single GPU over Crossfire? amd a6

[ezroller]

this follows on from another thread i made...

basically im weighing up the options of either using a 6570 crossfired with my APUs 6530d IGPU or getting a better dedicated GPU and just sticking with that,

my thinking is that i currently dont play any games that use directx 11 (games on the steam platform like portal and TF2 dont if i remember correctly?) and using crossfire only works on games that do. therefore it would switch to the more powerful of the 2 GPUs and only use that when running them games.

so if thats right then a better 1g or 2g GPU used on its own would benefit me more of the time, and also be just a powerful as the crossfired route? this would also put less stress on my PSU which is only 350w.

i dont have much to spend so and looking at the 6670 (which comes in 1 and 2 gig versions?) and perhaps the 6770 if i can stretch to that.


basically im asking your opinions and any other card recommendations,

thanks

 

[Rroff]

Crossfire (multi GPU in general) isn't really a good idea with lower end GPUs - reason being due to things like "microstutter" a displayed framerate often won't feel like that actual framerate and if your actually needing both GPUs working flat out just to get 30fps you won't get good results.

Multi-GPU setups are best suited to scenarios where your already getting in the region of 50fps with one GPU and use the second one to top up the performance to say hold a solid 60fps. In scenarios where either a single low end or single high end GPU won't cut it using a 2nd GPU just to try and get playable framerates won't produce the best of results.

My reccomendation would be to stretch to the best single GPU you can afford.

 

[ezroller]

cheers,

im looking at some amd 2gb GPUs, do i just go for the highest core clock speed i can afford? and does it pay to stick with the same brand as the processor at all?

 

[Rroff]

Doesn't make much odds if you stick to the same brand as the processor however there may be specific features like power saving, etc. that can only be used in some cases if your matching them (its a bit more complicated and depends on a case by case situation of the CPU, motherboard and dedicated GPU).

As a quick and dirty way to compare which GPU is best just plug 2 different models into this site http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU12/372

 

[ezroller]

ok well im about to order my card, im split between the..

1. asus amd radeon 6770 1gb 850mhz core clock

2. asus or sapphire amd radeon 6670 2gb 800mhz core clock

3. asus amd radeon 6770 same as option 1 but with a massive heatsink?

 

[Marine-RX179]

From what I recall, TF2 is one of the worst scaling game for multi-GPU around...portal is probably the same since it is also a source game.

 

[Rroff]

Thats mainly because the source engine tends to run into CPU bottlenecks before it does GPU - if you've got a monster CPU setup or hit an area where its graphically heavy load rather than CPU loaded it scales over both cards fine.