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upgrading AMD6870 Crossfire..should I?

J

jcopin

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 1, 2004
Messages
102
pretty much as the title suggests. :p

I have a Core i7 920@3.9Ghz
EVGA X58SLI mobo
8GB RAM.
2x AMD6870 GPUs
1.5TB HDD

now yea I know I need a SSD and I am going to add 4more GB but instead of maxing out the ram slots im going to just get 3 - 4GB sticks. but anyway.

is it worth upgrading the GPU? and if so to what?
 
Are you having problems with games currently?

You could probably get some solution that is much more power efficient, but I don't know if it'd be worth it...
 
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=635&card2=679# (Manually change the 6870 column to "Multi-GPU")

Theoretically, upgrading to one 7970 GHz will cut the wattage draw by 50W and still net a gain in everything but framebuffer size and pixel fill rate. I'd stick with what you said - upgrade to an SSD and add RAM - before touching the GPU situation, as long as the cards you have now are performing well.
 
nothing is wrong with the way its running games.. as a matter of fact I cant pretty much throw every setting at max and run in 1080 just dandy. it was just that I wanted to know if there was something out yet that was just THAT much better where I think ....oooo I gotta get that...I was just thinking the other day that I have had these for a while now and usually in that time GPUS and CPUS leap considerably. But perhaps the 2 6870;s are that strong where they still are plenty powerful as I learned about my i7 920 which apparently is still pretty damn spiffy..I was thinking about moving to a 1GPU system. but to do that and get 90% the same performance I have now is not really worth the time, money, and effort.
 
the perfect card to upgrade to would be HD 7950 boost. ideal for 1080p gaming. best bang for buck. in the latest DX11 games like Crysis 3 , Farcry 3, BF3, Tombraider the HD 7950 OC doubles a HD 6970 perf. so its a significant upgrade from a HD 6870 CF.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_7950_X2_Boost/31.html

1920 x 1200

HD 6870 - 56
HD 7950(950 mhz) - 100
HD 7970 Ghz - 115

its well known that HD 7950 is 5-6% slower than HD 7970. HD 7950 at 1125 mhz matches HD 7970 Ghz. thats a average overclock. CF scaling in best cases is 1.8x. but on average across many games its 1.6x. few games like Company of Heroes 2 do not support CF at all. so you are looking at a 40 - 50% improvement with a HD 7950 OC

also given the consistency and smoothness of a single GPU , HD 7950 is a far superior solution. the focus on frametimes in the last 6 - 9 months clearly show why single GPU is still the preferred choice. until the 13.8 beta CF was shown to have very poor frametime consistency.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202026

selling the HD 6870s for USD 100 each means you spend only 40 bucks out of the pocket (20 after mail in rebate). add to this 3 free games which you can choose from a list of games. you have till 31 st dec to choose the games and the kicker is BF4 might end up as a game which you can get with this game bundle.

http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/amds-groundbreaking-2013aug14.aspx
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7218/amd-announces-never-settle-forever-bundle
 
Having a single card is generally easier than running multi-GPU. Less hassle with drivers and scaling, less power draw, and less heat escaping into the room. I'll 2nd the 7950 suggestion. Great card for the money.
 
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