MSI 7850 or Sapphire 7970? And some questions about technical stuff...

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othello500

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Mar 27, 2013
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Hello, community! I've been lurking on these boards for some time and have found the collective wisdom of many of you to be insightful and educational, so thank you.

Currently I'm running 2xHD 6950 that have served me well, but considering the next generation of gaming is almost upon us I figured it would be a good idea to investigate what's out there in terms of hardware.

In my research these are the two cards I selected:

MSI R7850 Twin Frozr 2GD5/OC Radeon HD 7850 2GB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127663

SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100351VXSR Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202001

In my search for information I came across terms like "bottleneck" and that it was something I need to be concerned with, though I'm not sure I understand the concept. Also, when looking for a card I realized I'm not sure what kind of PCI slot my motherboard has or how to find out.

These are my specs:
CPU Arch : 1 CPU - 6 Cores - 12 Threads
CPU PSN : Intel Core i7 CPU 980 @ 3.33GHz
Freq : 3464.42 MHz (133.25 * 26)
MB Brand : Gigabyte
MB Model : X58A-UD3R
NB : Intel X58 rev 13
SB : Intel 82801JR (ICH10R) rev 00
GPU1 Type : AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series
GPU2 Type : AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series
RAM : 12288 MB DDR3 Triple Channel

Any advice and information would be welcome, to include new cards to consider.

Thank you in advance.
 
Solution
larkspur
Bottleneck in this context refers to an imbalance of the performance of the CPU to the performance of the GPU(s). Games are dependent on the CPU in addition to being demanding on the GPU. GPUs are worthless by themselves, they need a CPU to feed them. If the CPU is significantly weaker, then the overall graphics performance of the system suffers. Pairing a powerful GPU like a Radeon 7970 with a weaksauce, old CPU like a Pentium 4 would result in a bottleneck and horrible graphics performance despite the impressive capabilities of the Radeon 7970.

In your situation, you have an i7-980. It is very, very powerful. Your CPU is not at all a problem for today's and tomorrow's games. Your motherboard has 2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 size slots...
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larkspur

larkspur

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Bottleneck in this context refers to an imbalance of the performance of the CPU to the performance of the GPU(s). Games are dependent on the CPU in addition to being demanding on the GPU. GPUs are worthless by themselves, they need a CPU to feed them. If the CPU is significantly weaker, then the overall graphics performance of the system suffers. Pairing a powerful GPU like a Radeon 7970 with a weaksauce, old CPU like a Pentium 4 would result in a bottleneck and horrible graphics performance despite the impressive capabilities of the Radeon 7970.

In your situation, you have an i7-980. It is very, very powerful. Your CPU is not at all a problem for today's and tomorrow's games. Your motherboard has 2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 size slots running at x16 speed each. That means each slot has 16 "lanes" of PCIe 2.0 bandwidth. Each major PCIe revision doubles the theoretical bandwidth. Each of your slots has 16 lanes of PCIe 2.0 which is the same bandwidth as having 8 lanes of PCIe 3.0 each. That is plenty for the new generation of cards and the next generations of cards (and probably the generation after that too!).

With regard to your GPU question, if you are gaming on a single screen, then I would think 2 x 6950 should be performing very well. These aren't the 1gb versions are they? Any games where CrossFire doesn't work, only one 6950 is used, so in those games your performance might be less than you want. But when CrossFire works, 2 x 6950 is pretty good! It's nearly the power of a Radeon 6990 which is a very powerful card. Upgrading to a 7970 is an option (anything less won't be an upgrade). But even a single 7970 won't really jump you that higher in performance (and in some games you'll get less performance). Unless you are considering Crossfiring the 7970, I wouldn't bother with an upgrade at this time. Is there some reason why you want to change your cards? Like I said, I'd stick with the 6950s until late this year when the new generation from AMD and Nvidia come out. Here's a comparison of a 6990 and a 7970ghz edition: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/515?vs=618
 
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othello500

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Mar 27, 2013
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Thank you for your in-depth reply! I really appreciate it.

I think the cards are the 2gb versions, at least that's what dxdiag indicates when it says I have 4095MB of total RAM. So I should be good to play Battlefield 4 on >=high settings when it comes out? Also, I used Crysis 3 as my benchmark and I can only play the game consistently at 60FPS (barely) when I play on medium. When I look at what some of the newer cards are capable of I get envious I suppose. =\

I suppose what I'm shooting for is to perfectly optimize my system to handle whatever I can throw at it.
 
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othello500

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Mar 27, 2013
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I have a 1000w PSU, it's nothing fancy. As for my budget, I was thinking somewhere around $150-$500? Preferably less than $500... lol
 
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othello500

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Mar 27, 2013
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I remember doing some research on manufactures as well and from what I recall Sapphire, MSI, and EVGA were the better GPU makers with an honorable mention to XFX.

Is that generally true or is that view to narrow and other manufactures are good as well? Also, what makes a manufacture good?
 
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larkspur

larkspur

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Crysis 3 is a beast no doubt. If you haven't read the below-linked benchmark review, do so. You'll find that going from medium to high and up to very high requires some serious muscle. Since you like to keep it up at 60fps, pay attention in particular to the "frame rate over time" charts (avg fps doesn't tell the full story) - on high settings a 7950 boost edition can't maintain 60 frames, plenty of dips and drops. Going to very-high and every single-GPU card struggles. And this is all at 1920x1080. Anyway, my feeling is that unless you shell out the money for Crossfired 7950s or 7970s, you aren't going to get significantly better performance than your current config. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crysis-3-performance-benchmark-gaming,3451.html
 
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