Upgrade time 6950

[jennidc]

I currently have 2 6950s crossfired but I'm fed up of the latest games not supporting crossfire or having to mess around with fixes and drivers just to get them working. When it works its amazing but all too often I end up turning off crossfire just to get a game working.

I figure I will get around £130-150 for my 2 cards if I then add around the same myself for around £300 which card do people recommend.

I game at 1080p on an AOC 28" monitor and at the minute I am into games like DayZ, Infestation and Nether. I may look to get a higher res monitor next year though.

I don't mind AMD or Nvidea or even some 2nd hand recommendations

 

[MrClark]

7990 if you can stretch to it....

 

[SiDeards73]

dont bother with the 7990, yeah its a great card etc, but for just over £300 now you can have a 290 which is excellent performance per pound spent. If you can stretch a bit further look the special offer currently on the unlocked 290's OCUK are selling, they are a 290x basically but are waaaay cheaper.

 

[rolypolyman]

dont bother with the 7990, yeah its a great card etc, but for just over £300 now you can have a 290 which is excellent performance per pound spent. If you can stretch a bit further look the special offer currently on the unlocked 290's OCUK are selling, they are a 290x basically but are waaaay cheaper.

Sorry mate but good as the 'unlocked' 290 is @ £359.99 the 7990 @ £389.99 owns it.

Ps: Of course the fact I've just bought a 7990 had no influence whatsoever on my post.

 

[JBod]

Sorry mate but good as the 'unlocked' 290 is @ £359.99 the 7990 @ £389.99 owns it.

Ps: Of course the fact I've just bought a 7990 had no influence whatsoever on my post.

Except the OP already said he is sick of XFire and how badly supported it is in games and drivers... so he wants a single card/gpu solution.

For a shade over £300 he can get a R9 290 and *maybe* unlock it to a 290X.

 

[rolypolyman]

Except the OP already said he is sick of XFire and how badly supported it is in games and drivers... so he wants a single card/gpu solution.

For a shade over £300 he can get a R9 290 and *maybe* unlock it to a 290X.

Currently running xfire myself mate and its been sweet as a nut for me but I understand it can be frustrating for others. I did strongly consider the Vtx 290\X but it would have been a slight downgrade from where I'm at so I went for the 7990. Great buy though, a 290X for £359.99.

 

[Marine-RX179]

Sorry mate but good as the 'unlocked' 290 is @ £359.99 the 7990 @ £389.99 owns it.

Ps: Of course the fact I've just bought a 7990 had no influence whatsoever on my post.

It's not gonna "own it" in games that don't support or scale well with crossfire though. You can't just generalise things...you have to think of the circumstance as well. I totally could have bought the 7990 instead of the flashed to 290x VTX at £360, however I know that crossfire isn't gonna benefit me too much, as most of the games I play don't really support crossfire. It is almost like for any games that are not by the big name publishers, crossfire is gonna be next to useless.

I know my "290x" ain't gonna be as "fast" as the 7990, but it would be faster and much more consistent for majority of the games I play.

 

[Gregster]

It's not gonna "own it" in games that don't support or scale well with crossfire though. You can't just generalise things...you have to think of the circumstance as well. I totally could have bought the 7990 instead of the flashed to 290x VTX at £360, however I know that crossfire isn't gonna benefit me too much, as most of the games I play don't really support crossfire. It is almost like for any games that are not by the big name publishers, crossfire is gonna be next to useless.

I know my "290x" ain't gonna be as "fast" as the 7990, but it would be faster and much more consistent for majority of the games I play.

Is there many games that CF doesn't support then? I thought they were all pretty much covered and for those that wasn't, a single old card would suffice.

And yer, the 7990 will 'own' the 290/X in any modern game

 

[rolypolyman]

Fair enough Marine ' horses for courses' since going xfire I've yet to play a game that's not supported but I suppose if I keep playing I will come across one eventually and of course I meant 'own it' in xfire supported games only.

 

[jennidc]

As an example - by the time I had finished Skyrim the drivers were sorted for crossfire but not whilst I was playing it, Infestation Survival Stories crashes when crossfire is enabled. The games that support crossfire play very well though such as Battlefield, Crysis,etc

I would be happy with a card that matched my crossfire performance on a single card it would just simplify my setup, be more consistent and use less power at the same time.

 

[jennidc]

Well what can I say - I have been a complete idiot.

I decided tonight to get my 2nd 6950 out of the cupboard to have one more go with x-fire to get Nether and Infestation (Warz) working in crossfire. When reseating the card I noticed that one of the cards had the bios switch in position 2 and one was in position 1. I remembered that when on my AM3 Hexcore machine I could use these in 6970 mode but for some reason my Asus Deluxe with my 2600k just will not work when the cards are in this mode.

I switched them both to the 6950 bios (as I thought they were anyway) and everything now works including the games I was having problems with.

The performance is great and I can now run everything at max settings. So I can keep my current setup and not spend any money - happy days

 

[r7slayer]

Well what can I say - I have been a complete idiot.

I decided tonight to get my 2nd 6950 out of the cupboard to have one more go with x-fire to get Nether and Infestation (Warz) working in crossfire. When reseating the card I noticed that one of the cards had the bios switch in position 2 and one was in position 1. I remembered that when on my AM3 Hexcore machine I could use these in 6970 mode but for some reason my Asus Deluxe with my 2600k just will not work when the cards are in this mode.

I switched them both to the 6950 bios (as I thought they were anyway) and everything now works including the games I was having problems with.

The performance is great and I can now run everything at max settings. So I can keep my current setup and not spend any money - happy days

Are you not able to flash the other card to the 6970? Then again for the trouble it may cause may not be worth it. TBH crossfire isn't as bad as it used to be but there as some games which don't support it that well.