Considering crossfire - yay or nay?

[WU-TANG]GZA · 25 Dec 2011 at 16:46

Hey peeps,

Well it's Christmas, ocuk have another lovely Xmas discount going and I'm looking at the MSI 6970L. With the offer it will come to around same price that I paid for my reference HIS 6970.

I have a few questions I'm on my phone and dot have access to a computer for riper research:

1. Is CF still a nightmare or is it mostly OK but patience needed with new games for drivers to come out?

2. I assume the 6970L wud xfire fine with my HIS- where would you put the cards? HIS on the bottom or top?

3. What speeds are on my lanes on my mobo? Gigabyte X58 UD3 v1.6.
Has anyone used this mobo to xfire before? Is there enough space? I have an anted 902 and keep it very dust free so airflow shouldn't be a problem and I have a massive TX950 with 78a on the single rail and have my i7 920 clocked at 3.8Ghz.

The special is on whilst I'm without pc hence why asking this rather than looking it all up.

Most taxing game I play is BF3 I have a 120hz monitor and the fps goes from 40 odd to about 70-80 fps max at 1080p on ultra with 0 MSAA as it just cripples amd cards. I want more fps!! Although this is massively just Christmas self treating so I'm not 100% on the idea to do it.

So what you think guys? Any answers to those questions and whether you would bother or not wud be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

GZA

ThePengu1n · 25 Dec 2011 at 16:55

1. All good for me, you will need some patience occassionally though.

2. Will be fine, probably put the his at the bottom as it has worse cooling

3. Assuming it's this board http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3305#sp it wont make much difference as it should run at 8x 8x so I would go top and bottom (or 1st and 3rd) to give the most room

I think it's worth it, especially as you game at 1080p and 120hz

Surveyor · 25 Dec 2011 at 16:56

Which exact motherboard do you have?

Alexrose1uk · 25 Dec 2011 at 16:57

My experience with Crossfire is that actually, it's not as bad as some people make it out to be, SLI might be perhaps a little more mature in it's current state, but having used 2 crossfire machines and 2 SLI setups as my last gaming setups, I actually found them both relatively useable with normally minimal issues, as long as you keep relatively up to date with drivers/profiles.
Crossfire can exacerbate some driver/new title issues, but for general usage, I was actually pleasantly surprised, you get more consistancy with a single card, but if my option was either slow single card, or a crossfire setup of the same card, I'd definately go crossfire.

95thrifles · 25 Dec 2011 at 17:10

Alexrose1uk said:
My experience with Crossfire is that actually, it's not as bad as some people make it out to be, SLI might be perhaps a little more mature in it's current state, but having used 2 crossfire machines and 2 SLI setups as my last gaming setups, I actually found them both relatively useable with normally minimal issues, as long as you keep relatively up to date with drivers/profiles.
Crossfire can exacerbate some driver/new title issues, but for general usage, I was actually pleasantly surprised, you get more consistancy with a single card, but if my option was either slow single card, or a crossfire setup of the same card, I'd definately go crossfire.

This is my experience really, if its a brand new game you can come across initial difficulties until a patch/driver release, but theyre normally pretty quick in coming, on the whole its not "that" bad. That being said, the issues I found were heat & noise, in that having 2 high performance cards next to each other just heat each other up more & more thus producing more noise as fans spin to try and cool, IMO this wasnt worth the performance gain, but each to their own. Im now on water so would maybe consider dual cards again, but if I was on air then for me its a no.

arc@css · 25 Dec 2011 at 17:15

The only time I've tried crossfire was when I had a dual gpu card. I had no major problems and would do it again.

ALXAndy · 25 Dec 2011 at 17:20

Hmm. Not so sure it would be fully compatible..

I say that mainly because of this...

Note that it's specifically named a Lightning..

I guess if the dev_id matches though it would be good?

6718

Can any one confirm the stock 6970 device ID?

95thrifles · 25 Dec 2011 at 17:22

Doesnt matter, you can xfire it with a 6950 if you like, as long as theyre from the same range itll work, though iirc they would both run at slower cards speeds, someone may confirm

JeffyB · 25 Dec 2011 at 17:25

Sli downclocks to the slowest card, crossfire doesn't.

ALXAndy · 25 Dec 2011 at 17:26

95thrifles said:
Doesnt matter, you can xfire it with a 6950 if you like, as long as theyre from the same range itll work, though iirc they would both run at slower cards speeds, someone may confirm

It does matter if they have come up with a weird hardware ID.

Drivers look for matches. If the hardware ID of the Lightning isn't listed it won't work.

Now I strongly doubt MSI have done that, but it pays to be safe no?

[WU-TANG]GZA · 25 Dec 2011 at 18:04

Surveyor said:
Which exact motherboard do you have?

