Should I sell my CF 6950s for another card?

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anshkansara

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Nov 11, 2012
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I currently have two Radeon HD 6950s and someone is offering me $350 to take them off my hands. What I was wondering is whether or not this is a good deal for me and if I should go through with it and buy another card or if I should just stick with the two 6950s. I play a few games that make use of crossfire, and I'm happy with it, but I heard that a single card is better than double cards. I have no problem with the heat and the noise is dealable. Power usage is alright too, although I wouldn't mind it being a bit lower. What do you all recommend I do? Also, if you recommend I sell and upgrade, could you recommend another GPU in its place? Preferably under $400. Thank you!
 
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coozie7

coozie7

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Jun 2, 2007
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You say "I play a few games that make use of Crossfire" do you play others that don't use CF, if so, which ones?
The fastest cards within budget are the GTX770 and HD7970-although you may need to just exceed $400 to get one.
I suggest you check out some reviews of both cards and, if possible, compare their performance with you current setup before making a decision.
 
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anshkansara

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Nov 11, 2012
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I play a lot of League of Legends, where I get more performance when I disable CF as opposed to when I have it enabled, and I started playing Runescape again (I know, I'm a nerd/dork/loser etc.) and that doesn't use CF. I spend quite a bit of time on Netflix so I don't need CF there. Needless to say, I spend about 75% of my time not using CF and the other 25% using it.
 
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anshkansara

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Nov 11, 2012
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Thank you for your response. I am considering the GTX770 atm because I heard NVIDIA cards work better with Intel processors (I have an i7 2600k 3.4GHz).
 
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RedJaron

RedJaron

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Radeons work just fine with Intel, no worries there.

I prefer single GPU setups for the simplicity. Dual cards means I have more heat, noise, and power draw. Not all games will utilize the second card, and even if they do you can run into driver problems or stuttering that doesn't happen with single cards. I'm not saying multiple cards are usually problematic, only that they can be and I'd rather not deal with it at all.

No, a single card won't yield top-end performance that dual or triple cards can. But as long as I can turn up the graphics past medium and enjoy 45+ fps, I really don't care ( I'm probably in the minority there. ) When my card starts getting a little old and I'm looking at upgrades, a new card will give me the performance upgrade I need and generally do it at lower power than I was using before, so I don't consider adding a second card.

The 7970 is a bit of a power hog and runs hotter than I'd like, but there's no denying its power ( both gaming and computing. ) I'm more a fan of the 7950, since it can be OCd to reach near 7970 performance and will cost quite a bit less ( I'm particularly a fan of Sapphire's Vapor-X model as it's very quiet and cool. )

The 770 is of course in a higher tier altogether and would be a great board to grab if you want to spend more.
 
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anshkansara

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Nov 11, 2012
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Thank you for the detailed response. Every downside to double cards that you outlined are the exact reasons I'm considering getting a single card. The only thing that is driving me to get the single card is the power draw, as the heat and noise aren't usually an issue, and I haven't had stuttering happen (yet). The only reason I'm torn is because I'm not sure if it's worth spending another $100 on a card with *slightly* less performance just for the noise/heat/simplicity, and my second card gets powered down when it's not in use (75% of the time) to avoid wasting power. Nonetheless, it would be less trouble and would give me some peace of mind knowing that if I were ever to upgrade again that it would be easier to sell a 770 than it would be to sell 2x 6950s.
 
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RedJaron

RedJaron

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Here's the thing to consider: a 770 is already faster than a single 6950, so any application that only uses a single card will see a performance boost over what you have now. Second, a 770 isn't too far behind CF 6950, so you might lose just a little performance, but you'll save power, noise, and heat in the process. If those two scenarios sound good to you, get the 770.
 
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anshkansara

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Nov 11, 2012
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They definitely do. If I could find a 770 for $350, I'd have it by now. The only thing that's holding me back is the $100 premium.
 
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