Crossfire 7870's?

Andybtsn · 20 Jul 2013 at 14:56

Hi guys,

I find Far Cry 3 and even GTA4 with the ICE mod a bit choppy at times so thinking of upgrading my gfx. I currently have an ATI 7870 and was thinking of either picking up another for crossfire or a 7970?

What do you recommend?

It's to go with AMD 8120

HankScorpio · 20 Jul 2013 at 15:04

Selling your current card then buying the 7970 will probably result in quite a bit of a financial loss, so it'll probably be better to go XF to keep costs down. Can you get the XT edition 7870 to go with your presumably standard card? Not sure if these will work together.

Five.Stars · 20 Jul 2013 at 15:05

Haven't used a 7870, but from what i have read it is fairly similar performance (+10%ish) to the 5870, of which I had 2 of in Crossfire previously. What I can tell you is that my single 7970 even at stock was at least as quick as the crossfire 5870 set-up. Overclocked and the 79's clock very well, it is a good bit faster.

So with that in mind, and I am only making an assumption here, a single 7970 will be similar performance to crossfire 7870 without any of the headaches associated with crossfirex. Additional heat, power draw, poor drivers etc.

If you could sell the 7870 and put that money towards a 7970 that is what I would be inclined to do.

Andybtsn · 20 Jul 2013 at 15:09

Thanks guys. I did think this. Ill look out for a cheap 7970

LtMatt · 20 Jul 2013 at 15:11

Andybtsn said:
Hi guys,

I find Far Cry 3 and even GTA4 with the ICE mod a bit choppy at times so thinking of upgrading my gfx. I currently have an ATI 7870 and was thinking of either picking up another for crossfire or a 7970?

What do you recommend?

It's to go with AMD 8120

Unfortunately Andy the two games you picked run horribly on multi gpu setups, so in this instance i would recommend a single 7970. Its possible to get farcry 3 running smoothly on crossfire but it involves using radeonpro.

The new amd frame pacing drivers, due end of the month, might solve the farcry 3 problems. However it also runs badly for Nvidia users so with this particular title it is probably just a game issue.

GTA IV is a horrible console port so that won't run particularly well or smoothly on any multi gpu setup either.

£299 for the vtx 7970 ghz. Sell the games and looking at about £260 for the card.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-007-VX&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=938

teppic · 20 Jul 2013 at 15:17

A third option is to get two 7950s and sell off all 16 games. A bit more expensive, but it'd leave a 7970 well behind.

AMD's releasing a big driver update at the end of the month that targets Crossfire performance as well.

LtMatt · 20 Jul 2013 at 15:20

teppic said:
A third option is to get two 7950s and sell off all 16 games. A bit more expensive, but it'd leave a 7970 well behind.

AMD's releasing a big driver update at the end of the month that targets Crossfire performance as well.

I've just seen his post in the MM section. Seems like he only has a budget of £200-£210 so if thats the case then get a cheap 7950 imo. You can either get ocuk's cheapest and sell the games to bring the cost below £200 or you can find them elsewhere in the world for £208 and that comes with a decent aftermarket cooler.

Andybtsn · 20 Jul 2013 at 15:22

Yeah guys not wanting to spend more than £200 really. Doubt ill get more than £130 for the 7870 anyway despite only being a few months old!

LtMatt · 20 Jul 2013 at 15:23

Andybtsn said:
Yeah guys not wanting to spend more than £200 really. Doubt ill get more than £130 for the 7870 anyway despite only being a few months old!

I'm going to send you a trust right now.

EDIT

Oh the one i was looking at was refurbished, ignore.

LtMatt · 20 Jul 2013 at 15:27

Andybtsn said:
Yeah guys not wanting to spend more than £200 really. Doubt ill get more than £130 for the 7870 anyway despite only being a few months old!

Would you consider a 7950? Slightly over your budget but will be around £200 or lower once you sell the games.

teppic · 20 Jul 2013 at 15:30

If the budget is £200 + what you'd get for the 7870, I'd get a decent 7950 and overclock it, you'll have change left over even if you keep the games.

