Second 6870?

[Rusty0611]

My current set up is in my signature below and it's pretty much finished now apart from the graphics card.

I really want a 7950 but I'm going cool on them at the moment due to the price. The more I think about it the more I can't justify it... so I started thinking of alternatives, namely, what about another 6870?

My board is a limitation. I skimped a little and bought a budget model because I was sure I wasn't going to crossfire and it runs at 16x/4x which I know isn't ideal. I did a lot of reading about people who have benchmarked 16x/4x vs 8x/8x and obviously the latter was faster but not as much as I would have thought.

I can pick up another 6870 for a decent price (~£110) so I was wondering if I could consider going down this route for a year or more and then picking up a 7970 way later on down the line when prices are hopefully sub £300.

Got a CM HAF X arriving today so case cooling is up to scratch.

I read some reviews of crossfire 6870's and I was impressed with the performance. I'm thinking that this could be a better option in the long run as coughing up £340ish now against the cost of £110 now and £300ish in a year or so works better for me.

Am I being foolish? Should I just ditch the crossfire idea altogether? I know it's not ideal running 16x/4x on paper so I don't need telling that but I guess I'm looking for some advice for both sides of the argument to help me decide.

 

[tribz]

My current set up is in my signature below and it's pretty much finished now apart from the graphics card.

I really want a 7950 but I'm going cool on them at the moment due to the price. The more I think about it the more I can't justify it... so I started thinking of alternatives, namely, what about another 6870?

My board is a limitation. I skimped a little and bought a budget model because I was sure I wasn't going to crossfire and it runs at 16x/4x which I know isn't ideal. I did a lot of reading about people who have benchmarked 16x/4x vs 8x/8x and obviously the latter was faster but not as much as I would have thought.

I can pick up another 6870 for a decent price (~£110) so I was wondering if I could consider going down this route for a year or more and then picking up a 7970 way later on down the line when prices are hopefully sub £300.

Got a CM HAF X arriving today so case cooling is up to scratch.

I read some reviews of crossfire 6870's and I was impressed with the performance. I'm thinking that this could be a better option in the long run as coughing up £340ish now against the cost of £110 now and £300ish in a year or so works better for me.

Am I being foolish? Should I just ditch the crossfire idea altogether? I know it's not ideal running 16x/4x on paper so I don't need telling that but I guess I'm looking for some advice for both sides of the argument to help me decide.

What res do you play at? I had dual 6870's playing at 1200p and I didnt find the experience that pleasurable. They benchmarked well but I noticed microstutter in some games.

 

[Rusty0611]

1200p as well. But downgrading to 1080p soon and getting the BenQ XL2420T

 

[Rusty0611]

Anyone else got anything to add? It's a tough one for me so would appreciate any kind of input

 

[cmndr_andi]

Personally, I wouldn't go for crossfire considering your board (the cards will run at x4/x4 speed) and resolution. Instead, you would be much better off waiting until april when Nvidia's Kepler GPUs are expected to arrive and see how the market reacts. With any luck it will force some price drops - especially on cards with little competition.

 

[ALXAndy]

Personally, I wouldn't go for crossfire considering your board (the cards will run at x4/x4 speed) and resolution. Instead, you would be much better off waiting until april when Nvidia's Kepler GPUs are expected to arrive and see how the market reacts. With any luck it will force some price drops - especially on cards with little competition.

You say cardS.

Nvidia is releasing *A* card.