AMD HD 7950. Crossifre or TriFire?

Boomstick777 · 23 May 2013 at 12:33

So my 7950's arrived today, lovely cards. Unfortunately one was DOA, tested in two different PC's individually and in Xfire TriFire, it just doesn't display or even get recognized by GPUZ.

I ran the the working cards in Crossfire and netted me 15,000 in 3DMark11, nice step up from my 660's.

There is no longer an offer on the Gigabyte 7950's, place has gone out of stock and discontinued so they cannot replace but will give refund. Question is should I just keep the 2 cheap 7950's I have now and get refund for the DOA card or get refund and order a 3rd elsewhere for Trifire, would be £250 to get another card though...

What would you guys do?

It looked epic in TriFire lol, curse you crappy DOA card !!

Doomedspeed · 23 May 2013 at 12:37

If you're just on One screen i doubt you'd see much impact of a thrid 7950 anyway (even though its 1440p).

I'd stick with your 2 7950's. If you feel the rig start to struggle you could pick up another 7950 (windforce?) secondhand at some point anyway.

LtMatt · 23 May 2013 at 12:40

Boomstick777 said:
So my 7950's arrived today, lovely cards. Unfortunately one was DOA, tested in two different PC's individually and in Xfire TriFire, it just doesn't display or even get recognized by GPUZ.

I ran the the working cards in Crossfire and netted me 15,000 in 3DMark11, nice step up from my 660's.

There is no longer an offer on the Gigabyte 7950's, place has gone out of stock and discontinued so they cannot replace but will give refund. Question is should I just keep the 2 cheap 7950's I have now and get refund for the DOA card or get refund and order a 3rd elsewhere for Trifire, would be £250 to get another card though...

What would you guys do?

I have an alternative suggestion if you want to keep with the tri-fire idea. You could (try to) rma the product direct with Gigabyte. That way they will send you a brand new card you'd think and their warranty is UK based.

Boomstick777 · 23 May 2013 at 12:47

LtMatt said:
I have an alternative suggestion if you want to keep with the tri-fire idea. You could (try to) rma the product direct with Gigabyte. That way they will send you a brand new card you'd think and their warranty is UK based.

Good suggestion but I've already issued a return with the retailer, least I get a full refund that way. Think I may hold fire on the third card for a while at least, see how I get on with these 2. It was more cos they were such a good price and the third is supposed to reduce stutter, but like Doomedspeed said I could pick a cheap used one up later on.. At least I ended up with more game codes lol. Still I hate the hassle of RMA, have to wait ages for them to confirm faulty etc..

Boomstick777 · 23 May 2013 at 13:23

Only getting 60% GPU usage in Metro Last Light.. Everything else seems to run very nice

Boomstick777 · 23 May 2013 at 13:33

Just thought what the hell and ordered a replacement, I'll sell the free games so it won't cost that much, at least the other 2 were dirt cheap lol.

LtMatt · 23 May 2013 at 13:34

Good to hear!

Boomstick (just realised i called you Broomstick the other day

) in gpu change of heart shocker!

Boomstick777 · 23 May 2013 at 13:43

LtMatt said:
Good to hear!

Boomstick (just realised i called you Broomstick the other day ) in gpu change of heart shocker!

Haha, yeah pita that one was DOA, oh well hopefully new card get here tomorrow and work fine. I should be set for a couple years then tbh. Maybe upgrade at Volta..

cobbly123 · 23 May 2013 at 13:54

What make is your psu ?

Boomstick777 · 23 May 2013 at 15:46

cobbly123 said:
What make is your psu ?

Coolermaster.

old gamer · 23 May 2013 at 15:52

i would give crossfire a go for a while and see how you get on, you could always add another later if you feel you need it

Boomstick777 · 23 May 2013 at 15:55

old gamer said:
i would give crossfire a go for a while and see how you get on, you could always add another later if you feel you need it

I've ordered a replacement for the third card. I was set on three, as three can remove micro stutter acts like 1 GPU, and 3 cost near enough what 1 GTX 780 cost but with much higher performance.

The replacement is coming tomorrow, got some free games with it so the extra cost isn't that bad, lucky I ordered today as price went up by £25 after I ordered

fishingcat · 23 May 2013 at 16:22

I'm very jealous.

I would have bought two if I hadn't missed the recent sale where a certain other retailer had the Windforce HD 7950 for £200 (4% cashback too).

Secret_Window · 23 May 2013 at 16:26

Awesome cards.

Boomstick777 · 24 May 2013 at 11:03

Replacement card arrived today, and this one works

Big step up from my old Titan score. Seem to be limited by my PSU as any overclocking will result in passive shutdown.. Happy with stock for 24/7 use, if I want to bench may need to upgrade psu to one with more grunt, game wise these destroy everything

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6618490

LtMatt · 24 May 2013 at 11:08

Good stuff Broomstick! Get posting some games benchmarks in this thread plox.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18513493

WingZero30 · 24 May 2013 at 11:14

LtMatt said:
Good stuff Broomstick! Get posting some games benchmarks in this thread plox.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18513493

Rhuarcbk · 19 Sep 2013 at 21:53

Boomstick,

Sorry to revive an old post, but I saw that you switched to a gtx 780 instead of 7950 trifire. Worthwhile change? I'm contemplating between the two choices myself.

sin · 19 Sep 2013 at 22:19