Cossfire 7850's are approx 30% faster than a single 7970 according the the few benchmarks I have seen. As costs for both systems are almost identical, and as both crossfire and sli are very reliable nowadays, it certainly makes sense
Specs
Transistors: 2.8bn x2 (5.6bn) vs 4.31bn
Stream Processors: 1024 x2 (2048) vs 2048 - tie
ROP's: 32 x2 (64) vs 32 - 7850 win
Texture Units: 64 x2 (128) vs 128 - tie
Memory: 2GB x2 (duplicated 2GB) vs 3GB - 7970 win
Memory Bus: 256bits x2 (512bits) vs 384bits - 7850 win
Memory Bandwidth: 153.6Gbits x2 (307.2Gbits) vs 264Gbits - 7850 win
Power Consumption Max: 130W x2 (260W) vs 250W - 7970 slight win
Power Consumption Idle: 14W + 3W ZeroCore power (17W) vs 19W - 7850 slight win
There are however several good reasons to opt for a 7970. For multi-monitor setups the extra 1GB DDR5 may eventually come in handy. Also, some mobo's and cases can only handle a single card.
I do think that for the vast majority of people 2x 7850's will be a superior solution to the 7970 and the GTX680.
Cheers for taking the time to share that info, finding a review on crossfire 7850s or any decent info for that matter is a challenge! Originaly was considering the 7950 with the prospect of crossfiring down the line, the idea of 3GBs on a single card with 384bit mem bus is/was very tempting but coming from positive crossfiring experiences mixed with impatience and curiosity lead to the final choice, knowing what I/we know now Id probably have gone the non sapphire OC route as they seem to have the same OCing headroom and the only benefit is perhaps slightly added resale value when upgrade time comes around again.
Even @5760 x 1080 these things put out ridiculously good FPS.
I just remembered! have had 1 issue with what appeared to be micro stuttering while playing Skyrim however since switching from 1920x1080 to 5760x1080 that seems to have dissapeared and suspect the addition of an "active displayport" resolved the issue which indicates microstuttering was not the problem afterall..
Have taken a few screenies as examples of the fps (top left corner) these cards put out in eyefinity @1150/1375 @1.176v, all games @Max settings