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Advice please....

OLD JUD

OLD JUD

OLD JUD

Associate
Joined
13 Apr 2009
Posts
111
Location
Manchester
Hi folks,

I have a Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7970 graphics card. I'm looking for some extra performance on a limited budget. Do add another 7970 in crossfire configuration, or go for something like a MSI AMD Radeon R9 290 4GB TWIN FROZR IV Graphics Card? I'll almost certainly be buying second hand, my budget is limited to around the £200 - £250 (maximum) mark.

Thanks in advance for any advice.
 
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everyone on the forums seems to agree that xfire is not a good option. Just sell your card and buy the best single card you can afford.
 
Assuming that the games you play enable X-fire, the 7970s would be faster (around 80% increase from a single 7970), and they can be had for around £100.

The R9 290 would be approximately a 40-50% increase in performance, but you have the thermal, noise, and compatibility benefits of a single card. HERE is a good comparison of 7970 CF vs R9 290.
 
I'd echo what's been said above. Multi GPU is great when it's supported, but many new titles take ages to receive support and many never get it at all.

Faster single GPU always trumps mGPU in my opinion, and that's coming from someone who's previous setup was GTX 980 SLI.
 
Have used SLI in the past (Which I consider better of the two) and it was a nightmare. I was lucky that they were both strong cards and so I could always rely on a single card, you won't be able to do this.

You'll essentially be all in and only able to run games that support it properly. A bad choice in my opinion.
 
Thanks for all the advice guys, i'm out of touch with the latest GPU's.
When I built my rig the 7970 was the way to go.
My budget is around £200 - £250 (found some spare cash!)that's without selling my 7970. So I could go to £250 then sell my 7970 to recoup some money.
 
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MumboJumbo said:
Have used SLI in the past (Which I consider better of the two) and it was a nightmare. I was lucky that they were both strong cards and so I could always rely on a single card, you won't be able to do this.
Click to expand...

This is interesting as my only regret with the PC I had built is that the motherboard does not support SLI. Would you avoid SLI altogether in the future?
 
foxyfaefife said:
This is interesting as my only regret with the PC I had built is that the motherboard does not support SLI. Would you avoid SLI altogether in the future?
Click to expand...

I personally would, yes. I found that SLI worked well in around 50% of the games I tried, but not the rest. Having moved to 1440p meant that in the remainder I wasn't happy with the performance, and far less happy knowing I had another £400 card (at the time) acting as a paperweight. I sold both and went for the 980Ti which offers performance somewhere between a single and twin 980's. It may not be as fast in all games but at least I get all the performance all of the time.

I'd summarise it like this: with SLI/Crossfire you can have 10/10 performance in some games, and 5/10 in others. With a single faster card you can have 7-8/10 performance all of the time. Of course performance varies based upon the cards involved.

In the past I've had the following mGPU solutions with mixed results, so won't be trying it again:

7800 GTX SLI
8800 GTS SLI
3870XT Crossfire
5870 Crossfire
GTX 980 SLI
 
OLD JUD said:
Thanks for all the advice guys, i'm out of touch with the latest GPU's.
When I built my rig the 7970 was the way to go.
My budget is around £200 - £250 (found some spare cash!)that's without selling my 7970. So I could go to £250 then sell my 7970 to recoup some money.
Click to expand...

That sort of budget will buy you a new RX480 or GTX 1060 new. These will handle anything at 1080p Ultra and most things at 1440p High (Ultra in some games).

Personally I wouldn't bother with Xfire or SLI, it's too hit and miss. Just get the best single card solution you can afford.
 
Best single card you can afford.

Hopefully in a few days you will see the custom/aftermarket versions of the RX 480 coming out that should be around 200 to 250. I would seriously consider one of these.

I'm not to hot on UK prices right now, but the GTX 1060 will also be a stella purchase for around 250. If you wish to save money, take a look at the RX 480 4GB.
 
OLD JUD said:
Hi folks,

I have a Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7970 graphics card. I'm looking for some extra performance on a limited budget. Do add another 7970 in crossfire configuration, or go for something like a MSI AMD Radeon R9 290 4GB TWIN FROZR IV Graphics Card? I'll almost certainly be buying second hand, my budget is limited to around the £200 - £250 (maximum) mark.

Thanks in advance for any advice.
Click to expand...

Why buy used old tech?
Get either this at £200
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/sapp...ddr5-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-37d-sp.html

or this at £250

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/sapp...ddr5-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-37b-sp.html
 
zola25 said:
I personally would, yes. I found that SLI worked well in around 50% of the games I tried, but not the rest. Having moved to 1440p meant that in the remainder I wasn't happy with the performance, and far less happy knowing I had another £400 card (at the time) acting as a paperweight. I sold both and went for the 980Ti which offers performance somewhere between a single and twin 980's. It may not be as fast in all games but at least I get all the performance all of the time.

I'd summarise it like this: with SLI/Crossfire you can have 10/10 performance in some games, and 5/10 in others. With a single faster card you can have 7-8/10 performance all of the time. Of course performance varies based upon the cards involved.

In the past I've had the following mGPU solutions with mixed results, so won't be trying it again:

7800 GTX SLI
8800 GTS SLI
3870XT Crossfire
5870 Crossfire
GTX 980 SLI
Click to expand...

That's a shame, what I like about SLI (if it actually worked) is the thought of just shoving another 1070 in maybe two years down the line once prices have dropped. That said, I guess Nvidia would be shooting themselves in the foot a bit with this as it would probably be greater or equal to the performance of the top tier card on the market at that time if SLI was more reliable.
 
8GB 480 Nitro+ would do a great job. Multi GPU is really frustrating when new games come with no support. After having it in the past and being very disappointed I'm steering clear of it now. It would affect you even more if your cards are older as it's a lot less power to rely on when mGPU is not working well.
 
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