The info I gave in my op is all that I have atm as still away from pc.
Gigabyte X58 UD3 v 1.6.

Thanks all for your replies.

So the mobo is x8 x8 that's a start.

Damn really gonna look at buying one tomorrow then and just give it a go.

Which are the best drivers atm for xfire and BF3? Anyone with 6950cf that play bf3? Must be tonnes of you out there.

Dayyyyum more Christmas money spent at ocuk.....

Alexrose1uk · 25 Dec 2011 at 18:06

The 8.93 November 12.1 betas, or the 12.1 previews are probably the best for BF3

[WU-TANG]GZA · 25 Dec 2011 at 18:14

Alexrose1uk said:
The 8.93 November 12.1 betas, or the 12.1 previews are probably the best for BF3

Sweet thanks mate.

Just had another thought assuming I'd get around £180 for my 6970 maybe I shud consider skipping CF although that's why I bought the psu and add the £250 I'd spend on the 6970L and hopefully get a 7970 for a similar price.... I did exactly this with my 4890 got the tx950 with ideas of 4890cf which was BEASTLY at the time but ended up getting the 6970....

Could someone do me a quick favour and compare 6970CF with what's is currently known to be 7970 performance?

3G in the country is well.....certainly not 4g for gadget show in c.london !!!!

LtMatt · 25 Dec 2011 at 19:38

Go for crossfire. Just got it myself. Running smoothly with no problems or microstutter and im on a x16 - x4 board as well.

Bf3 @1080p Ultra all settings maxed including AA. FPS 45-60. I have vsync on. It only goes down to 45 during huge explosions, or when you are on the ship at Gulf Of Oman and you look at the whole map from the ship.

[WU-TANG]GZA · 25 Dec 2011 at 20:38

LtMatt said:
Go for crossfire. Just got it myself. Running smoothly with no problems or microstutter and im on a x16 - x4 board as well.

Bf3 @1080p Ultra all settings maxed including AA. FPS 45-60. I have vsync on. It only goes down to 45 during huge explosions, or when you are on the ship at Gulf Of Oman and you look at the whole map from the ship.

Have you ever tried the xfire without AA just so I can compare. Benchmarks are one thing but I'd like a user stat.

I've got it in my basket now, added the voucher code, chosen delivery date.

Just not sure if I'm being a bit silly and 'wasting' £250. Hmmm....

inSilica · 25 Dec 2011 at 20:43

[WU-TANG]GZA;20879308 said:
Have you ever tried the xfire without AA just so I can compare. Benchmarks are one thing but I'd like a user stat.

I've got it in my basket now, added the voucher code, chosen delivery date.

Just not sure if I'm being a bit silly and 'wasting' £250. Hmmm....

I think the following is smart!

Just had another thought assuming I'd get around £180 for my 6970 maybe I shud consider skipping CF although that's why I bought the psu and add the £250 I'd spend on the 6970L and hopefully get a 7970 for a similar price..

You can crossfire later on in the year ... with another 7970 or 7950 (which ever you decide to go with)

tommybhoy · 25 Dec 2011 at 22:41

I presume you can watch youtube videos on your phone:

tommybhoy said:
Amd 6950>70 Crossfire @ 880MHz/1350Mhz
Catalyst 11.10 preview2 + Cap3 Win7

This was a small video showing BF3 fps taken on release with the Catalyst 11.10 preview2 + Cap3 .

Performance has had a good boost since then too, using newest drivers here and performance is rock solid.

Not swapping my CrossFire for the 7970, as(with a little patience sometimes) 6950>70 CrossFire will beat the 7970 the majority of the time @1080p.

[WU-TANG]GZA · 25 Dec 2011 at 22:42

inSilica said:
I think the following is smart!

You can crossfire later on in the year ... with another 7970 or 7950 (which ever you decide to go with)

Well I did that with the 4890 went to 6970.

I'm leaning towards getting another 6970.

Having looked at anandtech (I know it's only one site and I only used one bench to be honest also) the GPU 2012 bench at 1200p on the crysis warhead frost bench the 7970 gets about 50fps but on the GPU 2011 bench the 6970CF gets like 89 !

Again, I know it's one bench from one site but I'm thinking 6970CF is comfortably ahead of the 7970 and at the same cost which is normal between one generation anyway.

Think I might hit the confirm order button tomorrow tbh.....I'd imagine 6970CF would last me for a good two more years then. At least until some proper games get made (if we'll ever get that again)

Mattuk69 · 26 Dec 2011 at 11:32

No, burn it with fire.

Alexrose1uk · 26 Dec 2011 at 11:45

The 6970CF will be stronger than a single 7970 except when things like heavy Tesselation come into play. Now how much of an affect that'll be I don't know, but it suggests the 7970 might perhaps last a little in the long run, but right now the 6970CF will probably garner higher immediate framerates but plateau quicker.