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Replace xfire 7950s with what?

liscoe

liscoe

liscoe

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7 Feb 2011
Posts
64
I recently bought a second 7950 to go with my original one as it was a reasonably cheap way of upgrading. However after only a few weeks I am sick to death of blooming xfire and the faffing about I have to do in order to get any performance gains out of it so am thinking of getting rid of these cards and replacing them with a single 970.

The only demanding games I play are BF4 and Rome 2 TW and I've spent more time configuring than actually playing these over the past few weeks. My fps in BF4 range from 20-80 at random (sometimes 80ish all game and sometimes 20ish and sometimes in between) and I can't seem to work out what is causing the issues- new patch hasn't helped, mantle doesn't change much and I can't find any reasons why there is so much variance.

I've only just started configuring RTW2 for a playthrough and after hours of changing settings and messing about I've discovered that the benchmark actually runs 10fps faster (at a huge 30fps) with xfire turned off! So I've reached the end of my tether. Searching on the net seems to suggest that RTW has had issues with xfire since release and if it's not fixed now I doubt it will be. Argh!

So I'm probably going to throw the damn cards in the bin and buy a new single GPU which will be faster, cooler and quieter.

Unless anyone can suggest a magic fix of course?;-)

My specs are as follows:
850W PSU
2600K not Oc'd (I know this may be a bottleneck but I should still be able to get better fps in both games and I will be ocing to about 4gHz)
16Gb RAM
Various SSD HDD

Am I best off going for the 970 and rebuilding or a 290, could I use the 290 with one of my 7950s in xfire at the risk to my sanity?
 
Why not overclock the 2600 first - it will prove once and for all if it's the cpu holding you back :)

Am running xfire with 7950's myself - 2700 clocked at 4.5- on a 1440 screen & no problems :) although I do not play either of the games you list.

Driver up to date?
 
I don't think a 290 will crossfire with a 7950.

In your underpants (make a change from saying 'shoes'), I would go for a 970.
 
a 970 wont be anywhere near as quick as two 7950s in crossfire though..massive downgrade unless you'll get them in sli.

20-80fps in BF4 seems you have a massive problem. I use 7950s in Crossfire, run Ultra preset with 2xmsaa and 150% res scale and my frames are pretty much locked solid at 90fps which is were I have limited them. If your using default clocks on that CPU, I'd look into overclocking that for starters, should be able to hit 4.2GHz on stock volts and maybe anything up to and past 4.6GHz depending on your silicone lottery.
 
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I had a 7970 in xfire with 4.5 ghz cpu clock and BF4 had much better framerates were great. Rome 2 seems to be really heavy on the CPU as well, I think you might find some head room if you OC. But the framerates in bf4 do seem low but I didnt play tons of it to comment any further.
 
Thanks for the advice guys! I'm gonna oc my cpu and see if that makes a difference although lower fps in RTW2 with xfire enabled makes me think that it's drivers/software in that instance rather than a cpu bottleneck. Unfortunately my 2600K isn't a particularly good overclocker (from previous experience) and the most I've been able to get it to with HT enabled is just over 4GHz and that with a fairly hefty voltage bump:-( I have a new MB though so maybe that will make a bit of a difference.

I can't understand my BF4 performance- my drivers are up to date and my pc has a very recent copy of win 7 on it. My screen is 2560x1440 but this is the reason that I got the extra 7950 in the first place! There doesn't seem to be any pattern to the problems- some times I'm flying at 80fps and other times I keep getting drops down to 20. Doesn't seem to matter which map I'm on or how many people are in the game.

I thought xfire had improved greatly but I just don't seem to be getting the scaling that I'd hoped which is why I'm considering the 970. I don't understand the previous comment that it would be a massive downgrade from xfire 7950s? Looking at anand bench the 970 is nearly twice as fast as a single 7950 in most games so surely it must at least equal two 7950s and without the hassle of xfire...
 
If it turns out that you can't push the cpu any further / sort out crossfire niggles, then a 970 or 290 / cheap 290X would be a smart move. As I said, it isn't all about maximum fps. With a new single gpu (whatever the brand) you will get more consistent / smoother performance. Let us know how you get on. :)
 
Just on the back of this (hope its not hijacking as I've a very similar situation!).

I've been toying with what to do with my xfire HIS ICEQ Boost 7950's. They are running solid as a rock on the Gigabyte 7970 bios and put out pretty decent FPS in my use (Eyefinity 6000x1200 mainly BF4, around 50-60fps on most things ultra).

But they get pretty warm!! ;)

Is there a single card that would match them in FPS at that res?

Other option is to watercool but don't know what I'm doing in that area and would prefer not to......

Ta :)
 
Boomstick777 said:
7950's into the trash. Replace with shiny GTX 980.

280X crossfire VS single GTX 980 > http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1058?vs=1351

The 280X's have more shaders than your 7950's. The 980 does a great job, much lower power use, when overclocked will smoke 7950's.
Click to expand...

4 COH2 results don't work in CrossFire/SLi.

With £160-£200 resale value, that is some sidegrade!

My 7950 Ice-Q's slaughtered my 290X-both setups stock/oc'ed, not feeling the 980 smoking tbph.:p

Anyone going from 795/70/280/X CrossFire to 97/80 isn't going to notice any performance gain unless ofc a title has no profile.
 
you have to achieve a pretty insane overclock on a 780ti and CPU to beat a 7950 crossfire setup.

People using the word "smoke" above...well my setup smokes a lot of 780ti cards on the benchmarks. Swings and roundabouts really, I say if you have a crossfire 7950 setup, there isnt a single card out there right now that will outperform that 7950 setup without huge overclocks. And the difference is going to be hardly noticeable when gaming.

Stick around and watch the market Q1 next year, I'm sure we will have a big Maxwell card that offers 25% increase on the best top end single card now.
 
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