R9 290X Crossfire VS R9 Fury X?

[Chugz]

I don't think a single 980Ti is going to do 4K Ultra at 60fps. I wouldn't disable AA at 4K too, even though it still looks a lot better than 1080p, I always run at least a low level of AA like 2x MSAA

No point running AA on a 28" 4K monitor. Jaggies are impossible to see beyond 1 metre away, all you're doing is blowing additional performance down the drain. Considering GTA V can run above 40fps on a single 970 at 4K High on GTA V.

 

[Rezident]

There are many things that come with running more than one GPU, it's not just limited to the game not working at all.

The big question of course is your tolerance levels and how much you are prepared to put up with.

I ran SLI from 2007 all the way up until about six weeks ago and whilst for the most part it did what it should have it bought problems too. As I said, in Dying Light I would get great FPS @ 4k but with that came issues. When things were moving very quickly it would become stuttery just when you don't want it to. I also had the issue I described where the entire game would slow to a crawl and that would last anywhere between around five seconds and thirty seconds.

It was a well known issue, and IIRC it was fixed but it did take away my enjoyment of the game until it was fixed.

Witcher 3? hah ! that was just a pure mess in a dress on both Kepler and SLI. At first it was stuttery and I couldn't even get 30 FPS at high settings, then with the settings lowered to medium (where tbh it looked like 1080p) it flickered like a pig because apparently there was an issue with SLI and Gsync.

So there you have it, the 'I' word. Issues. All of which need to be suffered, overcome and waited on. Issues that don't exist when you are only running one card.

It was brought up lately that only around 300k users worldwide used more than one GPU. I would hazard a guess and say that even if those numbers are wrong the people who do run more than one GPU are very, very much in the minority.

As such the companies who own these technologies do not put enough time, money and effort into them and this is why you get issues.

Even when SLI does work properly and to its full capacity there are always tiny niggling little issues that come with it.

And Crossfire? well that is considerably worse. AMD cared so little about it that for years it was completely broken and didn't work properly. Even now, after they were caught, they still don't put enough time and effort into it. Why? all you need to do is look back and look at how few people use it. Why put time, money and resources into something that hardly any one has?

All of this shows when you get down and dirty and actually play games. None of the issues of a multiple GPU system show their heads because you're not taking the risk any more.

I promised myself a Fury X. I got one.
The next month I was dead set on getting a Fury to go with it. Instead I got a new coffee machine, 200 pods for said coffee machine, a 480gb SSD, a very expensive case for my phone, etc.
The next month I promised myself a Nano to go with my Fury X for Crossfire. Then I find out that it won't work in Crossfire and AMD want you to offer up a kidney for it.

£550 or more to add issues to my PC? sorry matey, don't think so !

I've been told elsewhere that Witcher 3 still does not work with Crossfire, so it would be £550 (or more gauging prices !) for nothing but crap.

Not going there. This is the first time I have seen completely issue free gaming in about eight years. I'm not really wanting to go back tbh.

Thank you for that, that is a very helpful post. Despite the impressive results in benches and reviews sometimes, I am afraid of the extra issues CrossFire may bring. My number one priority these days is no longer simply speed, it is stability, I don’t have time to tweak every little thing anymore, so I think I’ll stick with a single card for now.

 

[Howling]

Thank you for that, that is a very helpful post. Despite the impressive results in benches and reviews sometimes, I am afraid of the extra issues CrossFire may bring. My number one priority these days is no longer simply speed, it is stability, I don’t have time to tweak every little thing anymore, so I think I’ll stick with a single card for now.

Not had a single issue with Crossfired Fury X's. But tbh, I don't think anyone needs multi-card unless they're at 4k. Single card solutions are powerful enough to manage lower resolutions.

 

[jupiter_man]

So looking forward to see how DX12 is going to change all these Sli /CF issues

 

[flopper]

crossfire/sli have technical issues.
DX12 wont save that.
you can have a team that does crossfire/sli support the way dx12 can support but how many engines/games will have that?

next years at least will bring fury x performance and more down to midrange gpu the 390 king level. then we get at last when a single gpu can do things for most set ups including 4k

VR and 5k+ well who knows

 

[Zeed]

flopper I think for VR You will need as much power as for 4k but but where are them damn helmets ??

