7870 Crossfire?

[Sumer]

Im in the middle of updating my rig and the next item to replace is my HD6950 2gb. I have a £300'ish budget and was planning on either the 670 or a 7950 and replacing the psu and getting another gpu in the future but my psu connetion doesnt fit very well into my current motherboard so im thinking I could just replace the psu now and get a 7870 with plans to get another to crossfire in the future.

This is the gpu im looking at: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-288-AS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=411

As for a crossfire gpu, well I dont know.

Would this be a good idea?

Thanks

 

[Freddie1980]

I spend £300 on a GTX670 and looking back I kind of regret it, the coil whine is annoying, it won't overvlot, it crashes even with the smallest of overclocks even though it's water cooled. £300 is to much to pay for just a video card IMO especially when I look back and see that I was quite happy with my humble 5770 which played everything I wanted and top end games at slightly reduced settings.

If you really feel your 6950 just isn't cutting it for whatever reason then I would get a single 7950 3Gb unless Nvidia drops the price of it's GTX670 in the next week or so. I wouldn't bother with crossfire, looking at recent review on the Devil13 on Toms hardware microstuttering is major issue for AMD and could potentially ruin your gaming experience.

 

[flopper]

single card is always the best option so 7950

 

[Sumer]

I just looked at a youtube 7870 crossfire benchmark video and the tester said he had a lot of trouble with crossfire so yeah I think that idea is out the window. My friend is buying my old pc parts including the gpu so a new gpu is a must. I believe the 7950 is the best bang for buck at the moment. Sorry to hear about your 670, I wouldnt be too happy myself to say the least

 

[spoffle]

Don't let a single user put you off crossfire, stuff happens!

A 7950 would be the better option, I'd suggest avoiding the MSI ones though, I have 2 and they're faulty, another member (Rusty0611) had two and they were also faulty, and a few other members have had faulty MSI 7950 Twin Frozrs.

 

[Freddie1980]

I just looked at a youtube 7870 crossfire benchmark video and the tester said he had a lot of trouble with crossfire so yeah I think that idea is out the window. My friend is buying my old pc parts including the gpu so a new gpu is a must. I believe the 7950 is the best bang for buck at the moment. Sorry to hear about your 670, I wouldnt be too happy myself to say the least

To be honest the voltage thing is my fault in way as I should have read up on the card more before buying I just took it for granted that all my previous video cards had fully unlocked voltage control. As for the overclock it's luck draw and pulled a dud, plenty of others have had success overclocking their GTX670's.

Don't let a single user put you off crossfire, stuff happens!

A 7950 would be the better option, I'd suggest avoiding the MSI ones though, I have 2 and they're faulty, another member (Rusty0611) had two and they were also faulty, and a few other members have had faulty MSI 7950 Twin Frozrs.

OCUK/Gibbo have come out and said they have had a new batch arrive and these new ones are a lot better. He might want to avoid the Gigabyte Windforce 7950 as if he's looking to overclock the v2 cards have had their voltage locked down as well. It seems manufacturers and board partners are getting picky about which cards they will allow to be overvolted which I can understand from a business POV as you don't want to be dealing with lots of RMA's from failed overclocks.

 

[Hybridtheory]

I spend £300 on a GTX670 and looking back I kind of regret it, the coil whine is annoying, it won't overvlot, it crashes even with the smallest of overclocks even though it's water cooled. £300 is to much to pay for just a video card IMO especially when I look back and see that I was quite happy with my humble 5770 which played everything I wanted and top end games at slightly reduced settings.

If you really feel your 6950 just isn't cutting it for whatever reason then I would get a single 7950 3Gb unless Nvidia drops the price of it's GTX670 in the next week or so. I wouldn't bother with crossfire, looking at recent review on the Devil13 on Toms hardware microstuttering is major issue for AMD and could potentially ruin your gaming experience.

msi 7950 crossfire triple screen here, Ive not noticed any stuttering of any sort.

 

[spoffle]

To be honest the voltage thing is my fault in way as I should have read up on the card more before buying I just took it for granted that all my previous video cards had fully unlocked voltage control. As for the overclock it's luck draw and pulled a dud, plenty of others have had success overclocking their GTX670's.



OCUK/Gibbo have come out and said they have had a new batch arrive and these new ones are a lot better. He might want to avoid the Gigabyte Windforce 7950 as if he's looking to overclock the v2 cards have had their voltage locked down as well. It seems manufacturers and board partners are getting picky about which cards they will allow to be overvolted which I can understand from a business POV as you don't want to be dealing with lots of RMA's from failed overclocks.

My two 7950s are from the new batch. I saw Gibbo's post about them, that's why I bought. It looks like the new batch hasn't fixed the problem.

 

[iBSOD]

Don't let a single user put you off crossfire, stuff happens!

A 7950 would be the better option, I'd suggest avoiding the MSI ones though, I have 2 and they're faulty, another member (Rusty0611) had two and they were also faulty, and a few other members have had faulty MSI 7950 Twin Frozrs.

I bought a sapphire dualx 7950 that was faulty, after i bought a faulty 7870
someone please kill me

on topic; some people say single card is better because there are less issues. however, hd7xxx scale very well, and i think cf could be an option.

if you plan on playing at 1080p, just get a single card. a hd7950 can pretty much max every game 60fps+

 

[Sumer]

Ive been eyeing the 7950 and even the 7970's but this talk of failed cards is putting a little damper on things. I aint too interested in clocking the card and im playing at 1080 so yeah one card would be sufficient. I like the 6950 but with games like metro 2033 etc the card can struggle so im looking for a good improvement hence one really good card or the combination of 2 good cards (2 x 7870's). As for that youtube video the guy did say that he could not get crysis and various other titles to work in crossfire but others had had no problem. I kinda want to have my 'own' rig so to speak instead of the usual 670, 7950 etc if you know what I mean but obviously I dont want to give my self extra problems just because I want to be a little different.
If I was to go crossfire which suitable PSU would you recommend? This will help make my mind up a little more, thanks.