LtMatt · 20 Jul 2013 at 15:31

teppic said:
If the budget is £200 + what you'd get for the 7870, I'd get a decent 7950 and overclock it, you'll have change left over even if you keep the games.

Blimey if that is his budget he could get a decent 7970. I think his budget including the sale of the 7870 will be around £200.

Andybtsn · 20 Jul 2013 at 15:32

I actually could afford more but my sensible side sometimes comes out. Lol. Incidentally is the 7970 is the top dog in terms of graphics? I know it's subjective but is there a better nvidia?

teppic · 20 Jul 2013 at 15:36

LtMatt said:
Blimey if that is his budget he could get a decent 7970. I think his budget including the sale of the 7870 will be around £200.

True, but if a low spend is preferred, there's the 7950 with 8 games for £250ish, then overclocked to 7970 levels, and about £60-£80 to spare

LtMatt · 20 Jul 2013 at 15:37

Andybtsn said:
I actually could afford more but my sensible side sometimes comes out. Lol. Incidentally is the 7970 is the top dog in terms of graphics? I know it's subjective but is there a better nvidia?

Titan/780 is better than a 7970 but much more expensive. 7970 ghz is about equal to a 770. Once you start overclocking, the 7970 will pull away though. Noticeably so at higher resolution (1440p+) and higher anti aliasing settings. Unless you want Physx i can't see any reason to pick a 770 over a 7970 ghz with free games personally, but others may not agree with this view.

teppic said:
True, but if a low spend is preferred, there's the 7950 with 8 games for £250ish, then overclocked to 7970 levels, and about £60-£80 to spare

Agreed.

What res will you be playing at Andy?

Andybtsn · 20 Jul 2013 at 15:52

1920x1080 mate. I might just flunk out on a really good card from OCUK. Ill want to upgrade other stuff then. Grrrr

LtMatt · 20 Jul 2013 at 15:57

Andybtsn said:
1920x1080 mate. I might just flunk out on a really good card from OCUK. Ill want to upgrade other stuff then. Grrrr

Well either a 7970 ghz or a 770 will pwn at that res. If it was me id go for the 7970 ghz, that way you can sell or keep the games depending on your preferences.

This 7970 card has a good reputation for overclocking prowess so reaching 780 stock performance will easily be within reach. Also comes with an excellent cooling performance at high overclocks as well.

HIS 7970 £340 -

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-063-HS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=938

ussie · 20 Jul 2013 at 17:35

Andybtsn said:
Hi guys,

I find Far Cry 3 and even GTA4 with the ICE mod a bit choppy at times so thinking of upgrading my gfx. I currently have an ATI 7870 and was thinking of either picking up another for crossfire or a 7970?

What do you recommend?

It's to go with AMD 8120

xfire 7870 is fine but In my opinion you should do what I did! I sold my 7870 windforce OC and bought a 7970, the 7970 I have is the Asus Matrix Platinum edition which was on sale and I have it overclocked, oh and you cant complain with the amount of games it comes with

Andybtsn · 20 Jul 2013 at 17:45

This?

I don't mind spending a premium but I don't want my PC struggling to play top games in a year or so after spending this kind of money.

ALXAndy · 20 Jul 2013 at 22:03

Andybtsn said:
This?

I don't mind spending a premium but I don't want my PC struggling to play top games in a year or so after spending this kind of money.

Such is the nature of the beast sadly. However, you may want to read over this. I assume when you said 8120 that you meant AMD FX 8120 yes?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-future-proofing-your-pc-for-next-gen

If so then I wouldn't retire your CPU any time soon. You'll see what that article is getting at when you load up Crysis 3, Battlefield 3 and Far Cry 3. All of which have been optimised to use 8 of AMD's cores properly.

I recently 'upgraded' (controversially I may add) from a 1155 Xeon @ 3.9ghz to a FX 8320 that I run at 4.2ghz due to a basicish board and I can tell you, in games that support it (as well as all of the future titles that most certainly will) it pees on my Xeon.

I actually kept the Xeon and the board I had kicking around for ages before parting with them just in case, but the AMD is more than man enough to beat it completely conclusively.

What clocks are you running yours at?