Opinions on 6870 Crossfire?

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skept1k

skept1k

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May 11, 2013
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I have 2 EVGA 460 GTX 768mb's in SLI and my dad is offering to trade them for his 2 XFX Radeon HD 6870 1GB's. Is it worth it? I know the cards by themselves are pretty powerful, more so than my 460 GTX. I'm mainly using 3 monitors for gaming and was wondering if it would be better to go with the 6870's in the long run? My motherboard supports 3-way tri/crossfire and 2 way SLI (which is the max of the 46 GTX's anyways) with this I could do 3-way tri fire and have a single monitor hooked up to each card. Opinions? I'm heavily considering it since I can grab a 3rd card.
 
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skept1k

skept1k

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May 11, 2013
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Well, the thing is he doesn't currently have his 6870's in crossfire right now, just a single 6870 while the other sits in it's box in storage. I have played on his PC a ton and have very much enjoyed using the 6870. Our old PSU literally burst into flames but the PC itself was alright, thus the reason we no longer use crossfire, but we used to get over 100+ FPS in BF3 in 1080P on ultra settings when we had crossfire active. I'm just wondering if it would be worth it, nvidia seems to be having a ton of driver issues too lately on 300 series drivers, not just for me but from what I've researched on the net from other users.

My rig is a bit more powerful than his is at the moment,


2 - EVGA 460 GTX FPB (Free performance boost model) GDDR5 768 mb SLI

1 - MSI Z77A-G45 Gaming LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard (support 2-way SLI/3 -way Crossfire all at 16x/16x/16x)

1 - Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I53570K

1 - Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Low Profile Desktop Memory Model BLS8G3D1609ES2LX0

2 - COOLER MASTER R4-BMBS-20PK-R0 Blade Master 120mm Case Fans

1 - CORSAIR Hydro series H50 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler

1 - Rosewill BRONZE Series RBR1000-M 1000W Continuous@40°C, 80Plus Bronze Certified,Modular Cable Design,ATX12V v2.3/ EPS12V,SLI Ready,CrossFire Ready,Active PFC"Compatible with Core i7, i5" Power Supply

3 - 19" Hanns-G HW191D LCD Monitors (running 1440x900 resolution each, unsure of final resolution after all three are hooked up)

1 - Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case (Comes with 1 top fan and one rear fan, both fully functional)

The reason I would like to do Tri Fire is because my board supports it, I can have a single monitor hooked up to each card, AND it'll be running at 16x/16x/16x on 2 PCI-E 3.0's and one PCI-E 2.0, but from I've gathered 3.0 isn't much of a difference over 2.0.
 
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The AMD 6xxx cards did not have the frame latency issue the 7xxx series cards have. The HD 6870 is slightly more powerful than a 256 bit GTX 460 1GB. The 2 x 6870s in Crossfire will outperform the Sli 460s. You also need a minimum 1GB of VRAM in just about any game unless you like low settings.
 
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Ohmybad

Ohmybad

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i've used SLI 6870's... there was never any problem with xfire issues... people that say otherwise most likely have never experienced these issues first hand... just like people that say Windows 8 is bad, they're usually repeating what other miss-informed people are saying.
 
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skept1k

skept1k

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May 11, 2013
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It's sounding good to grab his 6870's then. (off topic) Also, I like Windows 8, hated it at first but that was because I wasn't used to it. I do, however, HATE the fact that it doesn't have a start menu, annoys the piss out of me. Still going Windows 7 strong :)

What would you guys say to a 3-way 6870 crossfire setup? My board supports 16x/16x/16x on PCI-E at 2.0
 
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The 7xxx series cards have legit issues with Crossfire. The 6xxx series did not have the same problems.

And I hate Windows 8! And yes I have used it :)
 
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Ohmybad

Ohmybad

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Start 8 or Classic Shell will fix that! I hate metro too and only use my desktop! the difference between W7 and W8 really is looks and feel, everything under the hood is much improved.
 
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17seconds

17seconds

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The is flat out incorrect. Crossfire problems are driver related and affect the entire lineup. In case you didn't read the links or any of the other countless articles on the subject, adding a second card in Crossfire is generally no better than a single card and might even be worse.
 
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slomo4sho

slomo4sho

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I do use Windows 8 on my HTPC but I do admit that I didn't utilize crossfire during the 6000 series. However, the latency issues are tied to the drivers so there may be potential issues with the updated drivers as opposed to the older drivers. I would like to find some details on this but not much is available for 6000 series crossfire that is current.
 
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Do tell..........

http://videocardz.com/41122/amd-reponds-to-radeon-frame-latency-and-micro-stuttering-issues

"The Radeon HD 7000 series CrossFire frame latency on is a known issue at this point"

http://www.techpowerup.com/183129/amd-makes-a-breakthrough-in-improving-frame-latency.html

"AMD has been criticized by some tech publications over Radeon HD 7000 series posing higher frame-latency over NVIDIA GeForce chips, even in cases where AMD's chips offer higher frame-rates."

From what I understand it's the way AMD's 7xxx series memory controller is optimized. Go check out any articles by Scott Wasson at The Tech Report. He is one of the people who originally isolated the problem.
 
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