Crossfire or single (new gpu)

[Deleted]

I know i could just look up benchmarks for this question. But i would like details.
Should i get
two XFX 7850 2gb for 199e each.
or
one XFX 7970 3gb GHZ for 420e?

And yes i need the power. I'm currently running 5040x1050 on one 6870.

edit: Could even get 2x club 3d 7870 jokercards for 220e each!

[Shiinji]

The 7970 is good enough. I have it and it runs great!!

[Fascinate]

I have seen numerous complaints about xfire/sli, even simple things like alt tabbing issues.

Take frustration off the table and go with a powerful single card.

Also, GTX 670's have went on sale recently and you can find them for less than 350.00 US dollars, not sure about the site you buy from tho.

[Milkshake86]

Here's the concerns, both SLI and Xfire are still not perfect while the 2 cards could and will in most cases give you awesome performance the single 7970 will give amazing performance and better reliability. However I'd not worry much about Xfire sub 7870. As it appears to me 2x 7850's would give either 1% better FPS than a 7970 or 1-3% less performance, this is also considering a situation where CFX is working as intended. Clear choice single 7970 Ghz.

edit: Dual 7870's would overtake a 7970 Ghz fairly well. I still think a single 7970 is the best option but, I wouldnt deny you the option of dual 7870's cuz its cooler

[Deleted]

Thanks for the reply. What about 2x 7870? Worth the hassle?
(To be honest it IS cool and does look awesome having 2 graphics cards in your case)

[Milkshake86]

I have seen numerous complaints about xfire/sli, even simple things like alt tabbing issues.

Take frustration off the table and go with a powerful single card.

Also, GTX 670's have went on sale recently and you can find them for less than 350.00 US dollars, not sure about the site you buy from tho.

670's do not compete w/ Ghz 7970's especially after latest driver update, sale or not you'd be gimping yourself, for 50 when the guy would spend 220 each on 7870's putting that 90 over the single 670. $ for $ AMD is giving better performance hands down.

[Deleted]

Powerful single card is always the best choice.

Crossfire/Sli is just a nightmarish gimmick. Maybe 3-4 games properly utilise crossfire and that's about it :|

[noteworthynerd]

I will always recommend a single powerful GPU over two weaker cards in Xfire/SLI unless we're talking about enthusiast builds (i.e. > $3000). There are just too many little issues that Xfire/SLI can cause (not playing nice with some games/programs being the biggest issue).

[Evil Inside]

Just go with the single GHz 7970, it'll run everything without problem, crossfire is more a gimmick these days, there are quite a few problems that potentially COULD happen.

[OmegaV]

Just a note, but if your sig is right and your current cpu is a phenom II 955, I would suggest upgrading that as well.

[Deleted]

This whole thing's setting upgraded at the same time yes. Getting an FX 8320

[OmegaV]

I have to ask, what else are you using it for besides gaming? Because a I5-3570k would be better if you aren't taking full use of the 8 cores.

[dicertification]

I'd sooner go with a high end single 7970. I was running crossifire/sli for years. Now that I have gone back to a single card, I can say I don't miss any of the old headaches from running two cards. I could sooner justify spending stupid amounts of money on a single card than two cards.

Example
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=77488&...nufacture=ASUS
http://rog.asus.com/graphics-card/ma...hd7970-p-3gd5/

edit: I would of course overclock the card like hell personally. Or at least quite a bit if I were pushing the resolutions the OP is.

[Deleted]

Adobe master collection. Mostly after effects, PS, and premiere

Reason being. FX = 179 euros. 3570K = 230 euros.
So either Vishera + 7970 GHZ or Ivy + 7950 :/

In the end the 8320 paired with a 7970 GHZ is going to give me much better results at ultra high resolutions
than the 3570k paired with an 7950
I'd even get the FX 6300 just so i could afford the 7970

motherboards both 100 euros.
total budget is 800e

Its always the matter of taking an ivy bridge over an AMD FX
I know that theyre worse compared. But do i want 140 fps over 100 fps? It's not like the vishera is going to bottleneck anything.

[Fascinate]

Considering that you are posting on an MMO website i assume you play wow or tor or some MMO yes? If that is the case, you should not be buying an AMD CPU. You would be much better off going the intel route and dropping down to a 7950.

[Milkshake86]

Considering that you are posting on an MMO website i assume you play wow or tor or some MMO yes? If that is the case, you should not be buying an AMD CPU. You would be much better off going the intel route and dropping down to a 7950.

Not necessarily at all at this point per core performance on Vishera is high enough and close enough to intel offerings that if your upgrading from AMD and have AM3+ motherboard it would be a giant waste of money to buy a different board and cpu.

@ op 8350 do not buy the 8320, like intel the lower brackets are usually gimped more than you think. 8350 is a must > 8320, similar to how noone recommends i5-2400's.

In all honesty real world use Vishera is more than close enough to intel hands down, but on the same side even if they overtook performance by 1-2% is it worth the money to sink your i5-25/35 and its mobo for a minor upgrade? That I will not answer, its totally up to the budget, 800e o.O i'd almost go dual 7950's and an 8350 if you could budget it.

Still only go CFX if your willing to handle the crap flow, and if you have a window on your case. Otherwise who cares!

[Deleted]

Considering that you are posting on an MMO website i assume you play wow or tor or some MMO yes? If that is the case, you should not be buying an AMD CPU. You would be much better off going the intel route and dropping down to a 7950.

