7970 xfire

evohicks · 4 May 2013 at 21:25

Ok now I am nearing the end of my upgrade session for this year I have one final dilema, do I stick with one 7970 or go for a 2nd.
Obviously temps,power, game compatibility and price fall into the cons dept, to the guys with two of these, was it worth it?

Tonester0011 · 4 May 2013 at 21:32

I originally went with Xfire for aesthetics of watercooling two cards as opposed to one. The performance was a nice boost but most the time i gamed with just one card due to stuttering (game dependent, some were bad..others were good and some just were unplayable!) from the little games i do currently play using the newest drivers the stutter seems to have got a lot less noticeable, which will only get better.

I say go for it, providing that CPU can keep 120fps in the games you play you'll have the grunt to turn settings up and keep the games silky smooth with your screen

old gamer · 5 May 2013 at 10:56

Ive just bought a second 7970 and have a 120hz monitor, so i should be able to offer some info next week

deFiniLoGy · 5 May 2013 at 12:22

should be nice..
I myself use a 7970CF, totally worth it

SpeckleD · 5 May 2013 at 12:59

I say go for it, initially I was disappointed going from CF 5870's so not a huge jump in performance. I decided to add a second card WOW! is all I can say I have both under water and they clock really well at stock voltage also. Not noticed any stuttering so far so well happy!

Macro · 5 May 2013 at 14:33

I've been running xf7970s driving 2560x1440 since they came out and am really happy with the results. Absolutely no evidence of any kind of micro stuttering here and the later drivers have really upped their game.

anthony566 · 5 May 2013 at 19:07

I know you can mix these cards but when going xfire and sli ..... I have always put 2 identical cards together just to remove any issues that might crop up with mixing different manufacture cards together so I'd get a second card to match your current one while you can

...

LtMatt · 5 May 2013 at 19:13

Look at all these happy xfire users. :eek:

evohicks · 5 May 2013 at 19:20

anthony566 said:
I know you can mix these cards but when going xfire and sli ..... I have always put 2 identical cards together just to remove any issues that might crop up with mixing different manufacture cards together so I'd get a second card to match your current one while you can ...

Yeah this is what I was thinking, I nearly went down the Xfire route a while back when I bought a Vapor x 5770 shortly after they came out but the price of these about 6 months later was a joke and ebay prices were just as bad, so I thought this time its now or never, but now the damn card has gone up 50 notes since I got it a couple of weeks ago ffs

anthony566 · 5 May 2013 at 19:37

Link the one you have and we can keep an eye open for any deals ...

evohicks · 5 May 2013 at 19:48

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition Windforce 3X 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £399.95
Total : £410.75 (includes shipping : £9.00).

I could probably get away with the OC version running both at the OC stock core of 1000Mhz, don't really want to O/C the cards in xfire, more heat not needed

Edit, maybe they raised the price so that when the 5% discount (due to likes on facebook) comes in it looks better

. Cheapest I have seen so far is £336.35 (Part No: GV-R797TO)

Skynet-T800 · 6 May 2013 at 08:01

No xfire issues here, just buttery smooth graphics,

Only downside is the heat & noise.

evohicks · 6 May 2013 at 12:11

Well as Ocuk couldn't price match close enough I returned it and got a couple of HIS HD 7970 IceQ X²'s, pretty damn cheap offer at the minute, just ran them on BF3 for an hour or so and they got to 50 degrees, 7 less than my single 7970 Ghz and to be honest it's a tad warmer today too.
They ran pretty smoothly at some decent fps, obviously my CPU temp went a few degrees higher but still in the 30's at a low 4.3GHz overclock.
Lets hope it all stays good

anthony566 · 6 May 2013 at 13:27

you sorted that fast.... you must live close to OC do you ?? :-)

evohicks · 6 May 2013 at 14:12

About an hour. Trouble with my work I have to get up at 6am in the week and so at weekends I am always up early, so this morning it was a trip to Ocuk, arrived just after 08.30

no idiots on the roads, its a nice drive tbh.

anthony566 · 6 May 2013 at 18:44

We need an in the case shot

ussie · 6 May 2013 at 19:15

I would love to xfire but I had a 7970 matrix platinum which takes 3 slots and I have a asus xonar phoebus soundcard aswell I'm kinda stuck aren't I xD?

Rusty0611 · 6 May 2013 at 19:48

ussie said:
I would love to xfire but I had a 7970 matrix platinum which takes 3 slots and I have a asus xonar phoebus soundcard aswell I'm kinda stuck aren't I xD?

If it's PCI-E you can put it above card one. That's where my sound card is

.

If it's PCI then yes, you're buggered

.

anthony566 · 6 May 2013 at 19:49

Unless you put some custom cooling on the GPU's .......

ussie · 6 May 2013 at 21:57

Rusty0611 said:
If it's PCI-E you can put it above card one. That's where my sound card is .

If it's PCI then yes, you're buggered .

CROSSHAIR V FORMULA-Z is my motherboard.

http://rog.asus.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/crosshair-v-formula-overview.jpg Is what it looks like, It MAY be possible to work around it now that I think about it!!

Slot 1-3 would be the 7970 slot 4 which is pci-e x1 will be my sound card (which is currently my wireless network card) slots 5 and 6 will then be free
I could either get another 7970 plat and text my current one to see it doesnt block the connections at the bottom or get a duel slot 7970 and crossfire them and keep my sound card! but a long xfire cable might be needed?

I'd love to water cool it it would make life allot easier pci-e slots wise but Im not ready to make my own loop yet