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2x 6870 or 7950

Bribashnibitz

Bribashnibitz

Bribashnibitz

Associate
Joined
16 Aug 2011
Posts
9
Location
Sunny Lancashire
Hi guys

I'm looking at upgrading my monitor to a Dell U2711 later this year and I know that's going to have a performance hit on games. I have a ASUS 6870 DirectCU at the moment, and I was wondering if it was going to be better to go Xfire with another 6870 or wait until prices come down on the 7950''s. I'm thinking that the 7950 will be the better option from a performance and heat perspective, but another 6870 would be a lot cheaper to buy, especially as stock will be being cleared out as more 7000 series cards start to appear.

I don't play anything too taxing, mainly L4D2, Borderlands and Fallout 3/New Vegas. Would two 6870's on a Seasonic X650 be okay?
 
Hello, the resolution you're going to play at is rather high, I would probably say get a second 6870 1GB if you were using a 22 inch monitor 1920x1080 however you aren't. Personally you'd be better off selling the 6870 because it's becoming obsolete because of it's video ram.

I'm 99 percent sure that two 6870's would run on a Seasonic X650 fine.

I'm just thinking how dependant are Borderlands and Fallout 3/New Vegas because I know L4D2 will be fine with the 27 inch monitor with a single 6870.

But I would recommend a 7950 because it will serve you a good 3-4 years because of it's video ram and overall performance :D
 
If you can afford the 7950, I'd got for that. I did a 6870 crossfire setup once and there was too much messing about with it and microstutter was a problem for me also.
 
I was thinking the 7950 is going to be better in the long run. Bah! Does anyone have ideas on what a 7870 is supposed to perform like yet? Even if there's a bit of a price war once the green team bring their cards out, a 7950 could still be a spicy meatball price wise, and the monitor is going to cost a fair chunk of change to start with.
 
Bribashnibitz said:
Does anyone have ideas on what a 7870 is supposed to perform like yet?
Click to expand...

Gibbo(OCUk staff) said:

Gibbo said:
The 7900 series are AMD's top end!
The 6900 series is now the upper mid-range!
The 7800 series shall be the mid-range and priced as such.
The 7700 series shall be the lower mid-range.
The 6700/6600 series are mainstream!
Click to expand...
 
AMD are deliberately holding back their mid range cards hoping to max out sales of the high end ones IMO.

They know that a pair of 78xx will (on paper) beat out their high end cards so they're not going to be in a rush to offer the cheap solution just yet. If Nvidia were around right now they would, as any sale is a sale. However with Nvidia offering up nothing in the way of competition they will just keep their high end cards where they are and charge lots of money for them.

I wouldn't be surprised if you don't see the cheaper more crude options until April when Kepler is launched.
 
Martini1991 said:
My fully OC'ed 7950 yes.
The 6870's are cheaper by far.
Price/performance is in favour of the 6870's.
Click to expand...

But raw performance means nothing when you lack vram.

As I found out with a pair of GTX 295s. They were about as useful for running NFS The runs and BF3 as a chocolate teapot.

Things are set now to get more demanding. DICE have set the bar when it comes to looks and now other producers have to follow.

Because as we know, graphics are absolutely and utterly everything ! :rolleyes:

If a game does not have good graphics it's not worth playing no matter how good the underlying game may be. See also - Duke Nukem Forever.
 
Martini1991 said:
I love how VRAM is the buzzword at the moment.
At OP's res, it'd be stupid to get 1GB cards, but for 1080p? 1GB's still fine.
Click to expand...

Of course it is. Because it is more important now than ever.

You can pretty much base PC gaming on its last major title. That last title was BF3. It's since been discovered that if we crave glorious visuals as much as we claim to (we're a really shallow bunch*) then something has to give.

And that's vram. They can't seem to release a game that's gorgeous yet well optimised** so for right now the way forward are enormous bloated textures.

* In fairness on that one though it is time things moved on. Seeing that they've hardly moved on since Doom III and Half Life 2.

** Valve will show the world how its done when Half Life 3/Ep 3 releases.
 
I don't find BF3 that visually great, it's far from the flagship that Crysis was.
And Darkness II, 1080p, maxed out, 600mb VRAM, that game's brand new. You'll see far more games like the Darkness II than you will BF3 for demanding.
 
Martini1991 said:
It's nice looking, but it's not what I'd consider worth all the VRAM hype.
To the question, Witcher II with ubersampling and fully maxed out is what I consider to be visually great.
Click to expand...

Can't compare fantasy and reality, it looks good but no better than BF3 imo, plus it's only DX9 :S
 
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i got 6870, bought 7950. not impressed with it. going back on monday. direct cuii edition, runs 30 idle, 50 load, 60 furmark. 7950 is about same performance as 580. If overclocked then could go further. i am running 1920x1080 and thinking crossfire 6870 is the way for me and i feel it has more performance than single 7950 also much cheaper even though 7950 from competitors is very cheap now
 
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