 

[ALXAndy]

Thank you for that, that is a very helpful post. Despite the impressive results in benches and reviews sometimes, I am afraid of the extra issues CrossFire may bring. My number one priority these days is no longer simply speed, it is stability, I don’t have time to tweak every little thing anymore, so I think I’ll stick with a single card for now.

It's very tempting when you look at figures yeah. I'm still tempted to go with a Nano alongside my X but thankfully AMD took that away for me by pricing it so stupidly high.

I'm simply not going to hand over £515+ for issues. Maybe when they drop to around £400 they can come and talk to me but right now they have made the decision absolutely impossible by charging a ludicrous price.

I'm already seeing price drops on the Fury, so maybe when there is more competition (from XFX and so on) the Fury may be the card for me but not until it costs £350 or less. The chances are that for the most part I will need to disable it, so I'm just not willing to pay more than that.

I'm not having any FPS issues lately using just one Fury X. I tried GTAV online and it got stuttery at times but the FPS were not changing so I would surmise that was an issue with the server I was on? no idea.

Just played all the way through Dead Island Riptide with absolutely no problems. I know it's a dated game but it looks quite pretty and it flew along nicely.

Also saw a performance test of the new Splinter Cell game and that flies on the Fury X @ 4k so I definitely don't need Crossfire for that...

Next up? Fallout 4, and I absolutely guarantee I won't need Crossfire to max that out either.

 

[r7slayer]

Actually they are about even.

If people want to start cherry picking games like some sites do then they will always find games that support their side of the argument.

Here are my 4 Fury Xs up against my 4 290Xs @2160p, there is not a big difference.

Cherry picking? I like how you go on about how your 4 Fury x do against your 4 290x but yet you don't just post the results of your 4 fury x and 4 290x in the heaven bench. You feel its important to show how good single nvidia cards do for that bench when this thread had nothing to do with nvidia cards to begin with nor that bench.

Some times i wonder if you are biased as i see you seem to favour nvidia much more than AMD no matter how much you try to seem unbiased.

 

[Kaapstad]

Cherry picking? I like how you go on about how your 4 Fury x do against your 4 290x but yet you don't just post the results of your 4 fury x and 4 290x in the heaven bench. You feel its important to show how good single nvidia cards do for that bench when this thread had nothing to do with nvidia cards to begin with nor that bench.

Some times i wonder if you are biased as i see you seem to favour nvidia much more than AMD no matter how much you try to seem unbiased.

I think it is you who appears biased here lol.

In the first example of mine you quoted I was highlighting the fact that C/F also has some real howlers and anyone who claims C/F is better than SLI or the other way round would be unwise as there are too many variables.

In the second example I posted the whole Heaven 4 table so people could see how the AMD cards did in relation to each other. I did not mention the NVidia cards at all but you felt the need to raise the subject lol.

Almost forgot, there are a lot of AMD and NVidia bench scores I do that never get posted on these forums but if I was biased toward NVidia I would be more than happy to post them. The reason they don't get posted is because although accurate they are for things that are of no values to anyone using the cards for everyday use and would only be useful to someone who is biased.

 

[r7slayer]

I think it is you who appears biased here lol.

In the first example of mine you quoted I was highlighting the fact that C/F also has some real howlers and anyone who claims C/F is better than SLI or the other way round would be unwise as there are too many variables.

In the second example I posted the whole Heaven 4 table so people could see how the AMD cards did in relation to each other. I did not mention the NVidia cards at all but you felt the need to raise the subject lol.

Almost forgot, there are a lot of AMD and NVidia bench scores I do that never get posted on these forums but if I was biased toward NVidia I would be more than happy to post them. The reason they don't get posted is because although accurate they are for things that are of no values to anyone using the cards for everyday use and would only be useful to someone who is biased.

Lol, i'm not biased at all. I'm just biased against people not brand. I don't like people who pretend to be unbiased or pretend to favour another brand when they demonstrate the opposite.

