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7950 upgrade or crossfire for eyefinity?

casual123

casual123

casual123

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Joined
8 Apr 2010
Posts
371
as title says, currently have a 3gb 7950 and i wanna go eyefinity :) would i be better off getting another to crossfire or buying a newer card ( i dont mind trying nvidia surround ) I'll be playing bf4 etc :) thanks
 
2x 7950 will be better than any new single gpu card.

I'm using 2x7950s for eyefinity, I would add one more if I could... or replace with 2x R9 290s when custom coolers comes out.
 
casual123 said:
as title says, currently have a 3gb 7950 and i wanna go eyefinity :) would i be better off getting another to crossfire or buying a newer card ( i dont mind trying nvidia surround ) I'll be playing bf4 etc :) thanks
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I'd recommend selling your 7950 and getting 2x290 cards for Eyefinity.
 
casual123 said:
would like to do that but thats a lot of money which i havnt got atm :/

is eyefinity worth it for fps? ive always wanted to try it out! its either eyefinity or maybe a 27" monitor?
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7950's will do fine at Eyefinity but 290's would be better. 1gb extra vram and hardware frame pacing. That said 7950's will still do a sterling job and frame pacing is due on Eyefinity in January for Tahiti cards. Personally speaking i'd rather have one high quality screen to focus on than three seperate screens, but each to their own.
 
LtMatt's spot on - I went from 2 x 7970's to 2 x 290's on Eyefinity and the hardware frame rate pacing in the 290's makes a WORLD of difference for Crossfire + Eyefinity. It's so much smoother I am VERY glad I made the swap. That said, if AMD can come through and produce a frame rate pacing software solution for the 7xxx series, then you're better off with 2 x 7950's as the extra cash for 290's won't be worth it.

As to whether Eyefinity is worth it is a personal thing, I'm afraid. I have been running 3 screens since 2009/2010 with a 5870 and couldn't go back to 1 screen now, no matter the size. Two of my friends have bought 3 screen setups after playing with mine. However, my youngest spends loads of time on my PC and only plays on one screen as he finds the other screens too distracting in game. Personally, I find playing on 1 difficult as it feels like I'm wearing blinkers. :D Best suggestion is get in front of a 3 screen setup if you can and try it, some love it, some just don't get on with it. If you're close to me you're welcome to come and try my rig sometime. :)
 
Confused Stu said:
LtMatt's spot on - I went from 2 x 7970's to 2 x 290's on Eyefinity and the hardware frame rate pacing in the 290's makes a WORLD of difference for Crossfire + Eyefinity. It's so much smoother I am VERY glad I made the swap. That said, if AMD can come through and produce a frame rate pacing software solution for the 7xxx series, then you're better off with 2 x 7950's as the extra cash for 290's won't be worth it.

As to whether Eyefinity is worth it is a personal thing, I'm afraid. I have been running 3 screens since 2009/2010 with a 5870 and couldn't go back to 1 screen now, no matter the size. Two of my friends have bought 3 screen setups after playing with mine. However, my youngest spends loads of time on my PC and only plays on one screen as he finds the other screens too distracting in game. Personally, I find playing on 1 difficult as it feels like I'm wearing blinkers. :D Best suggestion is get in front of a 3 screen setup if you can and try it, some love it, some just don't get on with it. If you're close to me you're welcome to come and try my rig sometime. :)
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Thanks mate, just reading up about it all to try and make a decision lol :p i actually live in gillingham too haha!
 
casual123 said:
Thanks mate, just reading up about it all to try and make a decision lol :p i actually live in gillingham too haha!
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Oh dear, is this one of those "Geeks in your area want to play now. Click here" adverts? :p

Offer's genuine mate. If you fancy popping round one evening/weekend you're welcome to have a play and see if you get on with multi-screen or not. Much cheaper than buying the stuff and then finding out it gives you motion sickness or whatever! Trust message me if you want to and I'll send you my address and phone number to sort convenient time.
 
Confused Stu said:
LtMatt's spot on - I went from 2 x 7970's to 2 x 290's on Eyefinity and the hardware frame rate pacing in the 290's makes a WORLD of difference for Crossfire + Eyefinity. It's so much smoother I am VERY glad I made the swap. That said, if AMD can come through and produce a frame rate pacing software solution for the 7xxx series, then you're better off with 2 x 7950's as the extra cash for 290's won't be worth it.
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It is exactly this reason that has me looking at dual R 290's possibly with some new cooling solution.

I have a 6990 and triple screens and often the frame rate reports as 60 fps and stable but feels stuttery. Radeonpro helps smooth it out to a large extent by capping frames etc.

I looked long at hard at a 7990 when they were £399 or less but without guaranteed results with frame pacing with crossfire in eyefinity I held off.

These articles give a very telling comparison between the 7xxx series and the hardware equipped R290 series quite shocking actually. However, this is before any frame pacing driver is released for the 7xxx series (and below ?) which they say is due January but it's unclear if it will be as effective.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-Rating-Eyefinity-vs-Surround-Single-and-Multi-GPU-Configurations/Benchm

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-Rating-AMD-Radeon-R9-290X-CrossFire-and-4K-Preview-Testing

I may await the drivers then make a decision - couple of cheap 2nd hand 7950's are then really tempting ...

Cheers
 
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