where the best bang/buck is for your resolution.
 
I'd suggest a single card.

After putting my eyefinity setup aside and going back to 1080 for gaming, having 1GB is ok-ish. Meaning options that would push you over 1GB probably will also drop your fps low enough not to be pleasant, even in cf with 6870s.

I run a cf setup and sli before that, now that i've done both, next upgrade will definitely be a single card for me.

Think i've grown too lazy to deal with the Heat, noise, profiles... etc...
 
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