And why didn't you just show the 4 Fury x vs 4 290x then? Seen as you said here is 4 Fury vs 4 290x, you had to include the single nvidia cards to demonstrate this? That doesn't help your crossfire statement as it's just single nvidia cards! We all know nVidia cards perform better in the Heaven and Valley benchmarks, atleast i think we do?

I know your an enthusiast kaap and you buy both AMD and nVidia cards for your rigs and use them to bench as it appears to be your hobby and it's a great hobby if you have the money for it. But i know you favour nVidia more than AMD and i don't have a problem with this its that you hide and pretend you don't. And i understand why you do favour nVidia lets be honest they are the king of the crown when it comes to the best of the best. They have many gens rained the best performers at high end. Sorry for seeming to single you out its just the cherry picking comment which got to me as you appear in most of your posts to favor nVidia a lot more as in you post more defensive posts for nVidia than AMD when people start posting poo. Anyways i could be wrong but yea sorry for going on one. Bit drunk too.

 

[Kaapstad]

Lol, i'm not biased at all. I'm just biased against people not brand. I don't like people who pretend to be unbiased or pretend to favour another brand when they demonstrate the opposite.

And why didn't you just show the 4 Fury x vs 4 290x then? Seen as you said here is 4 Fury vs 4 290x, you had to include the single nvidia cards to demonstrate this? That doesn't help your crossfire statement as it's just single nvidia cards! We all know nVidia cards perform better in the Heaven and Valley benchmarks, atleast i think we do?

I know your an enthusiast kaap and you buy both AMD and nVidia cards for your rigs and use them to bench as it appears to be your hobby and it's a great hobby if you have the money for it. But i know you favour nVidia more than AMD and i don't have a problem with this its that you hide and pretend you don't. And i understand why you do favour nVidia lets be honest they are the king of the crown when it comes to the best of the best. They have many gens rained the best performers at high end. Sorry for seeming to single you out its just the cherry picking comment which got to me as you appear in most of your posts to favor nVidia a lot more as in you post more defensive posts for nVidia than AMD when people start posting poo. Anyways i could be wrong but yea sorry for going on one. Bit drunk too.

I don't favour NVidia at all but I do say what is what if it is true.

A good example of this is the GTX 980 which I really rubbished for use @2160p. I think i was the only one who said that the bus on the GTX 970 and 980 was not up to the job and everyone else heaped critisium on me saying it would be all fixed in a couple of months with a driver update. Surprise surprise a year later the GTX 980 still is poor at 2160p and we are still waiting for a driver update lol.

As to the table i posted from the bench thread the reason all the cards were on there is it was quick and easy to post the whole lot rather than waste time editing it. The point is it did not matter that the NVidia cards were there or not.

Another interesting thing about the Heaven 4 bench @1080p is for a very long time I had the highest score on any forum not just this one using 4 x 290Xs I would hardly call that biased. The reason for this is unlike a lot of people who just dismiss AMD cards for the Heaven 4 bench I realised that although individually the 290Xs were not as quick as the 980s, when I used them 4 up at 1080p the AMD cards on the bench were better at avoiding the CPU bottleneck and were able to outscore their NVidia counterparts.

 

[r7slayer]

I don't favour NVidia at all but I do say what is what if it is true.

A good example of this is the GTX 980 which I really rubbished for use @2160p. I think i was the only one who said that the bus on the GTX 970 and 980 was not up to the job and everyone else heaped critisium on me saying it would be all fixed in a couple of months with a driver update. Surprise surprise a year later the GTX 980 still is poor at 2160p and we are still waiting for a driver update lol.

As to the table i posted from the bench thread the reason all the cards were on there is it was quick and easy to post the whole lot rather than waste time editing it. The point is it did not matter that the NVidia cards were there or not.

Another interesting thing about the Heaven 4 bench @1080p is for a very long time I had the highest score on any forum not just this one using 4 x 290Xs I would hardly call that biased. The reason for this is unlike a lot of people who just dismiss AMD cards for the Heaven 4 bench I realised that although individually the 290Xs were not as quick as the 980s, when I used them 4 up at 1080p the AMD cards on the bench were better at avoiding the CPU bottleneck and were able to outscore their NVidia counterparts.

Then i do applogise if you are truley not it just comes across that way. You do a lot of great work on these forums though which is deffo apparent!