Crossfiring two MSI 6870 OC's.

[Porceliamone]

I'm still getting up to speed on things having built my first ever PC (sig, below) so would appreciate some input.

As stated, I currently have the build noted in my sig but after a little consideration/reading I'm considering getting another MSI 6870 OC and x-firing it.

Will my MB support it or should I sell my existing (practically new 6870 OC) and invest in a more powerful single card?

Thanks.

 

[Porceliamone]

Update, I just read somewhere that the MB I have won't support x-fire?

A new more powerful GPU it is then I guess. That or stick with what I have. It's not a bad card but I think I've caught the bug after doing this all from scratch. I want more power! What would be a next step or two or three up from the 6870 OC?

 

[uksoldierboy]

I'm still getting up to speed on things having built my first ever PC (sig, below) so would appreciate some input.

As stated, I currently have the build noted in my sig but after a little consideration/reading I'm considering getting another MSI 6870 OC and x-firing it.

Will my MB support it or should I sell my existing (practically new 6870 OC) and invest in a more powerful single card?

Thanks.

I currently have two 6870s in crossfire, not come across a game they can't max yet, not had any problems either with xfire, but some do.
Whats your budget?

 

[Porceliamone]

I think it's now a moot point becuse the MB I have won't support x-firing (unless someone suggests otherwise)?

I'm not sure what I could get for my existing card. It's mint condition, barely used so far as my sytem is new.

I'm thinking I could add £100-150 on top of what I could get for my exisiting card.

 

[Surveyor]

The Gigabyte Z77-D3H does support CrossFire at 16/x4 speed.

If you install a card into the x16 (x4 speed) slot then other things are disabled:

The PCIEX4 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX1_2/3 slots. The PCIEX1_2/3 slots will become unavailable when a PCIe x4 expansion card is installed.

There's a test of HD 6950's at x16/x4 here: Does CrossFire Work At x16/x4?

Performance of HD 6870s CrossFired at x16/x4 may be better as presumably they won't require as much bandwidth as HD 6950s.

 

[uksoldierboy]

looking at it i think you could crossfire but the second pcix slot only runs 4x, not sure if that would make much of a difference or not unfortunately, maybe someone could clear that up?

edit, thanks for that surveyor well it appears getting a single card is the best choice for you, i'd go with a 7950 and oc the hell outa it, if you can and want to stick with amd

 

[Rusty0611]

I currently have two 6870s in crossfire, not come across a game they can't max yet, not had any problems either with xfire, but some do.
Whats your budget?

Apart from games which use more than 1GB of VRAM (i.e. a fair few)

 

[uksoldierboy]

Apart from games which use more than 1GB of VRAM (i.e. a fair few)

Not tried bf3 yet so i can't really comment on it.

 

[uksoldierboy]

rusty what games were you referring to?

 

[Rusty0611]

BF3, Metro 2033, Crysis 2 to name a few can push > 1GB on max settings. There's a fair few more.

 

[uksoldierboy]

Ah i see, knew that 1gb would be a limiting factor, i game at 1080p and haven't had any problems with crysis 2, arma 2 etc so far, can't comment on the others as i haven't had chance to play try them yet.