Is crossfire a good idea for me?

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EpicMize

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Jul 20, 2013
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Just ordered an asus 7970 platinum card. I had this wild idea that once i get more money. Ill buy another 7970. My motherboard is P8P67 b3 rev 3.0. It has 1x pcie 16x and a 1x pcie 16x(4x) slot. Is it worth to crossfire it? Or should i wait until i got enough money for example for a titan? I also have another question. The card that i just ordered is a 3 gb version. If i buy the sapphire 6gb version and crossfire them will it run with 6gb or 3gb? Thank you and i hope you can help me :)
 
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With an Asus Matrix Platinum card, you should be more than fine until you decide to upgrade to an Eyefinity setup. With 3 monitors, you will definitely need a pair of video cards, or be willing to reduce your game settings.

It will be best for you to match up the cards as much as you can. Do not waste your money on a 6GB card, it will only use 3GB when paired up with another 3GB card. Since the Matrix Platinum has a high factory overclock, you should also try to get another highly overclocked card, preferably another Matrix Platinum. Both cards in Crossfire will default to the clock speed of the lowest clocked card.

There is no point dumping any money into Crossfire until we see the results of the promised driver with the frame...
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The Q6660 Inside

The Q6660 Inside

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Jan 25, 2013
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Crossfire X is generally quite buggy and causes a lot of micro-stuttering, it would be better to simply wait for the new Radeon 9970 coming out alongside Battlefield 4. Besides the fact 6GB is utterly useless at most resolutions, it will run @3GB and one of the cards will downclock to the lower clocked of the cards. You can run it @ PCI-E X8, X8 and that should be fine for the most part if you really do want to Crossfire. Be sure to overclock your CPU before attempting crossfire for maximum performance.
 
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Smashing todd

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Doesn't really matter what you go for seeing as though a Titan and 2 7970's perform about equally. But personally I would crossfire because you already have one card. And I'm not completely sure but I don't think that you should crossfire a 3gb and 6gb card. But I'm not 100% sure.
 
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EpicMize

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Thank you both for quick replies. Ive read that AMD is about to publish new drivers that should fix the micro-stuttering. Any idea when the 9970 is coming? I probably cant wait that long :D Oh yeah btw im running at 1080p atm but i am upgrading to 3 monitors. Maybe.
My CPU is i7 2600k with stock clocks. Do i need to overclock it? I still have the stock cooling.
 
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EpicMize

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Okay, but what about if the 6gb one is on the main slot? Still 3gb?
Im pretty sure AMD has said that they are fixing the crossfire stuttering on the next driver version.
 
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EpicMize

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Ah okay, do you still think its worth buying the 2x 7970 if the new drivers work as they should? My motherboard doesnt support sli.
 
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Jul 27, 2010
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With an Asus Matrix Platinum card, you should be more than fine until you decide to upgrade to an Eyefinity setup. With 3 monitors, you will definitely need a pair of video cards, or be willing to reduce your game settings.

It will be best for you to match up the cards as much as you can. Do not waste your money on a 6GB card, it will only use 3GB when paired up with another 3GB card. Since the Matrix Platinum has a high factory overclock, you should also try to get another highly overclocked card, preferably another Matrix Platinum. Both cards in Crossfire will default to the clock speed of the lowest clocked card.

There is no point dumping any money into Crossfire until we see the results of the promised driver with the frame latency fix due at the end of this month.

Literally, there is no point, and it will be a waste of money without the driver fix.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-Rating-Dissected-Full-Details-Capture-based-Graphics-Performance-Test-4
BF3_2560x1440_OFPS_0.png
 
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EpicMize

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Jul 20, 2013
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Nice okay, but will a 7970 be a waste of money then? I haven't got any yet. I can still cancel my order. I want a setup that will last for a couple of years playing next gen games. But without going much over the 1000€ mark.
 
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With a single card a 7970 is fine. You can't play PhysX games, but that's no big deal, right?

For Crossfire, you really are putting your faith in the AMD driver team. So whatever that's worth to you. There was a Prototype driver that showed some promise in reviews of the 7990.

With multiple monitors, you will definitely need dual video cards. Since your motherboard doesn't support SLI, you are stuck with Crossfire. So your only other choice is a GTX 690 or a single Titan. You might as well stick with your original plan.
 
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EpicMize

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Yeah :) i think im going with the red team. Cant i still run physx trough cpu?
 
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PhysX on the CPU is not going to give you a lot of joy. Borderlands 2 is about the only game optimized well enough to allow PhysX on the CPU, but only at Medium settings.
 
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EpicMize

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Can i run a cheap nvidia card with my amd card to do the physx? is it possible?
 
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The Q6660 Inside

The Q6660 Inside

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There was once a hack that allowed you to do such, but it was buggy and is now unsupported for two years.
 
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