2x (2gb) 7850 vs 1 5GB Card

MhW

Honorable
Apr 8, 2013
1
0
10,510
Hi there,

I'm a fairly new builder, so please excuse my naivety. I began building my gaming rig in December last year and it's nearly complete (been adding to it piece by piece).

CPU: Intel i5 3570K (cooled by Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO)
PSU: Corsair 550w
Mobo: Asus P8Z77-V LX, Intel Z77
RAM: 16GB DDR3
Storage: 250GB Samsung SSD + 1TB Seagate HDD
Graphics Card: 2GB XFX Radeon HD 7850
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

The rig was originally built for high performance graphic rendering and of course gaming. I mostly play Flight Simulator and Train Simulator 2013.

So far I've been able to play TS2013 on around 80% quality achieving an average of 75fps-120fps which has been excellent. Now I'm keen to bump it up to 'highest detail' .

Prior to beginning this thread I attempted highest detail and was only able to reach 30fps , confirming the fact I need a second or larger card.

My motherboard and current card supports X-Fire, so essentially I'm wondering whether I'll get better FPS if 2x 2GB cards talk to each other, or whether I should ditch the HD 7850 and buy a single 4GB card?

I'm using the well known Zalman Z11 case and there is room for another 7850 if I want to x-fire. Money is not an issue, but of course if I can keep the costs down without recklessly spending that would be preferred.

FPS measured with FRAPS.

Many thanks :)

Christian
 

_kardon_

Honorable
Sep 19, 2012
38
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10,540
First I would like to point out 2 2gb cards will mean you have 2gb of video memory since the memory on the cards will be mirrored. As for wanting to get higher frame rates the amount of memory for needed is not what drives higher frame rates as long as you have enough. Now on to what kind of performance you will get out of xfired 7850s. It should be around the same speed as a single 680 or 7970 as long as the game is coded well for crossfire. I don't have any experience with that game so someone else would have to help you out with that.