Crossfire 6870 vs ....

[RichH]

Hi Guys,

I have a 6870 1GB at the moment, but want a bit more grunt.

My first thought was to go crossfire becasue if it works properly it is really good bang for buck, but just wondered what everone elses opinion is.

A new 6870 is about £130, and mine is probably still worth £100 second hand, so the budget is £230.

The options seem to be:

CF 6870 (most powerfull, but lowest VRAM)
6970
7850 (Newest tech, lowest power?)
570 (Worst option due to low VRAM and not as pwerfull as CF6870?)

I was planning on buying this week, but if people think it really is worth waiting for GTX6xx I may do that.

Thanks in advance.

 

[HeX]

7850 and OC the **** out of it imho.

 

[[email protected]]

+1 7850.

 

[[email protected]]

+1 to CF 6870 - using it with my new build - just make sure you have good ventilation

 

[Rusty0611]

Sell your 6870 and buy a 7850. I think this is overall a better option although CF6870's will give you more GPU grunt at the cost of having only 1GB VRAM which could hurt you in the future.

 

[shadow_boxer]

Sell your 6870 and buy a 7850. I think this is overall a better option although CF6870's will give you more GPU grunt at the cost of having only 1GB VRAM which could hurt you in the future.

This. Although Xfire 6870 offers massive bang for buck the VRAM issue may well affect you sooner rather than later. Getting a 7850 and overclock the nuts off it offer near stock 7950 performance with the option of going Xfire later and having plenty of VRAM headroom. I'm in a similar position with a single GTX470 and considering the above too.

 

[mattius1989]

Hi Guys,

I have a 6870 1GB at the moment, but want a bit more grunt.

My first thought was to go crossfire becasue if it works properly it is really good bang for buck, but just wondered what everone elses opinion is.

A new 6870 is about £130, and mine is probably still worth £100 second hand, so the budget is £230.

The options seem to be:

CF 6870 (most powerfull, but lowest VRAM)
6970
7850 (Newest tech, lowest power?)
570 (Worst option due to low VRAM and not as pwerfull as CF6870?)

I was planning on buying this week, but if people think it really is worth waiting for GTX6xx I may do that.

Thanks in advance.

I have recently upgraded to a 680 from CF6870. In my opinion (@1080P), based on my experience with the setup, two 6870s just doesn't cut it.

You could attribute that to my CPU but even so, I would go for a decent single card and sell the 6870 (I recently sold my two for £90 each).

 

[RichH]

I have recently upgraded to a 680 from CF6870. In my opinion (@1080P), based on my experience with the setup, two 6870s just doesn't cut it.

What exactly do you mean by this?

 

[buchtis]

Ignore everyone here and buy another 6870. They **** on even the newest cards from a great height and you'll be saving yourself a lot of money. I'm playing @ 1080p and I have no trouble maxing anything out with x4AA/x4AF on a crappy 1090T.

 

[[email protected]]

Ignore everyone here and buy another 6870. They **** on even the newest cards from a great height and you'll be saving yourself a lot of money. I'm playing @ 1080p and I have no trouble maxing anything out with x4AA/x4AF on a crappy 1090T.

+1

 

[Rusty0611]

Yeah you're fine now but we're at the limits of 1GB VRAM.

 

[mattius1989]

Ignore everyone here and buy another 6870. They **** on even the newest cards from a great height and you'll be saving yourself a lot of money. I'm playing @ 1080p and I have no trouble maxing anything out with x4AA/x4AF on a crappy 1090T.

Well from having to run BF3 on [email protected] on my 6870CF to [email protected] on my 680, I think I'll have to disagree I'm afraid. Also, you need to bare in mind the shoddy speed AMD knock out CAPs (skyrim, a month ), it seems a lot less hassle to me to just have a decent single card (1.5GB to 2GB) and maybe look to CF that a year later. IMHO.

 

[RichH]

Hmm, I can run BF3 on high at 1080p with a single 6870.

I would be pretty upset if i couldn't run ultra with crossfire.

 

[mattius1989]

I think that is where the 1GB limit comes in, as having it on Ultra brings in Ultra textures.

 

[RichH]

hmm, i see. Tricky one then.

 

[andybird123]

At the Low setting, 150MB is allocated to the texture pool; Medium = 200MB; High = 300MB; and Ultra = 500MB. Keep in mind however that your VRAM also stores a range of other game information, and that an average multiplayer level in BF3 can have 1.5GB or more of textures, so it can't all be stored on your GPU at once. Thus setting this option too high may result in stuttering or visible texture streaming. The Ultra Texture Quality setting for example is designed specifically for GPUs with 1.5GB or more of VRAM.

+1 to the sell your card and get a 7850 and hope you get a good OCer

 

[Alexrose1uk]

I've also got a 6870, and I'm in the 7850 pool as well.

The performance increase won't be as high in optimal situations, but no worries about games not having dual GPU support, and the 2GB is worth considering, there are already games out there which'll push past that 1GB limit.

Plus, if you do get a good overclocking 7850, there wont be a huge amount of performance difference either!

 

[Rusty0611]

Yeah 7850 only really is recommended for you if you're going to overclock it. Otherwise 6870 vs stock 7850 is negligible difference.

 

[HeX]

My max OC'd 7850 is about on par with the performance of the 6850 CF setup I had before it, while being considerably cooler, quieter, and far less power hungry. Plus the 2GB mem makes it much better for up coming games.

I wouldn't go back to the 6850's in crossfire after having this card.

 

[Rusty0611]

Your overclock is borderline ridiculous Hex ha ha.