X58 vs P67 playing BF3 in xfire

delpy8 · 22 Oct 2011 at 22:21

Hi forum

Ive got 2 new saphire 6950,s and I want to put them in one of the above setups as xfire so to get best quality gaming also using dell U3011

Im wondering which would be better the max formula black edition x58 with I7 950 pci 1 x16 and pci 3 x 16

Or

Asus Maximus extreme iv p67 with Intel 2600k pci 1 x 16 and pci 3 x 8

Thanks

Speed · 22 Oct 2011 at 22:35

PCI-E speed is going to make less of a difference than CPU clock speed. However if you have the i7 950 already and it is clocked to a decent speed, I don't see any reason to upgrade it.

It is likely going to cost you a couple of hundred to upgrade, money could be spent elsewhere, maybe some GPU waterblocks and push the cards.

stulid · 22 Oct 2011 at 22:37

Well a Sandybridge CPU is a better performer in games, a i5 2500K is all you need for just a games PC as the i7 2600K has Hyperthreading, extra 100Mhz clock speed and 2MB more L3 cache make little difference considering the costs.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/100?vs=288

delpy8 · 22 Oct 2011 at 22:40

Hi both,

Sorry should have said got both setups already,

Going by what you say I will xfire these in the P67 as it sounds best

Thanks

Speed · 22 Oct 2011 at 22:41

Yup, go with the P67 setup, the 2600K is a great chip especially once clocked.

delpy8 · 23 Oct 2011 at 01:11

Hi one question

Is it worth doing trifire on the maximus iv or is it a waist of a card

Surveyor · 23 Oct 2011 at 01:48

delpy8 said:
Is it worth doing trifire on the maximus iv or is it a waist of a card

TriFire scales quite well and is supposed to almost eliminate any micro-stuttering. See here.

Metigue uses 3 HD 6950's on the Maximus IV though the cards got a tad hot. See here.

I think he may have tamed them somewhat:

metigue said:
Atm, the one next to the processor heat sink hits 90ish max
the other two hit 50-70 max

Pretty good temps for trifire, not that pleased about the burn from the heatsink, but it's ok.

Of course TriFire can also be a HD 6990 + HD 6950/70 but as you already have 2 cards....

delpy8 · 23 Oct 2011 at 12:26

Thanks thats good reading