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2x 7850 or 1x 7970

Chrisoldinho

Chrisoldinho

Chrisoldinho

Associate
Joined
17 Apr 2010
Posts
461
Hi all,

Wondering what to do, I have a single 7970 (VTX3D X-Edition), but it's going to be RMA'd tomorrow due to the capacitor whine issue. The card itself is ridiculously fast, no complaints, but for pretty much the same amount of money (well, £40 more) I could get a refund instead of a replacement, and then get 2x HIS HD 7850 IceQ X instead, would I get more "bang for my buck" this way?

I don't have intentions of using Eyefinity, and my monitor is 1920x1080 @ 60Hz. I mainly play BF3.

Thanks for any advice!
 
what psu do you have? 2 7850's would be faster than the 7970 but will be old tech sooner. would you xfire the 7970 later on? if so then stick with the 7970.the 7970 is a fast card on it's own
 
Chrisoldinho said:
Hi all,

Wondering what to do, I have a single 7970 (VTX3D X-Edition), but it's going to be RMA'd tomorrow due to the capacitor whine issue. The card itself is ridiculously fast, no complaints, but for pretty much the same amount of money (well, £40 more) I could get a refund instead of a replacement, and then get 2x HIS HD 7850 IceQ X instead, would I get more "bang for my buck" this way?

I don't have intentions of using Eyefinity, and my monitor is 1920x1080 @ 60Hz. I mainly play BF3.

Thanks for any advice!
Click to expand...

Neither get a 670:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=gx-164-ms

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-670-review,3200-5.html
 
Stick with a single 7970, 2 7850's will be faster in some games, slower in the games with poor/zero scaling titles(sometimes it takes a few weeks and may be longer now as there are no more monthly updates from AMD) can mean waiting for a profile to be added into the drivers/caps if you can't create your own in CCC.

This all requires more user effort, if you don't know how the tech works, then read up about it and don't just jump in feet first.

I have been using 6950/70 CrossFire since February last year and have had trouble free gaming largely on the whole, also used SLi happily before that, but other folks can't stand/hate dual card setups.

You would also need at least a 2500k@~4.5GHz to get the most out of CrossFire/SLi too.
 
Both seem needless overkill if you mainly play BF3, especially on a 60hz screen.

If you had a 120hz monitor, or a HD+ monitor i personally would go for the crossfire 7850s. Scaling is pretty decent in BF3.
 
Chrisoldinho said:
Thanks...My understanding is a single 7970 could outperform a 670 if both were over clocked however, which is something I intend to do in the future, is this correct?
Click to expand...

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/508?vs=598

Results could be unfair as the 600 series has boost overclock and the 7970 is presumably stock. If BF3 is the vast majority of your gaming though, I'd still go for the 670. It was the same with the 500 series Vs the 6000 AMD series, BF3 was just one of those games that performed better with Nvidia.

Regarding CF or Single card - always get the best Single GPU you can afford and add another later. I say 670 or 7970 and I'd choose the 670.
 
Thanks for all of the replies.

I think I am going to stay with my 7970 and just get a replacement, my reasoning:-

3GB VRAM, pointless today for my setup I agree, but with future titles it might come into play

I've read up on overclocking the 7970 and typically it's potential is far greater than the 670. I am aware the X-Edition from VTX3D already matches and outperforms the 670 in some titles, and can even exceed 680 speeds if running 1200/1600 core / memory. I don't believe the 670 is this easy to overclock.

Thanks for the replies everyone :)
 
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