I'm not going to get a specific CPU just for ONE game. Im getting the 7970 ghz + worse cpu vs 7950 + better cpu because of
Eyefinity. 5040x1050. And i dont even play WoW in eyefinity. I use single screen. In GPU bound games which i own. (BF3, Crysis 2, shift 2, all the unreal engine 3 games), i WILL get better fps if i take the amd FX + 7970. Because the fps will never be 60 NO MATTER WHICH cpu i take. But the better GPU will take me closer.
I dont care playing WoW at 30 fps even if i could get 45 with an sb/ib cpu.
I dont do hardcore raiding so playing 30 fps in 25 man raids will not be an issue.

Still only go CFX if your willing to handle the crap flow, and if you have a window on your case. Otherwise who cares!

Very good point on the window.

I wouldnt compare 8320 vs 8350 to 2400 vs 2500k/3570k though. Both the AMD ones can be overclocked the same way.
Intel has more differences in those than just a 500mhz clock difference
I dont see 500mhz worth 25 dollars (180e vs 225e) when i'm going to be overclocking the 8320 past 4ghz anyways! But nice input still.

[Milkshake86]

I'm not going to get a specific CPU just for ONE game. Im getting the 7970 ghz + worse cpu vs 7950 + better cpu because of
Eyefinity. 5040x1050. And i dont even play WoW in eyefinity. I use single screen. In GPU bound games which i own. (BF3, Crysis 2, shift 2, all the unreal engine 3 games), i WILL get better fps if i take the amd FX + 7970. Because the fps will never be 60 NO MATTER WHICH cpu i take. But the better GPU will take me closer.
I dont care playing WoW at 30 fps even if i could get 45 with an sb/ib cpu.
I dont do hardcore raiding so playing 30 fps in 25 man raids will not be an issue.


Very good point on the window.

I wouldnt compare 8320 vs 8350 to 2400 vs 2500k/3570k though. Both the AMD ones can be overclocked the same way.
Intel has more differences in those than just a 500mhz clock difference
I dont see 500mhz worth 25 dollars (180e vs 225e) when i'm going to be overclocking the 8320 past 4ghz anyways! But nice input still.

Actually its a substantial change w/ AMD when you get the lower ratings, you are correct not on the same dimension as intel, but lets go to the 965 BE and the higher binned 980 BE while it can be argued that the higher binned CPU's may or may not overclock better(usually they infact do) but remember in higher bins the stock frequency voltage is usually very close to the lower binned CPU's which does give that stability lead in the event of a high O.C. Strictly from this view, also the 8320 is clocked behind the 8150. All up to you in the end, but I'd love to see the build when its done. I had hands on for weeks OCing and toying w/ an 8150 on release.

I do not retract my statement about the window tho, if you have CFX or SLI, you better have a window for us to see the awesomeness, cuz at some points thats all the value it has =)

[Faithh]

I'm not going to get a specific CPU just for ONE game. Im getting the 7970 ghz + worse cpu vs 7950 + better cpu because of
Eyefinity. 5040x1050. And i dont even play WoW in eyefinity. I use single screen. In GPU bound games which i own. (BF3, Crysis 2, shift 2, all the unreal engine 3 games), i WILL get better fps if i take the amd FX + 7970. Because the fps will never be 60 NO MATTER WHICH cpu i take. But the better GPU will take me closer.
I dont care playing WoW at 30 fps even if i could get 45 with an sb/ib cpu.
I dont do hardcore raiding so playing 30 fps in 25 man raids will not be an issue.


Very good point on the window.

I wouldnt compare 8320 vs 8350 to 2400 vs 2500k/3570k though. Both the AMD ones can be overclocked the same way.
Intel has more differences in those than just a 500mhz clock difference
I dont see 500mhz worth 25 dollars (180e vs 225e) when i'm going to be overclocking the 8320 past 4ghz anyways! But nice input still.

Do you even realize that the games you linked most of them WON'T use 8 cores. Crysis 2 for sure only uses 2. Shift 2 I doubt this game would use more than 2.

Scores from Cinebench 11.5 both CPU's at 4.6GHz and comparing the single cores performance.
3570K 7.59 / 4 = 1.89
FX 8xxx 7.90 / 8 = 0.99

A single 3570K is performing the double of a single FX core.

Trying to explain, in the future you still will have games which are only using two cores and you rather run much faster with an FX into a bottleneck than with any Intel.

Giving an example -> Guild wars 3 (only making use of 2 cores) with a GPU HD 8970, you would clearly run into a bottleneck with that FX. Apps which are only recognizing 2 cores, the i5 would give you double performance over any FX crap.

The FX is just a bad CPU future wise. Multi-cores are existing since 2006 orsomething and yet they most of the games are not making use of all the cpu cores so don't expect over a year or two the games would recognize all cores.

Also, a higher graphics card will always require more information from your CPU than with a low-end gpu. So expect a HD 9970 will be a very hard job for that CPU. As gamer you really shouldn't be interested in CPU's. The main rule is just "Aslong as they don't bottleneck my Graphics card(s), I just give a fuck about the CPU".

With Eyefinity you're rather going to make it extra hard.

I'm not being an ass to you at all, I'm just trying to have the best for you..

[Deleted]

text.

He will have more use out of a 7970 than out of a 7950. It is as simple as that.
And we cant really tell how many cores games will be using in the near future. I think the new xbox/ps3 both will have 4 cores, so who knows maybe we will actually see some improvement in that area.

And about your mainrule. His cpu wont be bottlenecking anything, so....